Four killed, 35 children injured in Ukrainian drone attack on Luhansk region, Russian officials say

Four killed, 35 children injured in Ukrainian drone attack on Luhansk region, Russian officials say
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Summary Russian officials said students were asleep when Ukraine drones hit a student dormitory late night ‌in the Russian-controlled Luhansk region in eastern Ukraine

MOSCOW (Reuters) – At least four people were killed and 35 children were wounded ​in an overnight Ukrainian drone attack on a student dormitory ‌in the Russian-controlled Luhansk region in eastern Ukraine, Russian officials said on Friday.

Reuters was not able to immediately ​verify what happened independently and there was ​no immediate comment from Ukraine, which is fighting to try to return Luhansk, one of ​four regions Russia unilaterally claimed as its own ​in 2022 in what Kyiv said was an illegal land grab.

Yana Lantratova, the Russia's Human Rights Commissioner, said that ​86 teenagers aged between 14 to 18 had ​been sleeping inside Luhansk Pedagogical University's Starobilsk college when Ukrainian ‌drones attacked it.

"The Ukrainian armed forces carried out a targeted strike on sleeping children," Lantratova said in a statement.

Leonid Pasechnik, the top Russia-installed official in ​Luhansk, said ​two people had been pulled from the rubble and that rescue workers were still ​looking for children trapped beneath the ​debris.

Photo and video released by the Russian authorities showed rescue workers stretchering one man out of the rubble, severely ​damaged buildings, one of which ​appeared to have partially collapsed, and fires still burning.