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Death toll in student dorm strike rises to 12, emergency ministry says

By Reuters Reuters
Rescuers work amid debris of a destroyed dormitory building of the Starobilsk College of Luhansk Pedagogical University following an overnight attack, what Russian-installed authorities called a Ukrainian drone strike, in the course of the Russia-Ukraine conflict in the town of Starobilsk (Starobelsk) in the Luhansk region, a Russian-controlled area of Ukraine, May 22, 2026. Picture taken with a mobile phone. REUTERS/Pavel Klimov
Rescuers work amid debris of a destroyed dormitory building of the Starobilsk College of Luhansk Pedagogical University following an overnight attack, what Russian-installed authorities called a Ukrainian drone strike, in the course of the Russia-Ukraine conflict in the town of Starobilsk (Starobelsk) in the Luhansk region, a Russian-controlled area of Ukraine, May 22, 2026. Picture taken with a mobile phone. REUTERS/Pavel Klimov Pavel Klimov Reuters

The death toll from a drone strike on a student dorm in the Russian-controlled Luhansk region of eastern Ukraine has risen to 12, Russia's state-run news agency RIA reported on Saturday citing the emergency ministry.

Russia on Friday accused Ukraine of what it described as a deliberate drone strike in the town of Starobilsk, with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday ordering his military to prepare options for retaliation.

Leonid Pasechnik, head of the Russian-installed administration in the region, published a preliminary list containing details of 11 victims, most of them 19-year-old girls.

Nine people remained trapped under the rubble, state-run news agency TASS said.

Ukraine's military denied responsibility for the attack, saying it had struck an elite drone command unit in the area and that its forces complied with international humanitarian law.

(Reporting by Maxim RodionovEditing by Tomasz Janowski and Philippa Fletcher)

Copyright Reuters or USA Today Network via Reuters Connect.

This story was originally published May 23, 2026 at 4:25 AM.

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