Ukraine: at least 3 dead and 42 injured in a strike on a restaurant in Kramatorsk
Sylvie Claire / June 28, 2023
The bodies of three deceased people, including a minor born in 2008, have been cleared from the rubble. Among the injured is a child born in 2022," the Interior Ministry said on Telegram.
The Ukrainian Emergency Situations Service reported on Telegram that 42 people were injured in the strike, which destroyed the Ria Pizza restaurant, an establishment popular with journalists and the military.
According to Ukrainian police, Russia fired two S-300 surface-to-air rockets at this pre-war town of 150,000 inhabitants, the only large Ukrainian-controlled agglomeration left in the east.
An AFP journalist at the scene of the strike saw ambulances, police, soldiers and the town's mayor near the restaurant, Ria Pizza, in front of which a crowd of residents had gathered.
A chef in a dust-covered uniform, Ruslan, 32, explained that "there were quite a few people" in the restaurant at the time of the strike, pointing to the sky: "I was lucky ».
Natalia, a woman standing outside, reported that her half-brother, Nikita, aged 23, was inside, in the area where pizzas are prepared. "They couldn't get him out (of the debris), he was covered. Tiles fell on him," she added, crying.
Kramatorsk, some thirty kilometers from the front, has been repeatedly targeted by deadly bombardments since the start of the Russian invasion.