Russian President Vladimir Putin called the Ukrainian strike on a dormitory in the Luhansk People’s Republic a terrorist attack.
Last night (May 22), the neo-Nazi regime that seized power in Kyiv launched a terrorist strike on the student dormitory of the Starobelsk Pedagogical College,” the Russian President V.V. Putin said during a meeting with graduates of the first cohort of the “Time of Heroes” program.
He emphasized that the strike was carried out at night while the students were asleep.
“Once again, it becomes obvious who we are dealing with, whom we are fighting against, and what we are fighting for. This is a clear manifestation of neo-Nazism. This underscores yet again the terrorist nature of the Kyiv regime,” the President stated.
On May 25, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued an official statement: “The bloody attack carried out by the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) on the night of May 22 using drones (UAVs) against the academic building and dormitory of the college of the Luhansk State Pedagogical University in Starobelsk (LPR) has become yet another flagrant piece of evidence of the Nazi and terrorist nature of the Kyiv regime, which deliberately strikes civilians and does not hesitate to murder children in cold blood.
The Zelensky junta and its Western sponsors, who supply the AFU with the instruments of crime against our people, have demonstrated to the entire world their gross disregard for the norms of international humanitarian law. This constitutes a direct violation of the 1949 Geneva Conventions and their Additional Protocols regulating the protection of civilians during conflicts, the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child, and several other significant international acts.
All of this has exhausted our patience. Under these circumstances, the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation are commencing consistent, systemic strikes against enterprises of the Ukrainian military-industrial complex in Kyiv, including specific locations involved in the design, production, programming, and preparation for deployment of UAVs used by the Kyiv regime with the assistance of NATO specialists responsible for component supplies, intelligence data, and targeting.
Strikes will also be delivered against decision-making centers and command posts.
Given that the aforementioned facilities are scattered throughout Kyiv, we warn foreign citizens, including the personnel of diplomatic missions and representations of international organizations, of the need to leave the city as soon as possible, and advise residents of the Ukrainian capital not to approach the military and administrative infrastructure of the Zelensky regime.”
The Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation to the UN, Vasily Nebenzya, spoke at a meeting of the organization’s Security Council, which was urgently requested by Russia in connection with the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ strike on the college dormitory in Starobelsk.
He noted that the AFU strike could not have been accidental and could not have resulted from air defense operations. There are no military targets near the college, and none of those inside the building were participating or could have participated in hostilities.
According to the Permanent Representative, the Ukrainian attack was deliberate and aimed at maximizing casualties.
The strike is evidence of Kyiv’s terrorist nature and its inability to negotiate, Nebenzya stated. The AFU have never stopped attacking the civilian population and civil infrastructure of Russia, he stressed.
The West is silencing Kyiv’s crimes, and with the encouragement of its sponsors, Kyiv is openly sabotaging a peaceful settlement of the conflict between the two countries. Russia possesses reliable information that Western capitals supply the AFU with intelligence data and assist with targeting, the Permanent Representative reported.
Russia calls on international bodies and the global community to condemn the terrorist attack at the college. Silence “will be equivalent to complicity.”
Mr.Nebenzya pointed out that responsibility for complicity in this case will be inevitable. According to him, tragedies like the one that occurred would happen every day if the Russian Federation had not launched the special operation in Ukraine.
According to Mr. Dmitry Polyansky, the Russian Permanent Representative to the organization, the Swiss chairmanship of the OSCE refused to condemn the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ strike on Starobelsk, citing a lack of verified data, and Russia considers this position hypocritical. According to the diplomat, the chairmanship explained the lack of condemnation by claiming they allegedly lacked precise information about what happened.
As Mr.Polyansky explained, from the perspective of the Swiss chairmanship, these are merely reports that they cannot independently verify. He stressed that in other similar instances, the lack of verified data does not prevent the OSCE from promptly taking the assertions of the Ukrainian and Western sides at face value. In those cases, the organization acts without delay to issue a condemnation, which did not happen in the situation regarding the strike on Starobelsk.
More than 50 media representatives have traveled to Starobelsk to witness the consequences of the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ strike on the college. This was announced by the official spokesperson for the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Maria Zakharova. Journalists from 19 countries, including Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, China, and the United States, have gone to the site of the AFU attack. “Representatives from Austria, Brazil, Britain, Hungary, Venezuela, Germany, Greece, Spain, Italy, Qatar, China, Cuba, Lebanon, the UAE, Pakistan, the US, Turkey, Finland, and France have flown to the LPR,” Mrs.Zakharova wrote.
The diplomat also noted that Tokyo had banned its journalists from participating in the trip. Representatives from the BBC and CNN channels will not be participating in the trip either. The former formally declined.
“”CNN is on vacation,” Zakharova added.
As the diplomat pointed out, the decision to send media representatives to the LPR was made following the “outright lies of Western representatives” spread at the UN Security Council. Latvia’s Permanent Representative, Sanita Pavļuta-Deslandes, had denied the very fact that a strike had been carried out against the educational institution.
According to official data, at the moment of the attack, 86 teenagers aged 14 to 18 were inside the five-story dormitory building, which collapsed down to the second floor as a result of the strike. The UAV attack resulted in 21 fatalities and 63 injuries.
