Children eating pizza fall victim to Russian missile strikes in Ukraine

It was dinner time and the restaurant – a popular pizzeria in downtown kramatorsk – it was crowded with people. Shortly after 7:30 pm on Tuesday (27), a Russian missile hit the site, killing at least 10 people. For millions across the country, the attack was yet another reminder of the grim reality of life in Ukraine.

Authorities said three teenagers, including a 17-year-old girl and twin sisters Yulia and Anna Aksenchenko, 14, were among those killed in the attack. At least 61 people, including a baby, were injured in the attack, state emergency services said, warning that the death toll could rise in coming hours.

The attack – the deadliest against civilians in months – comes as Russia emerges from a major crisis triggered by a short-lived uprising led by Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the Wagner mercenary group. Prigozhin arrived in Belarus on Tuesday after staging what was Russia’s President Vladimir Putin’s biggest challenge to authority.

Rescue workers are still sifting through the rubble after having to temporarily halt work on Tuesday night because of another air raid alarm.

The people of Kramatorsk already know about Russian attacks. The eastern Ukrainian city is about 25 kilometers from the front line, according to the Institute for the Study of War assessments of the current situation on the ground.

But despite its proximity to the fighting, Kramatorsk remains a bustling city. The area around the Ria Lounge, the hit restaurant, is a particularly popular spot with a busy post office building, a jewelery shop, café and pharmacy all within walking distance of the Ria. One of the biggest supermarkets in Kramatorsk is just down the street.

Being so close to the fighting, the city is popular with soldiers looking for a break from the fighting.

A Ukrainian soldier helping with the rescue efforts told CNN that the victims he saw were “mainly youth, military and civilian; there are small children”. The soldier, who asked to be identified only by Alex, said there was a banquet for 45 people in one of the restaurants when the attack took place and that it hit “right in the center of the cafe”.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called the attack a “manifestation of terror”. “Each terror demonstration proves again and again to us and to the entire world that Russia deserves only one thing as a result of everything it has done – defeat and a court, fair and legal trials against all Russian murderers and terrorists,” he said.

Pavlo Kyrylenko, head of the Donetsk region’s military administration, said the attack used Iskanders – high-precision, short-range ballistic missiles.

European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell echoed Zelensky’s words on Wednesday. “In another display of the terror Russia is inflicting on Ukrainian civilians, a Russian cruise missile hit a restaurant and shopping center in Kramatorsk,” Borrell said in a Twitter post.

Kramatorsk has been a frequent target of bombings since war between Ukraine and Russian-backed separatists broke out in eastern Ukraine in 2014. The city was briefly occupied by separatists in 2014 but has remained under Ukrainian control ever since.

The Ukrainian Security Service claimed on Wednesday that the attack was premeditated, saying it had detained a man who allegedly searched the restaurant and sent a video to the Russian Armed Forces before the attack on Tuesday.

The man was described by Ukrainians as a “Russian intelligence agent” and a “regulator”.

“To carry out the enemy’s instructions, the GRU agent made a secret video recording of the establishment and vehicles parked nearby. Then the suspect forwarded the footage to Russian military intelligence,” the service said in a statement on Telegram.

“Having received this information, the Russian invaders fired on the cafe with people inside,” he added.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said on Wednesday that the target of the missile strike in Kramatorsk was “a temporary command post” of a Ukrainian army unit.

Separately, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that Russia “does not attack civilian infrastructure” and attacks are carried out “only on objects connected to military infrastructure”.

The frequency and intensity of attacks increased after Russia launched its full-scale war against Ukraine in February 2022. One attack in particular sparked international outrage and led to accusations that Russia deliberately targeted civilians.

In April last year, Russian forces carried out a missile attack on the Kramatorsk train station, which was being used to house civilians fleeing the fighting. More than 50 people, including several children, died in that attack, which was called “an apparent war crime” by Human Rights Watch and SITU Research.

According to his report, several hundred civilians were waiting at the station when “a ballistic missile equipped with a cluster munition warhead exploded and dropped dozens of bombs or submunitions”.

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