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Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday ordered his military to prepare options to retaliate against Ukraine after he accused Kyiv of carrying out a deadly drone attack on a student dorm that he said killed six and wounded dozens of young people, with 15 still unaccounted for.
Putin said the attack had struck the dorm in Starobilsk, in the Russian-controlled Luhansk region in eastern Ukraine. He said Kyiv’s military must have known what it was targeting.
“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 said.
Reuters was not able to independently verify what happened. 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.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy 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.
But on Friday Ukraine’s military in a statement denied Russian accusations that it attacked the student dormitory building as “manipulation.”
The statement stressed that Ukraine complies with international humanitarian law, and over the course of four years, both sides deny deliberately targeting civilians in the war.
‘A monstrous crime’
Yana Lantratova, Russia’s human rights commissioner, said 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.
Leonid Pasechnik, the top Russian-installed official in Luhansk, said two people had been pulled from the rubble, and Maria Lvova-Belova, presidential commissioner for children’s rights, said up to 18 children could still be trapped.
Some children being treated in hospital were reported to be in a serious condition, Lvova-Belova said.
Kremlin spokesperson 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,” he told reporters.
Moscow said the United Nations Security Council would hold an emergency session in New York later on Friday to discuss the incident.
Russia’s Foreign Affairs Ministry said the Ukrainian strike had pulverized the top three floors of the five-storey hostel.
“We call on international organizations, national governments and the global community to give an honest assessment … and to strongly condemn the bloody terrorist attack,” it said in a statement.
Photographs and video released by Russian authorities showed rescue workers taking one man by stretcher out of the rubble, severely damaged buildings — one of which appeared to have partially collapsed — and fires still burning.
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