In the early morning of August 25, 2024, Russia launched an attack on the town of Kramatorsk, and Ukrainian emergency services conducted a search and rescue operation in the rubble of a destroyed hotel.
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Ryan Evans, a member of the Reuters reporting team war in ukraineReuters said on Sunday that an attack on a hotel in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk killed one Reuters reporter and injured two Reuters reporters.
Reuters said in a statement that Evans, who served as a security adviser to the agency, died on Saturday after a missile struck the Sapphire Hotel, where he was staying as part of a six-person team.
Two of the agency’s journalists are being treated in hospital; reports say one of them was seriously injured.
“We are urgently seeking more information about the attack, including working with authorities in Kramatorsk, and we are supporting our colleagues and their families,” Reuters said.
Evans, a former British soldier, has been working with Reuters since 2022, providing Reuters journalists with security advice around the world, including in Ukraine, Israel and the Paris Olympics. He is 38 years old.
Reuters said: “Our deepest condolences and thoughts go out to Ryan’s family and loved ones. Ryan helped many of our journalists cover events around the world; he will be greatly missed.”
The agency said three other members of the Reuters team who were at the hotel at the time of the attack had been located and were safe.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said the hotel was hit by a Russian Iskander missile, a ballistic missile that can strike from a range of 500 kilometers (310 miles).
“An ordinary city hotel was destroyed by the Russian Iskander,” he said in a speech on Sunday evening, adding that the strike was “definitely purposeful and well thought out… My condolences to my family and friends ”.
The Russian Defense Ministry did not respond to a request for comment.
Reuters could not independently verify whether the missile that hit the hotel was launched by Russia or whether it was a deliberate attack on the building.
The Donetsk Provincial District Prosecutor’s Office said in a telegram earlier that the body of a British citizen was found in the rubble of a hotel building in Kramatorsk.
The hotel was said to have been “destroyed” at 10:35 pm local time (1935 GMT) on Saturday, “possibly with an Iskander-M missile”. The prosecutor’s office has launched a pretrial investigation into the strike, the statement said.
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