Russian missile slams into Ukraine restaurant, 9 dead

A man stands in front of the shop and restaurant RIA Pizza destroyed by a Russian attack in Kramatorsk, Ukraine Tuesday. Pic/AP

A Russian missile attack that hit a crowded pizza restaurant in an eastern Ukrainian city killed at least nine people, including three children, authorities said Wednesday, as rescue workers continued searching in the destroyed building's rubble. The Tuesday evening attack on Kramatorsk wounded another 56 people, the Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs said, in the latest bombardment, a tactic Russia has used heavily in the 16-month-old war.

Two sisters, both age 14, died as result of the attack, the educational department of the Kramatorsk city council said. Russian missiles stopped the beating of the hearts of two angels," it said in a Telegram post. The other dead child was 17, according to Prosecutor General Andrii Kostin.

The attack, using what officials said were S-300 missiles, also damaged 18 multi-storey buildings, 65 houses, five schools, two kindergartens, a shopping center, an administrative building and a recreational building, the regional governor, Pavlo Kyrylenko, said. The S-300 is a surface-to-air missile that cannot hit ground targets accurately, but Russia's forces have repurposed it for loosely targeted strikes on cities.

Kramatorsk is a front-line city that houses the Ukrainian army's regional headquarters. The pizza restaurant was frequented by journalists, aid workers and soldiers, as well as locals. It's located in Donetsk, one of four Ukrainian provinces that Russia claimed to annex last September but does not fully control. Russia has also occupied Crimea since 2015.

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