Many killed in a deadly Russia missile strike on a crowded restaurant ‘packed with soldiers and journalists’

Russia has launched a deadly missile attack and deliberately targeted a pizza restaurant in east Ukraine in the city of Kramatorsk.

More than 60 have been injured and at least 10 people have been killed which was full of soldiers, journalists and families.

The city’s mayor, Oleksandr Goncharenko said that a body of a young boy was pulled from the rubble of the restaurant.

Also a freelance journalist was at the RIA pizza restaurant minutes before the 7 metre Russian S300 missile blew it up.

Arnaud De Decker said that he could still hear “people screaming underneath the rubble” around an hour after the missile strike.

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“Everyone sitting in that restaurant knew, somehow, at some point, something is going to happen because if [the] Russians are smart enough they will bomb this place,” Belgian reporter De Decker told the BBC.

“It was packed with volunteers and soldiers and journalists.”

This is a picture from inside. I took it about 20 minutes before the explosions. pic.twitter.com/NaWOoCNJd9

— Arnaud De Decker (@arnauddedecker) June 27, 2023

Pavlo Kyrylenko, governor of the Donetsk region, said they are still trying to establish the number of casualties.

The governor said on Ukrainian TV, “This is the city centre. These were public eating places crowded with civilians.”

Sky News’ international affairs editor Dominic Waghorn said the restaurant is popular with foreign journalists who stop there as they make their way to report from the frontlines of the war.

He said, “For some reason, someone in the Russian military thought it would be a good idea to fire an S-300, a surface-to-air missile.

“That’s a missile that’s seven metres long, packed with explosives, normally fired from the back of a truck and designed to bring down a plane.

“It’s a pretty accurate bit of ammunition.

“So they probably knew exactly what they were firing at and unless there was a military justification for attacking a pizza restaurant, which almost certainly there wasn’t, this is an alleged war crime.”