MOSCOW: Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday (May 22) ordered his military to prepare options to retaliate against Ukraine for what he described as a drone attack on a student dorm that killed six people and wounded dozens, with 15 still unaccounted for.
Putin said the attack had struck the dorm in Starobilsk in Luhansk, a Russian-controlled region in eastern Ukraine. He said Kyiv’s military must have known what it was targeting.
Ukraine’s military denied the Russian accusations and said it had struck an elite drone command unit in the area. It said that Kyiv complied with international humanitarian law.
Putin said in his own statement, which was carried by state TV, that there were no military targets near the dorm.
“There are no military facilities, intelligence service facilities, or related services in the vicinity. Therefore, there is absolutely no basis for claiming that the munitions struck the building as a result of our air defence or electronic warfare systems. The strike was not accidental; it came in three waves, with 16 drones targeting the same location,” Putin told officials.
The Russian military had been ordered to draw up options for Moscow to retaliate, he added.
Reuters was not able to independently verify what happened. Both sides deny deliberately targeting civilians in the war. Ukraine wants to recapture Luhansk, one of four eastern regions that Moscow unilaterally claimed as its own in 2022 in what Kyiv denounced as an illegal land grab.
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 had attacked it during the night.
