At least eight people were killed and 56 others injured, including a Ukrainian writer and three Colombian activists, when a Russian S-300 missile fired at a popular restaurant in the center of Kramatorsk, eastern Ukraine, on Tuesday. Authorities say, AFP reports.

According to Ukrainian police, Russia fired two S-300 surface-to-air missiles at this pre-war city of 150,000, the only major urban agglomeration under Ukrainian control in the east.

As a result of the shelling, the Ria Pizza restaurant, located in the center of Gramatorsk, which is frequented by journalists and military personnel, was destroyed.

Three Colombian figures – the famous writer Hector Abad, the politician Sergio Jaramillo and the journalist Catalina Gomez, a correspondent in Ukraine for the newspaper El Tiempo – received minor injuries while eating in a restaurant together with the Ukrainian writer Victoria Amelina.

The 37-year-old Ukrainian novelist, whose works have been translated into English, German and several other languages, “is in serious condition with a head injury,” Abad and Jaramillo said in a statement.

An AFP journalist who was on the scene at the time of the attack saw ambulances, police, the military and the city’s mayor outside the Ria Pizza restaurant, in front of which a crowd of residents had gathered.

Chef Ruslan, 32, in a dusty uniform, said that “there was a crowd” in the restaurant during the attack.

Pointing to the sky, he declared that “I’m lucky.”

A woman, Natalia, who was near the restaurant, said that his half-brother Nikita, 23 years old, was inside, in the pizza preparation area.

“They cannot get him (from under the rubble). He was covered. A tile fell on him,” she said, crying.

The city of Gramatorsk, which is 30 kilometers from the front, has been subjected to bloody bombing several times since the beginning of the Russian invasion. (news.ro)

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