Kramatorsk: Authorities reported Tuesday that a Russian missile strike that struck a restaurant in Kramatorsk, eastern Ukraine, resulted in at least eight fatalities and more than 40 injuries.
Two S-300 surface-to-air missiles had been fired at the city, according to Ukrainian police.
"Three bodies, including a child born in 2008, have been pulled out of the rubble. A child born in 2022 was one of the injured, the interior ministry announced on Telegram.
47 people were hurt, according to the Ukrainian emergency service, in the strike that destroyed the well-known Ria Pizza restaurant, which was reported on Telegram.
Yevgen, who was out with two friends, said, "There were a lot of people in there — there are kids under the rubble.
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We were about to leave," he said, but after the explosion, he told AFP that one of his friends was now "under the rubble."
Three Colombians who were visiting Ukraine to show their support, including the author Hector Abad, were slightly hurt in the incident. Soldiers and rescue personnel searched for additional victims as a crowd quickly gathered at the scene, where fires were still blazing.
The governor of Donetsk, one of the biggest cities in the besieged east of the country still under Ukrainian control, Pavlo Kyrylenko, claimed that two Russian missiles had struck the city, which once had a population of 150,000.
Ruslan, a 32-year-old cook at the establishment, told AFP that "there was a good crowd" there when the missile struck.
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"I had just arrived: I was standing there, and then I was buried," he remarked. I was fortunate. Weeping, Natalia revealed that her 23-year-old half-brother Nikita was inside, close to the pizza oven.
She said, "They can't get him out, he was covered" in debris. In the attack on the city, which Russia has frequently targeted since its invasion in February 2022, several nearby buildings were also damaged.
About 30 kilometres (18 miles) separate Kramatorsk from the front line. A 19-year-old Ukrainian soldier who was present when the attack took place claimed, "People told me they heard a plane flying, there was a hissing, and then an explosion."
He hurried into the eatery to assist the rescuers. "A girl was hurt and trapped. They still haven't been able to free her, he claimed.