Kyiv, Ukraine — A British security adviser working with a team of journalists has been killed after a Russian missile struck a hotel in the Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk, Reuters news agency has confirmed.
Ryan Evans, 38, was staying at the Sapphire Hotel with colleagues in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine when the hotel was hit by a Russian missile on Saturday night.
Two other members of the six-person Reuters team were hospitalized with injuries.
Local officials said the hotel was hit by a Russian Iskander-M ballistic missile, leaving the journalists with blast injuries, concussions and cuts to their bodies.
Associated Press reporters at the scene described the hotel as “a pile of rubble,” with excavators being used to clear the debris hours after the attack.
In addition to the hotel, a nearby multi-storey building was also destroyed, Donetsk regional governor Vadym Filashkin said.
Ukraine’s eastern Kharkiv region has also come under fire from Russia, injuring many civilians, regional governor Oleh Syniehubov wrote on the Telegram messaging app on Sunday.
In the Chuhuiv region of Kharkiv, five people were injured, including a 4-year-old boy and a 14-year-old girl, after two houses were hit by a Russian strike.
In the city of Kharkiv, eight people were injured when a two-story house was set on fire by a Russian attack.
In Russia, five people were killed in Ukrainian shelling in the border region of Belgorod, authorities said on Sunday.
Twelve more people were injured in the Russian village of Rakitone, 38 kilometers (24 miles) from the Ukrainian border, including a 16-year-old girl who is said to be in critical condition, regional governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said Sunday. Another man also died in a separate drone attack on the border village of Solovevka, he later wrote on social media.
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