Sixty feared dead following Russian air strike on school

AT LEAST 60 people are feared dead in eastern Ukraine after a Russian air strike hit a village school on Saturday.

Serhiy Gaiday, governor of the Luhansk region, said yesterday that a Russian air strike hit the main square in the village of Bilohorivka, damaging the local school and community centre.

Footage from the scene showed a large crater next to the school building, part of which has collapsed.

Mr Gaiday said 30 people have been able to leave the school building, which gave shelter to the residents whose homes had been destroyed. Two people were found dead as rescue teams scoured the ruins for survivors.

At least 60 more people, who are believed to have been inside the building at the time of the air strike, are now fear dead, the governor said.

“This is a genuine atrocity of the ‘Russian world’: a cynical strike on a school with a bomb shelter,” he said. “The Russians don’t care who they kill.” He would not specify if there were children among the victims.

Liz Truss, the Foreign Secretary, vowed to ensure Moscow was held accountable for the incident.

“Horrified by Russia’s latest attack on a school in Luhansk, resulting in the deaths of innocent people sheltering from Russian bombardment.

“Deliberate targeting of civilians and civilian infrastructure amounts to war crimes,” she said on Twitter.

There has been intensified fighting in eastern Ukraine in the past two weeks.

The Kremlin said its military operation was now focused on the Donbas region that borders Russia.

Heavy shelling in another location in the Luhansk region on Saturday killed two teenage boys and their grandmother after they left a bomb shelter to get some air, the Luhansk officials said. Two more children were severely wounded and taken to hospital.