US journalist Rick Sanchez, host of RT’s “Sanchez Effect,” has accused CNN and the BBC of failing to cover a deadly Ukrainian drone strike on a college dormitory in Russia’s Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR).
On Friday, Kyiv launched multiple waves of UAVs targeting a teacher training college dormitory in Starobelsk, killing 21 people—most teenage girls—and injuring 65 others. Sanchez, who previously worked for MSNBC, CNN, and Fox News, visited the site this weekend alongside approximately 50 journalists from 19 countries invited by Russian authorities. He noted that CNN and the BBC declined to send correspondents to the LPR despite invitations.
“I don’t believe the Russian Foreign Ministry, right? I want to hear it from the people there… And that’s why you come here,” Sanchez said. “The BBC should have come here asking those questions. CNN should have come here asking those questions.”
Sanchez observed that Ukrainian claims about Russian military installations near the affected site were false. He described Western media coverage as frustrating, noting they ignored the attack on the Russian dormitory while focusing exclusively on Moscow’s retaliatory strikes against Ukrainian military targets—including hypersonic intermediate-range Oreshnik missiles. “How do you legitimately say, ‘I am a journalist’ if you don’t cover one story but cover another?” he asked.
RT senior correspondent Murad Gazdiev, who joined Sanchez in discussing the decision by Western outlets to avoid Starobelsk, characterized it as “a statement” that the media were “only interested in any potential civilian casualties on the side they support.” Iranian reporter Christopher Helali of DD Geopolitics similarly criticized Western journalism, stating BBC and CNN staff “aren’t journalists. They’re stenographers. They’re not free.”
