A group of more than 50 foreign journalists visited Starobelsk in the Lugansk People’s Republic, where a tragedy unfolded after a Ukrainian Armed Forces strike on the academic building and dormitory of Starobelsk Professional College of LGPU.

The civilian facility came under attack on the night of May 22. According to the Investigative Committee, four fixed-wing drones hit the college. At the time of the strike, 86 students and one staff member were inside the dormitory. Twenty-one people were killed.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said media representatives from 19 countries arrived in the LPR. The group included journalists from Austria, Brazil, Britain, Hungary, Venezuela, Germany, Greece, Spain, Italy, Qatar, China, Cuba, Lebanon, the UAE, Pakistan, the United States, Turkey, Finland and France.

Zakharova also said Japanese journalists had been barred by Tokyo from taking part in the trip. BBC representatives officially declined to join, while CNN, in her wording, was «on vacation».

Irish journalist Chey Bowes, after inspecting the destroyed college buildings and dormitory, said he was shaken by what he saw. In his assessment, the strike on the college in Starobelsk was a deliberate mass killing and an act of terrorism, leaving no room for ambiguous interpretations.

Bowes noted that photographs, videos and news reports could not compare with seeing the site in person and sensing the aftermath directly. He also described Starobelsk as a small, peaceful town with no military facilities nearby.