Reuters team member killed in Russian missile attack on Ukraine hotel

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A member of a Reuters news team was killed and two others were injured after a Russian missile attack on their hotel in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk.

Reuters said in a statement on Sunday that the Hotel Sapphire, where its six-person team was staying, was hit on Saturday night.

The office of the prosecutor-general of Ukraine said on Sunday evening that the body of a UK citizen had been recovered from the debris of the hotel.

The Financial Times understands that the dead person was the Reuters team’s security adviser. Events at the hotel were confirmed by one of the two hospitalised journalists, but the FT is not publishing the identities of the team at this time at that injured party’s request.

The prosecutor-general’s office said in an earlier statement on messaging service Telegram that it had opened a “pre-trial investigation” into the attack, which it said happened at 10.35pm local time on Saturday. 

“Russian troops struck the city of Kramatorsk, probably with an Iskander-M missile,” it said. The Iskander is a ballistic missile with a range of up to 500km.

Prosecutors said the two journalists, aged 38 years and 40 years, were being treated for blast-related injuries, brain contusions, leg fractures and cuts.

Donetsk Oblast governor Vadym Filashkin said a high-rise residential building was also damaged in the attack. Emergency workers continued to search for the Reuters staff member while clearing the debris on Sunday.

Russian military bloggers and politicians boasted about the attack on Telegram, claiming falsely the Kremlin’s forces had struck an army facility.

“In Kramatorsk, a strike was carried out on the Sapphire Hotel building, where the Ukrainian Armed Forces were usually stationed, according to preliminary data,” wrote Oleg Tsaryov, a former Ukrainian MP who now supports Russia’s war against his home country.

Kyiv condemned the attack, with Ukrainian foreign ministry spokesperson Heorhii Tykhyi saying “another heinous and deliberate Russian strike hit Kramatorsk’s residential areas last night, injuring foreign media journalists in a hotel”.

“Targeted strikes on media have become Russia’s systemic war tactic. These barbaric war crimes must be condemned, prosecuted, and punished,” he wrote on social media platform X.

Russia has repeatedly attacked hotels where foreign media and humanitarian organisations have been known to stay. An attack on Hotel Kramtorsk and neighbouring eaterie Ria Pizza in June 2023 killed 13 people, including journalists and humanitarian workers, and soldiers who were dining at the restaurant.

At least 15 journalists and media workers have been killed in the line of work during the war, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Saturday’s attack was one in a series of Russian missile and drone strikes overnight aimed at northern and eastern Ukraine. The air force said its defences had intercepted most of the missiles and drones over the north-eastern regions of Chernihiv, Sumy and Kharkiv.

An earlier Russian attack on Saturday on a residential area in Kostyantynivka, 30km south of Kramatorsk, killed five civilians, according to local authorities.

The latest air strikes come as Ukraine presses ahead with its incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, which began on August 6. Meanwhile, Moscow’s forces in the Donetsk region have continued to advance towards the military and logistical stronghold of Pokrovsk, 80km south-west of Kramatorsk.