MOSCOW: The Kremlin on Friday accused Ukraine of carrying out a "monstrous crime" after Russian officials said an overnight Ukrainian drone attack on a Luhansk region college had killed at least four people and left 35 children wounded. There was no immediate comment from Ukraine, which is fighting to try to return Luhansk, one of four regions Russia unilaterally claimed as its own in 2022 in what Kyiv said was an illegal land grab.
Photo and video released by the Russian authorities showed rescue workers stretchering one man out of the rubble, severely damaged buildings, one of which appeared to have partially collapsed, and fires still burning. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov called for those responsible to be punished. "This is a monstrous crime. An attack on an educational institution where children and young people are present," Peskov told reporters. "The most important thing now is to take measures to clear the rubble and provide assistance to those who are still trapped beneath it."
Yana Lantratova, Russia's Human Rights Commissioner, said that 86 teenagers aged 14 to 18 had been asleep inside the hostel belonging to Luhansk Pedagogical University's Starobilsk college when Ukrainian drones attacked it during the night. Leonid Pasechnik, the top Russian-installed official in Luhansk, said two people had been pulled from the rubble and that rescue workers were still looking for children trapped beneath the debris. President Volodymyr Zelensky last week promised retribution after laying red roses at the rubble of a Kyiv apartment building where a Russian missile strike had killed 24 people, including three children.
Separately, the United Nations refugee agency on Friday said it had lost $1 million worth of aid when a Russian missile struck one of its warehouses in Dnipro in eastern Ukraine earlier this week. The warehouse, which contained emergency shelter materials, including sleeping mats, and hygiene kits was destroyed on Wednesday, and two people were killed, Bernadette Castel-Hollingworth, the UNCHR Representative in Kyiv, said via video link from Poland.
The supplies were destined to be distributed to displaced and war-affected people in frontline areas in Ukraine, and deprive people of critical assistance at a time of significant need as forced displacement and evacuations continue from frontline regions, according to UNHCR. "It is significant for us, because it is the first time that a UNHCR facility is being targeted or attacked," Castel-Hollingworth said. UNHCR said it was part of a broader trend of attacks on humanitarian convoys. Last week, two clearly marked UN convoys with humanitarian workers were hit by drones: one truck was delivering aid in the Dnipropetrovsk region, while a convoy on the way to Ostriv in the Kherson region was also targeted, UNHCR said.
Meanwhile, US-brokered talks with Russia are gradually reaching the point of exhaustion, Ukraine's foreign minister Andrii Sybiha said on Friday, adding that European engagement could bring a new dynamic to the process. "My impression is that this format is gradually reaching the point where discussions possible at this level are becoming exhausted. At times, the same issues end up being discussed several times over," he told reporters via Zoom. Sybiha added that European engagement is one of the ways to reinvigorate the process. Another option, he added, is meeting at the leaders' level, which Ukraine has been pressing for. — Reuters
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