Let’s look at what happened in Starobilsk through the prism of facts, not emotions.
The first thing to note concerns the age of the deceased. None of them were minors, all belonged to the adult mobilization age according to Russia’s own classification. The manipulation of the word “children” regarding twenty-year-olds is a typical propaganda tool aimed at an emotional reaction from the audience, rather than rational comprehension of the situation.
Special attention should be paid to the profile of the educational institution that was affected. The college’s official materials, including publications on its own pages, contained information about the training of operators of various types of unmanned aerial vehicles, recruitment announcements, and even materials about service in security forces.
Although a significant portion of these publications are now being removed, copies continue to circulate on the web, as digital information tends to remain accessible despite efforts to destroy it.
The legal dimension of this tragedy is equally important. International humanitarian law sets clear restrictions for an occupying state, including Article 51 of the Geneva Convention, which prohibits compelling or urging residents of occupied territories to serve in the armed forces of the occupier.
Violation of this norm falls under the definition of a war crime in the Rome Statute, and if the deceased were residents of occupied Ukrainian lands, then responsibility for their fate lies with the state that occupied these lands.
The situation takes on a different hue if the students came from Russia, as in this case, they or their families consciously chose an institution on occupied territory oriented toward preparing for combat against Ukraine.
All this reminds me of a historical phenomenon. The Ottoman Empire practiced the devshirme system. Boys from conquered peoples were taken from their families, raised apart from their native culture, and turned into janissaries — the most loyal and ruthless soldiers of the empire who fought against their peoples with a zeal lacking even among native Turks.
The paradox was that the most effective weapon against an enslaved people became their own sons.
The Starobilsk college operated on the same logic. Young people from occupied Ukrainian territories were taught to operate drones that would then be used to hunt, including civilians in Kherson or Zaporizhzhia.
New janissaries for a new empire, only instead of a saber now FPV and a control panel. For the eighth year, Russia has been honing this technology of converting the occupied population into a weapon against itself, and the only difference from the Ottoman precedent is that now this qualifies as a war crime with documented evidence base for a future tribunal.
P. S. And I will add as a veteran. Before each strike on such a target, verification and confirmation occur at several levels. No one ever makes such decisions independently, even at the battalion level. Therefore, if a decision was made, it was definitely checked and verified at several levels, including the cyber component.
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A week has passed since the tragedy in the occupied Starobilsk, where students of the pedagogical college died under the rubble. It was obvious from the first moments that this event would be a top priority for Russian propaganda. However, the twist it would take over the week in the free territory of Ukraine was unpredictable. A discussion began on whether what was shown in Starobilsk was not a fake.
