Russian drone strike on Kyiv high school kills three in Putin’s latest barrage of missile attacks

Three people were killed and seven injured in a Russian drone strike that hit a high school in the Kiev region overnight, authorities said on Wednesday.

The State Emergency Service said on the Telegram messaging app that two dormitories and an education facility in the city of Rzhyshchiv were partially destroyed in the attack, while people slept inside.

“Three people died, two people were injured and one person was rescued. There are probably four people under the rubble. The Kiev military administration confirmed the figures.

Rzhyshchiv is located about 80 kilometers south of Kiev. The emergency services published images of badly damaged buildings and a burning fire.

The attack “destroyed” two floors of two student residences and a building used for studying, the same source said.

The strike hit a high school about 50 miles south of Kiev, said emergency services, which released images of heavily damaged buildings.

Rescue workers work at a construction site badly damaged by a Russian drone strike, amid the Russian attack on Ukraine, in the town of Rzhyshchiv, Kiev region, Ukraine, March 22

A fire that affected more than 3,200 square feet of the school was extinguished shortly before 7 a.m. local time, according to emergency services.

Russia regularly bombards Ukraine with indiscriminate missiles, artillery and drones. Moscow insists it only attacks military targets, but thousands of civilians have been killed in attacks since the outbreak of war last year.

The strikes also often cause power cuts that prevent people from heating their homes or getting drinking water.

Last week, Putin was indicted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for deporting Ukrainian children to Russia since the start of the war. Under international law, attacks on civilian targets are also war crimes.

“More than 20 Iranian killer drones, plus missiles, countless shellings, and that’s just one last night of Russian terror against Ukraine,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Twitter.

Suggesting that Russia did not want peace in Ukraine after nearly 13 months of war, he said: “Every time someone tries to hear the word ‘peace’ in Moscow, another order is given there for such criminal attacks.”

The Ukrainian military said it had shot down 16 of the 21 drones Russia had launched on Ukraine overnight. Russia did not immediately comment on the reports.

Meanwhile, the Russian navy has “repulsed” a drone attack on the port of Sevastopol in Moscow-annexed Crimea, the city’s Kremlin-backed governor said.

The peninsula, which was captured by Russia from Ukraine in 2014, is home to Moscow’s Black Sea Fleet and has been hit by a series of drone strikes since the Kremlin’s offensive.

The strike came just four days after President Vladimir Putin made a surprise visit to Sevastopol, and the day after Ukraine said a shipment of Russian cruise missiles had been destroyed in the town of Dzhankoi, in the north of the peninsula.

“In total, three objects have been destroyed,” Russian-installed governor Mikhail Razvozhayev told Telegram. He said military personnel had been firing at the drones with “small arms” and that “air defenses were also working.”

Razvozhayev added that there were no casualties and claimed no ships were damaged, but said the explosions blew out windows in nearby buildings.

These include the Moscow House cultural center, a well-known building located outside the harbour.

But Razvozhayev downplayed the attack, saying the navy repulsed it “confidently and calmly.” He urged calm, saying the “situation was under control.”

In a later post, he dismissed reports that people were leaving Crimea, saying it was a “lie” spread by Kiev. “Information is spreading about evacuations from the peninsula through ferry crossings and other such nonsense,” he said.

Smoke rises from a building badly damaged by a Russian drone strike, amid the Russian attack on Ukraine, in the town of Rzhyshchiv, Kyiv region, Ukraine, March 22

Rescue workers work at a construction site badly damaged by a Russian drone strike, amid the Russian attack on Ukraine, in the town of Rzhyshchiv, Kiev region, Ukraine, March 22

Since Ukraine has long-range missiles through arms shipments from the West, it has intensified its attacks on targets in Crimea.

Last August, missiles destroyed several aircraft at an air base on the southwest coast of the peninsula, and Ukrainian authorities later claimed responsibility for the attack.

And on October 8, an explosion severely damaged part of the Crimean/Kerch Bridge, a massive bridge built by Russia to connect Crimea to the mainland.

Also in October, Russia’s Black Sea Fleet was hit by a major drone strike that the Kremlin blamed on Ukraine.