Last year’s Russian shelling of boarding school in Sudzha: analysts identified the likely perpetrators

During the Ukrainian occupation of parts of Russia’s Kurs’k region, Russian troops launched a series of strikes using various weaponry on a boarding school in Sudzha. The facility served as a shelter for civilians and housed a military command post. According to a thematic report by Truth Hounds, a member of the “Ukraine. Five AM” coalition, soldiers from the “Sever” grouping may be responsible for the attacks. The unit is under the command of Russian Colonel General Alexander Lapin.

The center of Sudzha after the February 2025 strike. A frame from a video.

Sudzha is the administrative center of the district in the Kurs’k Oblast, which had a civilian population of fewer than 7,000 until August 2024.

In the town center stands a three-story boarding school where students began their summer break on May 24, 2024. By August 2024, Ukrainian forces, acting in self-defense under Article 51 of the UN Charter, established a “buffer (sanitary) zone” in the area to prevent further strikes on border territories.

With the start of hostilities, the building was left without heat and water. At the same time, an aid distribution point was organized and a commandant’s office established, where police officers could also have been present. The Russian side uses the latter to justify the shelling, but the police mostly have civilian status because their primary function is the maintenance of order.

“Among all persons who were in the boarding school, the only ones with the status of combatants were representatives of the military commandant’s office or other individuals who had or may have had such contracts with the Armed Forces of Ukraine. However, even theoretically, if combatants or civilians participating in hostilities were present on the territory of the facility, this did not automatically make the facility a legitimate target,” analysts clarified.

Regarding the building’s status, International Humanitarian Law defines an object as a military objective only if two conditions are met simultaneously:

• Contribution to military action: The nature, location, purpose, or use of the object must make an effective contribution to military actions.
• Military advantage: Its destruction, capture, or neutralization must offer a definite military advantage under the specific circumstances at the time of the attack.

In the case of the Russian shelling of its own city, these conditions were not met. Therefore, the boarding school remained protected as a civilian object.

An illustrative image of a Russian Su-34 cockpit. This type of aircraft could have been used to strike the boarding school in Sudzha in February 2025. Photo: militaryarms

Through open sources, analysts precisely confirmed four Russian strikes near and directly on the boarding school:

• On the night of January 12, 2025, high-explosive guided aerial bombs struck an abandoned fire station across from the boarding school (one strike hit 50 meters from the building, the second approximately 100 meters away);
• During the day on January 16, 2025, drones struck vehicles carrying provisions at a time when a civilian was standing directly next to one of them, speaking with a soldier, while others were 10 meters away. As a result, two civilians sustained concussions;
• On January 31, 2025, two airstrikes were carried out at 4:23 p.m. and 4:43 p.m.;
• On February 1, 2025, at 6:54 p.m. local time, a strike was launched that caused a partial structural collapse, killing four out of more than 100 people inside, while 11 others were injured and six went missing. That same day, Russians launched an additional strike targeting those responding to the aftermath.

Analysts focused on the final episode. The strike was most likely carried out by a Su-34 from the airfield in Buturlinovka, located in the Voronezh Oblast, 375 kilometers from the boarding school. This airfield could have been used for refueling or aircraft maintenance.

In addition to this site, the report analyzes equipment activity at five other nearby airfields: Marinovka, Savasleyka, Akhtubinsk, Maykop, and Mozdok.

Map of Russian airfields near Sudzha analyzed in the Truth Hounds report

As of early 2025, Sudzha was part of the territory under the administration of the Russian “Sever” grouping of forces. The commander of the grouping is Colonel General Alexander Lapin, who is suspected in Ukraine of committing war crimes.

Russia also involved Lieutenant General Apti Alaudinov, Deputy Chief of the Main Military-Political Directorate of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation and commander of the “Akhmat” special forces unit, in the fighting in the Kurs’k region. He is likewise suspected of war crimes in Ukraine.

Alexander Lapin and Apti Alaudinov

Russia has provided no materials to confirm the February strike, while the Ukrainian side has presented screenshots from the “Virazh-Planshet” application — an automated system for collecting air-situation information.

Officially, the Russian Federation issued a notice of suspicion against the commander of the 19th Missile Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine under an article concerning a “terrorist attack.”

Summarizing their research, human rights defenders state that the shelling of the boarding school bears the hallmarks of a war crime, an assessment that is not affected by jurisdiction or the specific bodies conducting the investigation.

“The shelling goes far beyond a single incident, as it serves as yet another confirmation of a systemic practice by the Russian side: deliberate attacks on the civilian population and civilian objects. This case clearly demonstrates that in the course of the armed conflict, the Russian authorities are prepared to sacrifice even the lives of their own citizens, using indiscriminate or intentional strikes on civilians as a distinct element of military strategy,” the analysts stated.

To provide background, Truth Hounds analysts have released numerous studies throughout the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, and ZMINA has provided detailed coverage of the following:

Ось дослівний переклад переліку розслідувань за стандартами AP Style. Я максимально зберіг структуру та лексику оригіналу, щоб ці назви точно відбивали зміст звітів Truth Hounds та публікацій ZMINA.

• With what, from where, and who launched the strike on the hospital in Mykolaiv on March 21, 2022;
• Who is responsible for the Russian strike on the drama theater in Chernihiv in August 2023;
• How Russians deployed a campaign of abductions, torture, and killings of Zaporizhzhia NPP personnel and residents of Enerhodar during the occupation;
• Who and from where launched the strikes on the cafe in Kramatorsk and the village of Bilenke in 2023;
• How the Russian army destroyed Mariupol and why this is a demonstrative example of the methods of warfare chosen by the Russian military-political leadership;
• The impact of the Russian detonation of the Kakhovka HPP on ecosystems, farmers, and civilian life in general;
• Double-tap strikes on those responding to the aftermath of shelling as a fundamental aspect of the Russian method of warfare;
• Over more than three years, Russians have shelled hotels in Ukraine more than three dozen times, which may be their strategy.