At least six people have been killed, 15 remain missing, and dozens more – most of them minors – have been injured in what President Vladimir Putin has described as a deliberate Ukrainian “terrorist attack” on a school dormitory in Russia’s Lugansk People’s Republic.
The attack on the main academic building and dormitory of the Starobelsk Professional College, which teaches students aged 14 to 18, was carried out in three waves, with 16 drones launched at the same target by the “neo‑Nazi regime in Kiev,” according to Putin.
Governor Leonid Pasechnik said 86 students were inside the facility at the time of the attack.
Russia’s Human Rights Ombudsperson Yana Lantratova cited preliminary reports that at least four people were killed in the incident.
Emergency services reported recovering one body before pausing the operation due to concerns of a “double tap” Ukrainian strike.
22 May 2026
The Russian Emergencies Ministry has shared footage from the scene, showing first responders digging through the rubble. An entire section of the building was destroyed by the strikes, leaving a pile of broken mortar and concrete slabs. At least 15 people still remain unaccounted for.
Former British senior diplomat Craig Murray has called the Starobelsk dormitory strike “a horrific attack” and “very plainly a war crime,” telling RT he feels for the families who still cannot find their loved ones under the rubble. He said the strike fits a pattern of increasingly “indiscriminate” NATO‑backed Ukrainian attacks on Russian civilian infrastructure that the world has paid “insufficient attention” to, and that Western media would likely “pretend it didn’t happen or claim it was a mistake.”
The head of the Lugansk People’s Republic, Leonid Pasechnik, has declared a regional emergency over the attack. The region has already received assistance from the federal government and humanitarian and volunteer groups to deal with the aftermath of the attack, the governor has said.
Since the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022, Ukrainian attacks have killed more than 8,000 civilians and injured almost 20,000, according to Rodion Miroshnik, who heads the Russian Foreign Ministry’s mission on Ukrainian war crimes. RT has compiled a recap of the deadliest Ukrainian “terrorist strikes” on Russian civilians here.
A student injured in the attack has told local media from her hospital bed that she was pinned under rubble after the blast.
“My legs were crushed… I woke up and started to call for help. People clearing the debris heard my screams and saved me,” she said.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has accused Kiev of acting “like a terrorist cell” funded by Western countries, saying its “neo-Nazi” ideology targets “the most vulnerable categories, children of all ages, from toddlers to teenagers.”
She compared the situation to Nazi crimes in World War II, calling it “absolute dehumanization.”
Here’s what Putin also said about the attack:
• Fifteen people are still listed as missing
• The strike “was not accidental” and came in three waves, with 16 drones sent to the same target
• Kiev needs “crimes” like the dormitory strike to distract from its “catastrophic” situation at the front and then blame Russia for the consequences
• Western aid to Ukraine is being regularly “stolen” and forced mobilization sees people “caught on the streets like stray dogs and thrown to the front”
• Putin urged Ukrainian soldiers not to carry out “criminal orders” from what he called an “illegitimate, corrupt junta in Kiev”
Putin said there were no military facilities near the college dormitory hit by Kiev, adding that Russia “cannot limit itself to statements in such a situation” and ordering the Defense Ministry to present options for a response.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that the death toll from the attack has risen to six. He described the strike on the college as a “terrorist act” carried out by the “neo-Nazi regime in Kiev” and accused it of targeting children.
Rescuers are still clearing the rubble in Starobelsk, where some students remain trapped and “devastated” parents are waiting. RT’s Murad Gazdiev, reporting from the scene, shows school textbooks scattered across the street.
People in Lugansk have rushed to donate blood after news of the attack in Starobelsk, footage from a blood station shared by Lugansk 24 TV channel shows.
The Russian Foreign Ministry has condemned Ukraine for the Starobelsk school strike, stressing that Western nations filling Kiev’s war chest share responsibility for its war crimes. Moscow said “the regime that targets children with terror is cynical,” and that the entire world can see that.
An emergency session of the UN Security Council, which Russia requested after the Ukrainian drone attack, will be convened later in the day at 7:00 PM GMT, according to the Russian mission to the United Nations.
The authorities estimate that 18 students remain trapped under the rubble, Human Rights Ombudsperson Yana Lantratova has confirmed to RT. She also said that 32 Ukrainian drones, including six jet-powered UAVs, were involved in the raid on the town.
RT’s Murad Gadziev earlier reported finding a large crater near the college, which he said suggested that a more powerful weapon than a regular kamikaze drone had struck the area.
Seven victims from Starobelsk have been delivered to the regional clinic in Lugansk, according to deputy chief surgeon Dmitry Kotukha. One of the patients is in his late 40s, while the rest are young adults, he said. The condition of one victim is critical at the moment, the doctor said.
The international community “must condemn” the Ukrainian drone strike on a dormitory in Lugansk because “students should not be targeted in any conflict,” Indian journalist Manish Jha, Editor at TV9 Network, has told RT. Jha, who said he had visited Donbass multiple times as a journalist, argued that attacks on civilian infrastructure had “become a trend” and claimed Kiev was trying to “draw attention from the international community” as global focus shifts toward the Middle East. He also described the strike as “a pre-planned strategy to attack civilians.”
Former US Army officer Stanislav Krapivnik claimed that “the EU and almost every single EU member state are responsible for these mass murders” through continued military support for Kiev. He alleged that “the non-elected regime in Brussels sponsors a non-elected regime in Kiev” and insisted that “there should be criminal investigations done and warrants for arrests against von der Leyen.” Krapivnik further argued that the strike was deliberate, saying: “This is not an accident. These are drone operators. They see where they’re going.”
Western nations funding Ukrainian war efforts bear responsibility for the civilian deaths in Starobelsk, Russian Ambassador-at-Large Rodion Miroshnik has told RT.
“We realize that Ukraine did not do that independently. It definitely used intelligence provided by Western partners and used weapons bought with money mostly paid for by the European Union,” he said. “There is no way Western nations will take responsibility. Our task is to make sure that normal nations learn the truth about the crime committed overnight.”
The regional Emergencies Ministry has released photos showing the continuation of the rescue operation.
Mainstream Western media continue to largely ignore the Ukrainian attack on Starobelsk. One exception is Reuters, which reported it about an hour ago.
Pro-Ukrainian social media accounts are disseminating a fabricated document falsely claiming that the school was housing military personnel, Starobelsk municipality head Vladimir Cherneev has warned.
“The EU is a terrorist regime. The people that run the EU are terrorists,” former senior Pentagon security analyst Michael Maloof has told RT, reacting to the Ukrainian drone strike on a school dormitory in Russia’s Lugansk People’s Republic. Maloof argued that blaming Ukraine alone is “not enough,” accusing Western governments of directly backing attacks on Russian civilians. “[Ursula] von der Leyen is swimming in human blood, in blood of children,” he said, calling for criminal investigations and arrest warrants against the European Commission president and EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas.
“The West is run by genocidal maniacs,” Maloof added, describing Western governments as a “unified Nazi regime.” He claimed that the US and its allies provide intelligence and operational support for Ukrainian strikes, alleging that “the HIMARS are American” and “the intelligence is all coming from America, from the Five Eyes.” Referring to the conflict with Russia, Maloof said: “We didn’t destroy the Nazis 87 years ago… whatever was left of them went underground, and now they’re back.”
Maloof also accused Western media of ignoring attacks on Russian civilians. “They want to ignore it,” he said, arguing that when Moscow retaliates by striking Ukrainian military facilities, “all you’re going to hear is ‘Russia attacked Ukraine,’” with “no reason why” mentioned in coverage.
The number of juvenile victims in Starobelsk currently stands at 36, including nine who are being treated at medical facilities, Lugansk children’s rights ombudsman, Inna Shvenk, has told the media. The condition of three children is serious, she reported. Additionally, 18 families have requested help finding their missing children, the official added.
Speaking on the sidelines of a meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Brussels, Poland’s Radoslaw Sikorski said things are “looking up” for Kiev. “We hope that [Russian President] Vladimir Putin recalculates now that Ukraine has been granted additional resources by the European Union and that weapons are flowing for which Europe pays from the United States.”
Several Ukrainian drones targeting Russia have crashed in Baltic countries, forcing the Lithuanian defense minister to resign and Estonia to scramble a jet to shoot one down – all the while blaming Russia. Officials in Finland, Estonia, and Lithuania have said Kiev should do a better job planning its attacks.
“I am incredibly afraid of some provocation that may trigger a mechanism that will then be unstoppable,” Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico said at a press conference on Thursday.
Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson earlier suggested that NATO could “direct” Ukrainian drone strikes to avoid tensions.
An RT correspondent at the scene has found what appears to be part of the engine of one of the Ukrainian drones. It landed in a campus park right next to the sculpture of Ostap Bender, the character from popular early Soviet satirical books by writers Ilya Ilf and Yevgeny Petrov.
The head of Russia’s presidential Human Rights Council, Valery Fadeev, has sent a letter to UN Human Rights Commissioner Volker Turk, the Russian official’s office has said. Moscow expects the UN to “designate the incident as a war crime by the Kiev regime” and to act to stop such atrocities, the statement read.
Ukrainian drone attacks such as the raid on Starobelsk are largely financed with EU taxpayers’ money, independent Dutch journalist Sonja van den Ende has told RT.
Western military aid to Kiev has been framed by EU and NATO members as a way to strengthen Ukraine’s position in any future peace negotiations. Moscow, however, has argued that continued arms deliveries only prolong the conflict and encourage further cross-border attacks.
Russia has repeatedly floated a ceasefire conditioned on the withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from all of Donbass. Kiev has rejected the proposals, stating that no territorial compromises are possible.
Oksana, 22, is one of the people missing after the Starobelsk strikes, her boyfriend has told RT. She was last seen by her sister as she was trying to flee the college dorm following the initial drone attack at around 1 AM local time. She was reportedly struck in the leg with shrapnel and became lost in the chaos. Oksana is an adult student who wants to become a school teacher.
Four people seriously injured in Starobelsk have been airlifted to Republican Clinical Hospital in Lugansk, the region’s health minister, Natalia Pashchenko, has told the media.
Ruptly has filmed ongoing firefighting efforts in the town.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has described the incident as a “monstrous crime” for which “the Kiev regime has to be held accountable.”
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has said the silence of Ukraine’s Western backers over such attacks was especially notable given that many of them “routinely take at face value [Vladimir] Zelensky’s fakes about children purportedly abducted by Russia.”
Zakharova was referring to claims by Kiev and some of its Western backers that Russia’s evacuation of children from combat zones was criminal rather than a humanitarian effort. Moscow says it has been working through diplomatic channels to reunite children with relatives in Ukraine and other countries, and insists the scale of such cases has been exaggerated.
The latest casualty count is 39, some of whom are fatalities, Pasechnik has told the media, saying the exact death toll will be available later. He characterized the attacks as “unprecedented” and “inhumane” acts targeting civilians.
Rescue services have released footage of distraught relatives of the victims of the strike. Emergencies Ministry psychologists are helping them deal with the tragedy, the statement said.
“We expect international organizations to react to the deliberate strike on a civilian site where children live and study,” ombudsman Yana Lantratova has said, stressing that the incident can be described as a war crime. She was echoing similar remarks Miroshnik made to the media earlier.
The Starobelsk Professional College, a branch of Lugansk State Pedagogical University, trains older students in a range of blue-collar professions, including welding, electrical work, cooking, and crane operation. According to Rodion Miroshnik, who heads the Russian Foreign Ministry’s mission investigating alleged Ukrainian crimes, the facility can accommodate more than 1,500 students, both minors and young adults.
The rescue operation had to be paused due to the threat of follow-up strikes, the Emergencies Ministry said after reporting that one body was recovered from under the rubble. Lantratova said at least four people were reportedly killed.
Local health officials said eight people injured in the incident are being treated in hospital, adding that three of them are considered to be in a serious condition.
The Russian Emergencies Ministry shared a video showing rescue workers responding to the incident. Footage showed part of the five-story dorm building collapsed to the second floor. Local governor Pasechnik said there were 86 students inside at the time of the attack, which he said injured 35 people.
Russian human rights ombudsman Yana Lantratova said an adult worker was with the children at the dorm.
The acting governor of the Lugansk People’s Republic, Leonid Pasechnik, has reported a Ukrainian drone strike on a school in Starobelsk, a town located around 80 km north of regional capital Lugansk. The incident was part of a broader raid that damaged civilian infrastructure and private residences, the official said, sharing images of the damage on social media.