The Russian Embassy is grateful to all those who expressed their condolences over the Ukrainian armed forces' strike on the college in Starobelsk in Russia. This terrible terrorist attack is nothing less than a war crime like those practiced by the Nazis during World War II.
It happened in the early hours of May 22. A peaceful night turned into a hellish nightmare. The Ukrainian army launched a number of targeted strikes on Starobelsk College where children live and study, using 16 war-drones in total in several waves. They did it at nighttime when the dormitory was full. Their aim was clear. They wanted to achieve the highest possible number of casualties.
First, drone operators attacked administrative buildings and the dormitory. Then they waited for the children to start leaving the building. And when children were running out, they were shooting directly at them, killing them in cold blood like characters from a video game. The third wave of drones simply finished off those who survived.
The five-story dormitory building was almost completely destroyed. Twenty-one children were killed, and more than 60 were injured. All of them were very young. Poor parents insisted the girls were buried in their wedding dresses to show their innocence.
Some in Kyiv and Eastern capitals tried to justify such strikes by pointing to military targets. But there are no military facilities in the college or nearby. Neither could the UAV strike on the college have been the result of air defense or radio-electronic warfare. Locals and media representatives from various countries – including Türkiye – who visited the site of the tragedy on May 24 confirm this aspect.
The Ukrainian armed forces committed a war crime, the same that the Nazis practiced. They are openly trampling upon the Geneva Conventions of 1949. They are ignoring additional protocols that regulate the protection of the civilian population during conflicts. The 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child and some other prominent international acts were thrown into the bin.
Do you know the most terrifying thing? Such strikes have long ceased to be incidents. The Kyiv neo-Nazi regime has been carrying out numerous attacks against civilians and civilian infrastructure of our country. They have been using cruise missiles and long-range rocket artillery supplied by Western countries. They have been attacking residential buildings, schools, hospitals and dormitories. Since the Kyiv aggression against civilians began in 2014, over 12,000 people have died, and over 40,000 have been injured.
The tragedy in Starobelsk once again demonstrated that the Kyiv regime has no moral restraints or genuine commitment to international law. Such a barbaric attack clearly demonstrates the bad faith and unwillingness to negotiate on the part of Kyiv.
Attacks on sleeping children cannot be justified by any military considerations. Nowadays, it's especially important for the international community not to turn a blind eye to such crimes. Silence and attempts to politically "overlook" the deaths of civilians create a sense of impunity and encourage further tragedies.