KYIV, Ukraine (AFP) – A British security consultant working with a team of Reuters journalists was killed when a Russian missile hit a hotel in the Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk, Reuters news agency has confirmed.
Ryan Evans, 38, was staying at the Safir Hotel with colleagues in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine when he was hit by a Russian missile on Saturday evening.
Two other members of the six-member Reuters crew were taken to hospital for treatment after being wounded.
Local officials said the hotel was hit by a Russian Iskander-M ballistic missile, leaving the journalists with blast injuries, concussions and body wounds.
Associated Press reporters at the scene described the hotel as “rubble,” with excavators being used to remove debris hours after the attack.
Donetsk region governor Vadim Vilashkin said the adjacent multi-storey building was also destroyed along with the hotel.
The Kharkiv region in eastern Ukraine also came under Russian fire, wounding several civilians, the region’s governor, Oleh Sinyubov, wrote on the Telegram messaging app on Sunday.
In the Chuhuiv district of Kharkiv, five people, including a 4-year-old boy and a 14-year-old girl, were injured after two houses were hit by a Russian airstrike.
In the city of Kharkiv, eight people were injured when a two-storey house caught fire due to a Russian attack.
In Russia, officials said Sunday that five people were killed in Ukrainian shelling in the border region of Belgorod.
The region’s governor, Vyacheslav Gladkov, said on Sunday that 12 more people were wounded in the Russian village of Rakitoni, 38 kilometers (23 miles) from the Ukrainian border, including a 16-year-old girl who was reported to be in critical condition. Another man died in a separate drone attack on the border village of Solovyovka, he later wrote on social media.
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