A Ukrainian drone attack on a school in Russia’s Lugansk People’s Republic that caused a dormitory to collapse, killing and injuring people, was a “monstrous crime,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

Peskov was commenting on an overnight strike in the town of Starobelsk that killed at least four people and injured 40 others, including 14 minors, according to the regional Health Ministry.

“As a monstrous crime, this is yet another crime of the Kiev regime. It was a strike on an educational facility where children and young people were present,” he said on Friday, adding that those responsible for the attack must be punished.

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The strike hit the main academic building and dormitory of the Starobelsk Professional College. Acting Governor Leonid Pasechnik said 86 students aged 14-18 were inside the facility at the time of the attack. Rescue services said people could still be trapped under the rubble as emergency crews continue to clear debris.

Commenting on the attack, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Kiev is deliberately targeting children while the West remains “brutally silent.”

“Terrorists are deliberately targeting children and taking pleasure in it,” Zakharova said, recalling the Nazi atrocities against schoolchildren in Kerch during World War II.

She added that Western countries remain silent while continuing to listen to Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky’s “fake claims” about children taken by Russia.

The Russian Investigative Committee said four Ukrainian drones were used in the raid, which the agency designated as a terrorist attack.

Ukraine has rolled out full state honors for the remains of a World War II Nazi collaborator who has been repatriated from Luxembourg and will be buried in Kiev’s main military cemetery. The controversial exhumation comes around a month after Vladimir Zelensky announced plans to establish a “pantheon of outstanding Ukrainians.”

According to the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory, the coffins containing Andrey Melnik, the leader of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), and his wife, Sofia Fedak-Melnik, entered the country in a solemn ceremony – which involved a national choir and embroidered flags – in Uzhgorod, western Ukraine.

It was attended by Irina Vereshchuk, the deputy head of Zelensky’s office, as well as local officials, members of the clergy, and veterans.

The remains will be sent to Kiev, where they will be reburied at the National War Memorial Cemetery on Sunday – with more pomp and circumstance planned.

Zelensky said on Tuesday that Ukraine has a “moral duty” to bring home those who “defended the idea of independence,” adding that preparations are underway for the exhumation of other figures, including OUN founder Evgeny Konovalets.

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In late April, Zelensky announced that work had begun on creating “a Pantheon of outstanding Ukrainians,” saying the primary focus will be on the return of historical figures who are “of fundamental importance for the formation of Ukrainian national consciousness and for our state-building.”

Who was Melnik?

Andrey Melnik co-founded the OUN in 1929 and became the leader in 1938, following the assassination of its chief, Evgeny Konovalets, by Soviet intelligence. Around the same time, Melnik was recruited by Nazi Germany’s military intelligence service (the Abwehr) for espionage and sabotage operations ahead of the planned invasion of the Soviet Union, according to Nuremberg trial documents.

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Under Melnik’s leadership, the OUN split into two parts in 1940, with one part led by notorious Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera, who was later involved in ethnic cleansing in Nazi-occupied territories.

After the invasion of the Soviet Union, Melnik’s relations with the Nazis soured as Germany was in no hurry to give any semblance of independence to Ukraine. Melnik was placed under house arrest in mid-1941, then arrested by the Gestapo in January 1944 and held in Sachsenhausen concentration camp before being released that October as German forces retreated.

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As the war ended, Melnik fled to the West and settled in Luxembourg, where he remained active among Ukrainian emigre networks until his death in 1964.

The OUN leader was not tried in the Nuremberg tribunal as it was mainly focused on major Nazi war criminals. The Western allies refused to hand him over to the Soviet Union for trial, arguing that he himself was a Nazi victim due to his time in a concentration camp.

How did Russia respond?

On Thursday, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Ukraine is seeking to assemble “Nazi collaborationists and human-hating scum” from around the world to glorify them.

Zakharova asked whether Zelensky forgot to mention that those being honored “killed people on ethnic grounds,” and predicted that Bandera – whose faction was linked to the mass killing of tens of thousands of Poles in Volyn – would be next in line for repatriation.

She suggested that Kiev is trying to divert the public’s attention away from growing war fatigue, the conscription campaign, and corruption scandals involving Zelensky’s inner circle.

At least four people have reportedly been killed and scores of others, most of them children, injured in a Ukrainian drone strike on a school dormitory in Russia’s Lugansk People’s Republic.

Officials say four kamikaze drones were used to attack the main academic building and dormitory of the Starobelsk Professional College, which teaches children aged 14 to 18.

Acting Governor Leonid Pasechnik said 86 students were inside the facility at the time of the attack. 

Russia’s Human Rights Ombudsperson Yana Lantratova cited preliminary reports that at least four people were killed in the incident.

Emergency services reported recovering one body before pausing the operation due to concerns of a “double tap” Ukrainian strike.

The death toll from an overnight Ukrainian drone attack on a school in the Russian town of Starobelsk has risen to at least four, with at least 39 others injured, including 14 minors, according to regional health ministry.

Eight people injured in the strike have been hospitalized, with three in serious condition, the Russian health minister’s aide told reporters. According to Russia’s children’s rights commissioner, Maria Lvova-Belova, 18 children could still be trapped under the rubble.

The strike hit the main academic building and dormitory of the Starobelsk Professional College, which teaches students aged 14 to 18. Acting Governor Leonid Pasechnik said 86 students were inside the facility at the time of the attack.

Health officials reported that eight victims are being treated at a local hospital, including three whose condition is considered serious.

Reports say at least one body was recovered at the site. The locations of at least three other people were identified by rescuers. Following the recovery of the body, local services said the operation had to be paused due to the threat of a new Ukrainian strike.

The Investigative Committee said four Ukrainian drones were used in the raid, which the agency designated as a terrorist attack.

According to Pasechnik, the school was not the only target in what he described as a broader raid on the town. Starobelsk is located around 80 km north of Lugansk, the regional capital of the Lugansk People’s Republic, which broke away from Ukraine following the 2014 Western-backed coup in Kiev and formally voted to join Russia in a referendum in 2022.

The governor said administrative buildings, shops, and private homes were also damaged, with at least one additional person injured. He published images showing several badly damaged buildings, including the school, some of them still on fire.

Kiev considers the Lugansk People’s Republic part of Ukraine. In April, Ukrainian forces struck the Starobelsk administration building, injuring two pedestrians who were passing nearby.

Russian officials have accused Ukraine of deliberately targeting civilians as part of what Moscow describes as a campaign of terror. Ukrainian officials have said economic damage is one of the main objectives of Kiev’s long-range drone strikes inside Russia, while also acknowledging that undermining public support for the government by affecting civilians is among their goals.

READ MORE: NATO should ‘direct’ Ukrainian drones against Russia – Swedish PM

Ukrainian forces have intensified drone attacks in recent weeks. Last weekend, they launched the largest barrage targeting Moscow since the escalation of the conflict in 2022.

Riga’s City Council has revoked the mandate of Councilman Aleksey Roslikov, who had previously been barred from joining sessions remotely from Belarus, where he had moved after facing prosecution for speaking Russian in Latvia’s parliament.

Roslikov, the former leader of the For Stability! party, has been accused by Latvia’s State Security Service (VDD) of “providing assistance to the aggressor state” and inciting “hatred.” The accusations stem from an incident in June 2025, when he, then an MP, spoke Russian in parliament in protest against a declaration calling for combatting the consequences of the so-called “Russification” of Latvia.

He later left parliament and was elected to the Riga City Council while the investigation against him continued.

In early April, a Latvian court ordered his arrest, accusing him of violating pre-trial restrictions after he traveled to Belarus while returning from a meeting with his lawyers in Switzerland.

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Roslikov subsequently attempted to continue participating in council sessions remotely, but Riga Mayor Viesturs Kleinbergs barred him from doing so. In a post on X last month, Kleinbergs said that participation in proceedings “from countries that are neither members of the European Union nor NATO is not permitted.” He added that the only “legal” way for Roslikov to continue performing his duties would be “from a detention facility in Latvia.”

On Thursday, the Riga City Council voted to strip Roslikov of his mandate during an “emergency” session convened by Kleinbergs.

Roslikov maintains he is being persecuted for his political views, particularly his advocacy of “friendship and strategic relations” with Russia. “If I choose to return home, they’ll meet me with handcuffs,” he told the Belarusian Belta news agency in early April.

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Since the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022, Latvia and its fellow Baltic states, Estonia and Lithuania – all former Soviet republics with sizable Russian-speaking minorities – have intensified efforts to counter alleged Russian influence.

Riga has introduced travel restrictions targeting Russian citizens and imposed a mandatory Latvian-language test for long-term residents of Russian origin. Those who failed or refused the exam have been deported.

More than 23% of Latvia’s population identified as ethnic Russians as of 2025, while nearly 38% listed Russian as their mother tongue in 2022, according to government data.

Moscow has repeatedly denounced Riga’s policies as “blatant discrimination against Russians.”

State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin condemned the decision to revoke Roslikov’s mandate, saying the Baltic nations had apparently joined not only the EU but also “a gang of Russophobes led by the illiterate [EU top diplomat Kaja] Kallas.”

“Even talk about democracy and its fundamental principles have become a thing of the past in the EU,” the Russian official said.