Ukraine drone attack on Luhansk dorm kills six: Russia
Russian officials said that at least six people were killed and 39 children were injured in a drone attack on a student dormitory in the Russian-controlled Luhansk region in eastern Ukraine overnight.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said 15 more people were reported missing and accused Ukrainian forces of deliberately striking the area.
Reuters could not independently verify what was happening and there was no comment on Friday from Ukraine, which is seeking to recapture Luhansk, one of four eastern regions the Kremlin unilaterally claims as its own in 2022, which Ukraine condemns as an illegal land grab.
Both sides deny that civilians were deliberately targeted.
Putin called the incident a terrorist attack and accused Ukraine of deliberately targeting civilians.
Russia’s human rights commissioner Yana Lantratova said that 86 young people aged between 14 and 18 were sleeping in the hostel of the Starobilsk college of Luhansk Pedagogical University and that Ukrainian drones attacked there at night.
Leonid Pasechnik, a senior Russian-appointed official in Luhansk, said two people had been pulled from the rubble, and Maria Lvova-Belova, the presidential commissioner for children’s rights, said 18 children could still be trapped.
It was learned that some children who were treated at the hospital were in serious condition.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov called for those responsible to be punished.
“This is a terrible crime. It is an attack on an educational institution where children and young people are present,” he told reporters.
Russia said the United Nations Security Council would hold an emergency meeting in New York on Friday to discuss the incident.
The Russian foreign ministry said the top three floors of the hostel’s five floors were destroyed in the Ukrainian attack.
In the statement, it was stated that there were no military facilities nearby and that Ukraine must have known what it was attacking, and added: “We call on international organizations, national governments and the global community to make an honest assessment and strongly condemn the bloody terrorist attack.”
Photos and videos released by Russian authorities showed rescuers pulling a person from the rubble, heavily damaged buildings (one of which appeared to have partially collapsed) and fires still burning.
Last week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy vowed revenge after leaving red roses in the rubble of an apartment building in Kiev, where 24 people, including three children, died in a Russian missile attack.
