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A member of a Reuters news team was missing and two others were injured after a Russian missile attack on their hotel in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk.
Reuters said the Hotel Sapphire, where its six-person team was staying, was hit on Saturday night. “One of our colleagues is unaccounted for, while another two have been taken to hospital for treatment,” the agency said in a statement on Sunday.
“Three other colleagues have been accounted for. We are urgently seeking more information, working with the authorities in Kramatorsk, and supporting our colleagues and their families,” it added.
The Financial Times confirmed the events with one of the hospitalised journalists, but is not publishing the identities of the Reuters team at this time at the victim’s request.
The office of the prosecutor-general of Ukraine said in a statement on messaging service Telegram that it had opened a “pre-trial investigation” into the attack, which it said happened at 10.35pm local time on Saturday.
“Russian troops struck the city of Kramatorsk, probably with an Iskander-M missile,” it said. The Iskander is a ballistic missile with a range of up to 500km.
Prosecutors said the 38-year-old and 40-year-old journalists were being treated for blast-related injuries, brain contusions, leg fractures and cuts.
“Another of their colleagues is probably under the rubble,” the statement added.
Donetsk Oblast governor Vadym Filashkin said a high-rise residential building was also damaged in the attack. Emergency workers continued to search for the Reuters staff member while clearing the debris on Sunday.
Russian military bloggers and politicians boasted about the attack on Telegram, claiming falsely the Kremlin’s forces had struck an army facility.
“In Kramatorsk, a strike was carried out on the Sapphire Hotel building, where the Ukrainian Armed Forces were usually stationed, according to preliminary data,” wrote Oleg Tsaryov, a former Ukrainian MP who now supports Russia’s war against his home country.
Kyiv condemned the attack, with Ukrainian foreign ministry spokesperson Heorhii Tykhyi saying “another heinous and deliberate Russian strike hit Kramatorsk’s residential areas last night, injuring foreign media journalists in a hotel”.
“Targeted strikes on media have become Russia’s systemic war tactic. These barbaric war crimes must be condemned, prosecuted, and punished,” he wrote on social media platform X.
Russia has repeatedly attacked hotels where foreign media and humanitarian organisations have been known to stay. An attack on Hotel Kramtorsk and neighbouring eaterie Ria Pizza in June 2023 killed 13 people, including journalists and humanitarian workers, and soldiers who were dining at the restaurant.
At least 15 journalists and media workers have been killed in the line of work during the war, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.
Saturday’s attack was one in a series of Russian missile and drone strikes overnight aimed at northern and eastern Ukraine. The air force said its defences had intercepted most of the missiles and drones over the north-eastern regions of Chernihiv, Sumy and Kharkiv.
An earlier Russian attack on Saturday on a residential area in Kostyantynivka, 30km south of Kramatorsk, killed five civilians, according to local authorities.
The latest air strikes come as Ukraine presses ahead with its incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, which began on August 6. Meanwhile, Moscow’s forces in the Donetsk region have continued to advance towards the military and logistical stronghold of Pokrovsk, 80km south-west of Kramatorsk.
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