Four dead on Russian strike at the Kursk School, says Ukraine

President Volodymyr Zelensky says that Moscow has bombarded a boarding school in Russia occupied by Ukraine, where civilians were taking refuge and preparing to evacuate.

The Ukrainian army said that four people were killed and dozens, many of them old, were injured in the city of Sudzha in the Kursk region, which has been under Ukrainian control for five months.

According to the reports, more than 80 people were rescued from the building.

The BBC has not been able to confirm Ukraine’s statement that it was a deliberate Russian attack using a guided air pump. Moscow has not commented.

Zelensky published in X that the incident exposed Russia as “a state devoid of courtesy.”

“This is how Russia Libra La Guerra: Sudzha, the Kursk region, the Russian territory, a boarding school with civilians who prepare to evacuate,” he wrote.

“A Russian air bomb. They destroyed the building even though dozens of civilians were there.”

The general staff of the Ukrainian army published in Telegram that four people had died and that 84 civilians were rescued, adding that “the strike was carried out on purpose.”

Ukraine threw ray towards the Russian Oblast of Kursk last August, taking by surprise the Russian border guards.

The Government in kyiv made it clear at that time that it had no intention of clinging to the seized territory, simply to use it as a negotiation chip in future peace negotiations.

Zelensky compared Saturday’s strike with “how Russia fought the war against Chechnya decades ago. They killed the Syrians in the same way. Russian bombs destroy Ukrainian houses in the same way.”

While there has been no official statement of Kremlin, at least one unofficial Russian military blogger said the Ukrainian forces were behind the strike.