(Bloomberg) -- Two Reuters journalists were wounded and a third is missing after an apparent Russian missile strike on Kramatorsk in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region.
Reuters reported that the three were part of a six-person team staying at the Hotel Sapphire in the war-torn city, which is about 20 kilometers (12 miles) from the front line. Ukraine hasn’t specified the journalists’ affiliation.
“One of our colleagues is unaccounted for, while another two have been taken to hospital for treatment,” the news agency said.
Russia fired what was preliminarily assessed to have been an Iskander ballistic missile at a residential area of the city late Saturday night, striking houses and a hotel where the journalists were staying, the Ukrainian Prosecutor-General’s Office said on Telegram.
The prosecutors’ office said it had opened an investigation into the strike.
The journalists, ages 38 and 40 years, suffered concussion, broken limbs, cuts and other wounds, Ukrainian officials said. The third is missing in debris as search efforts continue.
Heorhii Tykhyi, a spokesman for Ukraine’s foreign ministry, called the strike deliberate. “Targeted strikes on media have become Russia’s systemic war tactic,” Tykhyi said on X.
Russia attacked Ukraine with eight missiles overnight, at the tail end of Ukrainian Independence Day, Air Force commander Mykola Oleshchuk said on Telegram. Most of the missiles and eight out of nine drones were intercepted.
Russia has fired around 10,000 missiles and over 33,000 glide bombs at Ukraine since it started its full-scale invasion in February 2022, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in social media posts on Sunday.
The Ukrainian leader posted a short film promoting the Palyanytsia, Ukraine’s first domestically-developed long-range missile. The projectile has already been used and help Ukrainian forces to continue strikes at Russian air bases and airplanes, Zelenskiy said.
(Updates with Ukraine foreign ministry spokesman in seventh paragraph.)
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