Russia and Ukraine trade blame for attack on Kursk school

KYIV: Kyiv and Moscow traded blame on Sunday for a strike on a school in a Ukrainian-occupied town in Russia’s Kursk region, while Kyiv said new missile and drone attacks killed at least 18 people in Ukraine.

Fighting in the nearly three-year war has shown no signs of easing despite US President Donald Trump’s promise to quickly reach a ceasefire after he took office on January 20.

The Ukrainian Air Force said four people were killed in a Russian attack with a guided aerial bomb Saturday on a former school building sheltering civilians in the town of Sudzha. It said four others were seriously wounded and 80 people rescued from the rubble.

“Hitting civilians with bombs is a signature style of Russian criminals! Even when the civilians are local residents, Russians,” it said.

Russia did not give a toll, but accused Kyiv of targeting the school in a “crime that has no forgiveness and no statute of limitations”.

“The Ukrainian Armed Forces committed another war crime by launching a targeted missile strike on a boarding school in the city of Sudzha,” Russia’s defence ministry said.

Russian investigators announced they had opened a criminal case against a Ukrainian commander who they said was behind the attack.

Kyiv launched a surprise operation into the Kursk region last August, seizing dozens of villages and small towns including Sudzha — home to about 6,000 people before the fighting.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called Russia “devoid of civility”, sharing a video on social media showing a heavily damaged building, as well as a wounded man lying on the ground.

“They destroyed the building even though dozens of civilians were there,” Zelensky said in a post on X. “Russian bombs destroy Ukrainian homes the same way. And even against their own civilians, the Russian army uses similar tactics.”

Across Ukraine, at least 18 people were killed as Russian strikes pummelled the centre and east of the country overnight Friday into Saturday, according to regional authorities and police.

Fourteen people, including two children, were killed in the city of Poltava after a missile hit a residential building early Saturday, the local administration said.

Officials said at least 17 people were wounded as rescuers used cranes to comb the ruins of the smouldering building for survivors.

“On the fifth floor, a woman, my friend, was carried out,” said Poltava resident Olena Svyryd.

“She’s not alive. She was crushed by the wall. There were a lot of casualties.”

Another three people were killed at the weekend in Sumy region, and one in Kharkiv, according to Ukrainian authorities.

Each side accused the other of new attacks on Sunday. Ukraine said an elderly woman was killed in Russian shelling of the Kherson region. Russia said two people died in Ukrainian drone attacks on the Belgorod region.

Moscow has been advancing on the battlefield for over a year, and its invasion of Ukraine will this month hit the three-year mark.

The Russian military said Saturday its troops had “liberated” the village of Krymske in the northeastern suburbs of the city of Toretsk.

Toretsk in the eastern Donetsk region has been in the Kremlin’s sights for months, as its capture would enable Russia to obstruct vital Ukrainian supply routes.

Both Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin have said they are ready for talks on the war, but neither has said when or how.

Trump has been critical of the billions Washington has spent arming Ukraine, while threatening to impose additional sanctions on Russia if Putin does not reach a “deal” to end the war.