Russia and Ukraine trade blame for Kursk school attack

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 U.S. 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 were 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 defense 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."

AFP