At least eight people have been killed – including three children – and 56 injured after a Russian missile struck a pizza restaurant in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk in the Donetsk region.
A second missile hit a village on the fringes of the city, injuring five people.
“I ran here after the explosion because I rented a cafe here… Everything has been blown out there,” a woman in Kramatorsk told Reuters news agency.
“None of the glass, windows or doors are left. All I see is destruction, fear and horror.”
Russia-Ukraine war latest: Video shows devastation caused by Kramatorsk missile attack
The Russian missile strike in central Kramatorsk. Pic: Donetsk regional governor Pavlo Kyrylenko via Reuters
Pic: National Police of Ukraine via AP
“Rescuers are working through the rubble of the destroyed building and searching for people who are probably still under it,” emergency service officials said on the Telegram messaging app.
The missile strike occurred on Tuesday evening in a busy shopping area – and the pizza restaurant was reported to be popular with journalists.
A freelance journalist said he was in the RIA pizza restaurant 10 minutes before it was hit.
Arnaud De Decker said that an hour after the explosions, he could still hear “people screaming underneath the rubble”.
He shared a photo of his meal on social media about 20 minutes before the attack took place.
Images showed the building reduced to a twisted web of metal beams with rescue teams combing the area for survivors.
Pavlo Kyrylenko, governor of the Donetsk region, said emergency services were trying to establish the total number of casualties.
“This is the city centre. These were public eating places crowded with civilians,” he told Ukrainian television.
Ukraine’s First Lady Olena Zelenska also condemned the attack.
“Crowded place, evening – enemy do not want normal life in Ukraine,” she wrote on Twitter.
“There are a lot of wounded. It is painful.”
Pic: National Police of Ukraine via AP
Ukraine’s defence ministry shared footage showing the extensive damage to local buildings and a distressed mother looking for her missing daughter, who she said worked in the restaurant that was hit.
In a statement it said: “Russia is still targeting civilians in Ukraine.
“At least eight people, including three children, have died and 56, including an infant, have been injured.”
Asked about the attack in Kramatorsk, a spokesperson for the White House National Security Council said: “We condemn Russia’s brutal strikes against the people of Ukraine, which have caused widespread death and destruction and taken the lives of so many Ukrainian civilians.”
Russia has repeatedly denied targeting civilians since invading Ukraine on 24 February last year.
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The Russian strikes are among the first since an aborted mutiny at the weekend.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has said he let the armed march on Moscow by the Wagner mercenaries go on as long as it did to avoid bloodshed, while the group’s boss Yevgeny Prigozhin who led the uprising said he never intended to overthrow the government.
Russian authorities say they have closed a criminal investigation into the uprising and are pressing no armed rebellion charge against Prigozhin or his followers.
