Putin Calls Luhansk Dorm Strike a Monstrous Crime, Orders Retaliation After Drone Attack

Russia described a Ukrainian drone attack on an occupied Luhansk region student dormitory in Starobilsk as a “monstrous crime,” after Leonid Pasechnik said the five-storey building belonging to Luhansk Pedagogical University was hit and then collapsed to its second-floor.

“Russia has expressed outrage as it reported that a Ukrainian drone attack killed at least six people in the occupied Luhansk region”

Al Jazeera

Al Jazeera’s Moscow correspondent Yulia Shapovalova said rescuers were pulling out injured children and bodies “despite a repeated threat of more UAV attacks,” as Russian authorities said about 86 children and teachers were inside when the drone struck and that the victims were aged between 14 and 18.

Al Jazeera

In televised comments, Russian President Vladimir Putin said “six people were killed, 39 were wounded and 15 people are unaccounted for,” and he ordered Russia’s army to “prepare suggestions” for retaliation against Ukraine.

Ukraine’s military denied Russian accusations and said it had targeted an elite drone command unit in the area, while Kyiv’s general staff said its forces struck “one of the headquarters of the ‘Rubikon’ unit” in Starobilsk and stressed that Ukraine complies with international humanitarian law.

At a UN Security Council emergency meeting called by Russia, Melnyk Andrii, the Ukrainian ambassador to the UN, rejected Russian counterparts’ accusations of war crimes as a “pure propaganda show,” while the Guardian reported that Putin had blamed Kyiv and vowed retaliate after the Starobilsk attack.

The Guardian said Putin ordered his military to prepare options to retaliate for the attack in Starobilsk that killed six people and wounded dozens, with 15 people still unaccounted for, and it said he added that Kyiv’s military must have known what it was targeting.

BBC

Ukraine’s General Staff on May 22 rejected Russian claims that the strike killed six people and injured dozens of children, calling the claim “misleading information” while saying it strictly adheres to international humanitarian law and struck military infrastructure and facilities.

The Kyiv Independent reported that Russia said it called for an emergency meeting at the United Nations Security Council following the alleged strike, while it also said the General Staff described strikes on “one of the headquarters of the Rubikon Center for Unmanned Technologies” in the Starobilsk area.

Putin’s response to the Luhansk attack included ordering his military to prepare retaliatory options, and the Guardian said the Kremlin framed the incident as deliberate while Ukraine denied targeting civilians and said it struck an elite drone command unit.

The Guardian also reported that the UN’s nuclear watchdog said Ukrainian authorities had advised that a fire broke out at the Dniprovska 750-kilovolt electrical substation due to military activity, causing a nuclear power station to be partially disconnected from off-site power.

In the same briefing, the Guardian said falling debris from drones triggered a fire at an oil terminal in Russia’s Black Sea port of Novorossiysk, injuring two people and damaging several technical and administrative buildings, and it added that Ukrainian forces attacked a Russian oil refinery in Yaroslavl.

Separately, Reuters quoted Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov saying Russia would respond if other countries allowed Ukraine to use their airspace to launch drone strikes against Russian ports in the Baltic region, warning that this would force Russia to “draw the appropriate conclusions and take the corresponding measures.”