The attack on a college in Starobelsk in the “LPR” killed 21 people. Moscow calls the incident a “terrorist attack” and threatens a response, Kyiv declares the defeat of the Rubicon headquarters

Moscow calls the incident a “terrorist attack” and threatens a response, Kyiv declares the defeat of the Rubicon headquarters

On the night of May 22, the building and dormitory of the branch of the Lugansk Pedagogical University in the city of Starobelsk, which is under the control of Russian forces, came under attack. According to reports from the Russian side and Moscow-appointed authorities, there were teenagers in the buildings. As of the evening of May 24, 21 deaths were known, the Ministry of Emergency Situations reported . Search work has been completed.

Russian government officials are calling the attack on Starobelsk a “terrorist act,” returning to the early 2022 rhetoric about the “neo-Nazi Kiev regime.” Putin threatens a forceful response, and the Russian Foreign Ministry declares lies in the Western press.

Read more about the latest reactions to the attack on a college in the Lugansk region in the material of Novaya Gazeta Europe.

In total, 21 victims of the attack are known. Initially, 11 deaths were reported; by the evening of May 23, rescuers found the bodies of seven more people at the site of the destroyed college and dormitory in Starobelsk, the Ministry of Emergency Situations reported . By the morning of May 24, the department reported that the search work had been completed.

The head of the “LPR” Leonid Pasechnik previously published a list of 11 dead and 41 injured in the attack on the college. Among the victims are young people born between 2004 and 2007.

There were allegedly 86 students in the college and dormitory buildings at the time of the impact.

Earlier, Pasechnik announced the introduction of a state of emergency in the occupied region. He thanked the volunteers, the “People's Front of the LPR,” which delivered more than two tons of humanitarian aid, the United Russia party, which organized a blood collection for the victims, and “our President Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin.”

The Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation qualified the strike as a terrorist act and opened a criminal case under Part 3 of Art. 205 of the Criminal Code.

“At night, the Armed Forces of Ukraine, with the help of 4 aircraft-type unmanned aerial vehicles, targeted administrative buildings and the dormitory of the Starobel College (branch) of the FSBEI HE “Lugansk State Pedagogical University.” At the time of the incident, there were 86 students and 1 employee in the dormitory building. As a result of the incident, the five-story building collapsed to the second floor,” the Investigative Committee said in its release.

Russia also brought the incident to the international level and requested an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council.

Russia's permanent representative to the UN, Vasily Nebenzya, said that he was "embarrassed for some colleagues on the Security Council" because "today the level of their cynicism is off the charts."

“How did we even get to the point where representatives of European countries do not consider children and young students in Starobelsk, residents of Donbass and Russia in general as people? This, however, dehumanizes not them, but you, sitting in this room. <...> Aren’t you ashamed yourself to bear what we are hearing now?” - he said at a meeting dedicated to the attack.

The Russian Foreign Ministry published a statement that the attack on the college was caused by “long-range weapons supplied to the Kiev regime by NATO countries, including UAVs.”

“We have reliable information that Western capitals supply the Armed Forces of Ukraine with intelligence data and help with targeting,” the statement said.

Vladimir Putin called the incident a “terrorist blow” delivered by “the neo-Nazi regime that seized power in Kiev.” He also stressed that the attack occurred “at night when the students were sleeping.”

“The reasons for such criminal behavior of the Kyiv regime are clear. You know this better than anyone. This is a constant failure at the front. Surrender of positions, settlements, territories,” Putin said during a speech at a meeting with graduates of the “Time of Heroes” program in the Kremlin.

According to Putin, the attack on Starobelsk was not carried out by accident. “There is no reason to say that the shells hit the building under the influence of our air defense and electronic warfare systems. No one can say that they tried to hit some object, and the UAVs were shot down by our own means and allegedly accidentally hit this building,” he said, adding that the Ukrainian Armed Forces used 16 UAVs for the attack, and the attack itself was carried out in three waves.

At the same time, Putin complained about corruption in Ukraine and said that the “leaders of the regime” “are themselves participants in these corruption schemes, which is why they then help each other flee the country, fleeing to Israel, other countries, and abroad.” In his opinion, Kyiv needs such strikes in order to “divert attention from the events taking place both at the front and in the country and to provoke a response in Russia”: “And then, we know this, we have gone through this more than once, to blame everything on us, on Russia, on our country, all the aggravations and all the consequences of such crimes.”

Putin addressed Ukrainian military personnel and urged them “not to carry out the criminal orders of the illegitimate, thieving junta.” He also instructed the Russian Ministry of Defense to propose a response to the attack by the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

The General Staff of Ukraine previously reported that the Ukrainian Armed Forces “are striking military infrastructure and facilities that are used for military purposes.”

“On the night of May 22, 2026, a strike was carried out on a number of objects of the Russian aggressor, including an oil refinery, ammunition depots, air defense systems, command posts and enemy personnel, including one of the headquarters of the Rubicon unit near the city of Starobelsk. “Rubicon is a Russian military special unit called the Center for Advanced Unmanned Technologies, whose representatives regularly carry out attacks on civilians and civilian objects on the territory of Ukraine,” the department’s statement said.

The Rubicon center was created on the basis of one of the Russian unmanned aircraft units on the personal instructions of Russian Defense Minister Andrei Belousov in August 2024, TASS wrote . The center is actively involved in the war with Ukraine, engaged in centralized procurement, development and implementation of tactics for using drones, as well as training drone operators. According to data for the spring of 2025, the Rubicon detachments consisted of 130–150 people.

The official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, called in a commentary on RT the attack on the college in Starobelsk as a manifestation of the “terrorist” tactics of the Ukrainian authorities. According to her, Kyiv is acting “from the position of a terrorist cell” with international financial support.

“We are talking about sponsorship from Western minority countries: financially, arms supply, political support.”

Zakharova also stated that the ideology of the Ukrainian authorities, in her assessment, is “neo-Nazi” and is based on “segregation on national, linguistic and cultural principles.” She claims that the targets of attacks are “the most vulnerable categories” - children of different ages, “from toddlers to schoolchildren, from schoolchildren to teenagers.”

“It is probably impossible to remember that in the civilized world, in front of the eyes of the entire world community, there was collective sponsorship and full-scale support of those who, at the state level, proclaimed a policy of extermination of children in the form of goal-setting,” Zakharova said.

The Russian Foreign Ministry is organizing a visit by foreign journalists to the college attacked by the Ukrainian Armed Forces, a department spokeswoman said .

“In connection with the outright lie spread yesterday in the UN Security Council by Westerners, in particular, the Latvian Permanent Representative who lost her dignity, that there were supposedly no attacks by the Ukrainian Armed Forces on the college in Starobelsk, we are organizing a visit to the scene of the tragedy for the envoys accredited in Moscow. I hope the BBC and CNN don’t have a vacation,” she wrote in her Telegram channel.

She later stated that the BBC had "officially refused to visit Starobilsk", and "CNN is on holiday".

Komsomolskaya Pravda published several comments from victims of the attack on the college.

“They pulled shrapnel out of my neck, and my legs were crushed by the slab. When the slab covered me, the girls tried to pull me out, but they couldn’t, so they ran on their own. If it weren’t for the people who dug me up, I don’t know how it would have ended,” says college student Daria Shavko.

According to the newspaper, seven people were taken in serious condition to the Lugansk Republican Clinical Hospital. Two more people with moderate injuries remain in the surgical department in Starobelsk, 30 people with minor injuries were sent for outpatient treatment. University rector Zhanna Marfina told TASS that three college buildings cannot be restored.

Updated May 24 14:11 Moscow time.