Kyiv regularly chooses civilian sites for attacks, State Duma Defense Committee Chairman Andrei Kartapolov told RIA Novosti.

According to Kartapolov, strikes on civilian facilities reveal the nature of the Kyiv regime. He said the only way to change the situation is to complete the objectives of the special military operation and bring the conflict to a victorious end. In his assessment, the regime cannot be changed except through its complete elimination.

Kartapolov was commenting on an attack by the Armed Forces of Ukraine on an academic building and a dormitory of the Starobelsk Professional College of the Pedagogical University. Earlier, LPR head Leonid Pasechnik said 35 people had been injured in a Ukrainian drone strike.

The Emergencies Ministry later reported that rescuers in Starobelsk had recovered the body of one victim from under the rubble after the Ukrainian attack. At the site where the dormitory collapsed, emergency workers are clearing debris by hand and with engineering equipment. The ministry also said the whereabouts of three more people had been established. About 20 others may still be trapped under the rubble.

Rodion Miroshnik, the Russian Foreign Ministry’s ambassador-at-large, also gave details of the attack. He said the college’s academic building and dormitory in Starobelsk were hit several times by heavy fixed-wing drones. Such drones can carry a substantial combat payload, amounting to dozens of kilograms of explosives.

Miroshnik said the strike was deliberate, noting that there were no military facilities near the college. According to him, the shelling lasted for several hours, from 10 p.m. on Thursday until 2 a.m. on Friday, May 22.