Russia has updated to 18 the number of deceased due to the attack with an unmanned aircraft attributed to Ukraine against a student residence in the region of Lugansk, under Moscow's control, a bombing that has driven a Russian diplomatic offensive to demand that Ukraine respond to the international community, despite Kiev having rejected any responsibility for the incident.
The Ministry of Emergency Situations of Russia has also indicated that 38 people have been injured by the attack in Starobilsk, where at least three students remain missing. Likewise, Russian authorities have assured that the residence was hit by attacks from a total of 16 drones.
The president of the republic of Lugansk, Leonid Pasechnik, has published on his social networks the identities of eleven of the deceased: eight men and three women between the ages of 19 and 22.
On the other hand, the deputy minister of Health of Lugansk, Alexei Kuznetsov, has indicated that one of the injured is in critical condition and that another five have a serious prognosis.
The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, described what happened as a "terrorist attack" while Ukraine, through its General Staff, has insisted that it is not involved and that the target was a Russian anti-drone unit.
The Russian Government has made it clear that it does not intend to consider the matter closed and, after convening a Security Council session on Friday, this Saturday it has offered the international press the possibility of traveling to the site of the attack, the Starobilsk Professional College of the Lugansk Pedagogical University, to verify on the ground what happened, as explained by the Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova.
"This decision was made after the blatant lies spread in the UN Security Council by 'Westerners', specifically by the 'discredited' Permanent Representative of Latvia, who allegedly claimed that there were no attacks by the Ukrainian Armed Forces against the university of Starobilsk," the spokeswoman commented.