V057-UCRANIA ATAQUE EN LUGANSK

At least four people were killed and 35 children were wounded in an overnight Ukrainian drone attack on a student dormitory in Russian-controlled Luhansk in eastern Ukraine, Russian officials said on Friday (May 22).

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.

At the same time, Reuters confirmed the location by buildings, trees and road layout seen in the video which matched archive and satellite imagery of the area. The date was confirmed from a statement by Russian officials on May 22 that said an overnight Ukrainian drone attack damaged a student dormitory in Russian-controlled Luhansk in eastern Ukraine, killing four people and wounding 35 children. No older versions of the video were found online.

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.