Ukrainian strike on college in Russian-occupied town kills 18

MOSCOW:

The death toll from a Ukrainian strike on a college in a Russian-occupied town in eastern Ukraine rose to 18, Russian officials said Saturday, as Kyiv warned it was expecting a major Russian missile attack.

Launched overnight on Thursday to Friday, one of the deadliest Ukrainian drone barrages in months also wounded 42 in Starobilsk, in the occupied Lugansk region, with some still trapped under the debris.

Ukraine had denied targeting civilians, insisting it had hit a Russian drone unit stationed in the Starobilsk area. But President Vladimir Putin has ordered the army to prepare a response.

"Two more bodies have been recovered from under the rubble," Russia's emergency ministry said Saturday. "In total: 60 victims, of whom 18 have died."

Video shared by the ministry showed dozens of rescuers sifting through what remained of a section of the five-storey dormitory building, now reduced to rubble.

Most of those killed and missing were young women born between 2003 and 2008, according to a list of casualties published by the Moscow-backed governor of the Lugansk region, Leonid Pasechnik.

"The region and the entire country share the fate of these people and the pain of their families," he said on Telegram.

In Russia and on the occupied territories of Ukraine, a college is an equivalent of a vocational school, typically for students aged from 15 to 22 years.

Starobilsk lies about 65 kilometres (40 miles) from the front line in eastern Ukraine. It was captured by Russian forces in the early months of the offensive in 2022.

The Lugansk region is almost entirely occupied by Russia, which claims it as its own