A British journalist working for the Reuters news agency was killed and four other Western journalists injured in a Russian missile attack on a hotel in Ukraine, according to local officials.
The man’s body was only recovered from the rubble hours after the overnight Russian attack on the eastern Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk, the Ukrainian governor of the Donetsk region, Vadym Filashkin, said on Telegram.
Four journalists – German, Latvian, Ukrainian and US citizens, also working for Reuters – were recovered with fractures, cuts and other injuries.
Reuters earlier reported that one member of a six-person team staying at the hotel was still missing, while two were taken to hospital and another three were accounted for.
The Ukrainian public prosecutor’s office confirmed the building had been hit by an Iskander-M missile.
The attack was also confirmed in pro-Russian blogs. According to them, Kramatorsk was attacked with heavy FAB-1500 glide bombs. However, the bloggers said a machine-building factory and several military objects were hit.
In another deadly day in the two-and-a-half year war, six civilians were also killed in Ukrainian strikes on Russian border regions, Russian officials said.
The attacks on both sides came a day after Kyiv celebrated independence from the Soviet Union and after a prisoner of war swap between the warring sides.
Moscow has continued its strikes and advance in eastern Ukraine, despite Ukraine’s push into the Kursk region.
Kramatorsk lies around 20km (13 miles) from the front line, with fears over the city rising as Russian forces continue their push into eastern Ukraine.
Many local residents were going to bed or resting at the time of the strike.
“I was watching a film on my phone and then … there was such a noise and the glass started smashing,” 66-year-old Natalia told journalists, crying.
She said she had already evacuated once after a similar experience but came back and now will “think about” leaving again.
“It’s scary to go to bed,” she said, her voice breaking.
Another resident, 84-year-old Vasily who lives close to the hotel, was affixing plywood on his window frames after the glass smashed during the strike.
“We worry all the time … and now our turn has come,” he said, adding, “It’s about how lucky you get.”
The elderly builder said he had “seen it all”, with early childhood memories of World War Two.
Ukraine said Russian attacks on Saturday in the war-battered Donetsk region had killed seven civilians, while shelling in the Sumy border region further north had killed four.
Donetsk leader Filashkin later said that one more person was killed by shelling in the front line village of Ukrainsk on Sunday morning.
Ukrainian police said Russia had shelled some 50 settlements in the Sumy region – from where Kyiv has launched its incursion into the Russian Kursk region – on Saturday.
Kyiv said Russia also attacked the Kharkiv region at night, wounding eight people in the city of Kharkiv.
In Russia, officials said attacks on the Belgorod border region killed six civilians.
Belgorod governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said five people were killed in a strike on the village of Rakitnoye, in an attack that also wounded a dozen people.
He said 13 others were wounded, with six in a “serious condition”, including a 16-year-old in intensive care.
Gladkov later said a man was killed by a Ukrainian drone attack in the village of Solovyevka further south.
Ukraine has held on to parts of the Kursk region, in an incursion that has seen more than 130,000 people displaced.
Additional reporting by Agence France-Presse
