The overnight attack targeted a Russian school dorm with 86 children inside, killing four people, according to regional officials

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.

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.

(RT.com)