Ambassador Vasily Nebenzia held a press briefing for reporters at the UN headquarters this Tuesday, where he released the evidence of Ukraine’s May 22 attack in Starobelsk, Lugansk, on what was undeniably a vocational school, where young girls studied to become elementary school teachers. The reporters were shown videos of the school in flames, the resulting mass of rubble, and interviews with witnesses and children still hospitalized for the wounds suffered in the attack. Nebenzia played some of the footage on mute, calling it too heartbreaking for the press conference.
Nebenzia was scathing about the “moral bankruptcy” demonstrated by the many Western diplomats who refused to protest, and some even to admit that Ukraine had attacked a school. Likewise, he charged that the UN Secretariat had “once again chosen intentionally vague language in order to avoid offending the Kiev regime by calling a spade a spade,” claiming it cannot “independently verify” what had happened.
“Western capitals may speak endlessly about children’s rights, but their reaction to the tragedy in Starobelsk shows that, in their political worldview, children have long been divided into ‘convenient’ and `inconvenient’ victims,” he charged. “If the suffering of a child can be used against Russia, it immediately becomes an international scandal. But when children die because of the premeditated actions of the Kiev regime, the tragedy disappears behind caveats, doubts, and references to `context.’ This is not merely double standards. It is a moral failure and complete disgrace.”
To remove any doubt, he reported, Russia “invited more than 50 foreign journalists from 19 countries to visit the site in Starobelsk themselves, “so as to see with their own eyes what happened there.” Journalists went from Austria, Brazil, the United Kingdom, Hungary, Venezuela, Germany, Greece, Spain, Italy, Qatar, China, Cuba, Lebanon, the UAE, Pakistan, the United States, Turkey, Finland, and France, he said, and there “acknowledged the accuracy of the information we had presented.”
He reminded the UN reporters what it is that Western diplomats refused to protest: “86 students aged 14 to 19, along with one staff member, were living in the dormitory. These were children and teenagers. They were not on the front line, they were unarmed, and they neither participated nor could possibly have participated in hostilities. They were asleep. It was at that moment when the strike happened…
“According to the latest reports, 21 people, mostly young girls, were killed and 63 students were injured… Many of the wounded remain hospitalized, some in critical condition. The target was not a command center, a fortified position, a weapons depot, or military barracks, but a civilian facility. There were no military installations, government offices, or security service facilities near the dormitory.
“The deliberate nature of the attack is further confirmed by the fact that 16 UAVs targeted the same location in three successive waves, causing the five-story dormitory building to collapse down to the second floor. It’s yet another glaring manifestation of the Nazi and terrorist character of the Kiev regime, which does not hesitate to kill minors in cold blood.”
