Ukraine war: Russian missile ‘designed to bring down a plane’ hits crowded pizza restaurant in Kramatorsk
At least 11 people have been killed – including children – and 61 injured after a Russian missile struck a pizza restaurant in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk in the Donetsk region.
A second missile hit a village on the fringes of the city, injuring five people.
“Russia doesn’t hit civilians only military targets,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov told Sky News, while Russian state TV explained the missile attacks, saying they were aimed at “NATO instructors” and that “the objective was achieved”. It presented no evidence to justify that claim.
WARNING: This story contains distressing content
“I ran here after the explosion because I rented a cafe here… Everything has been blown out there,” a woman in Kramatorsk told Reuters news agency.
“None of the glass, windows or doors are left. All I see is destruction, fear and horror.”
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Kramatorsk’s education department paid tribute to sisters Yuliya and Anna Aksenchenko, aged 14, who died in the missile attack
Officials said three girls – two sisters aged 14, and a 17-year-old – were among those killed in the explosion.
The city’s mayor, Oleksandr Goncharenko, said the body of a boy was pulled from the rubble on Wednesday morning. He did not give the child’s age.
“It is with sadness and unbearable pain that we report the death of two Aksenchenko sisters, Yuliya and Anna, students of Kramatorsk Primary School No. 24,” the city’s education department said in a statement.
“This year they graduated from the eighth grade, and on 4 September they should have celebrated their 15th anniversary, a Russian rocket stopped the beating of the hearts of two angels.”
The Russian missile strike in central Kramatorsk. Pic: Donetsk regional governor Pavlo Kyrylenko via Reuters
Pic: National Police of Ukraine via AP
Images showed the building reduced to a twisted web of metal beams with rescue teams searching the area for survivors.
The missile strike occurred on Tuesday evening in a busy shopping area – and the pizza restaurant was reported to be popular with journalists.
A freelance journalist said he was in the RIA pizza restaurant 10 minutes before it was hit.
Arnaud De Decker said that an hour after the explosions, he could still hear “people screaming underneath the rubble”.
He shared a photo of his meal on social media about 20 minutes before the attack took place.
‘Eight-month-old baby injured in explosion’
Pavlo Kyrylenko, governor of the Donetsk region, said emergency services were trying to establish the total number of casualties.
“This is the city centre. These were public eating places crowded with civilians,” he told Ukrainian television.
Ukraine’s First Lady Olena Zelenska also condemned the attack.
“Crowded place, evening – enemy do not want normal life in Ukraine,” she wrote on Twitter.
“There are a lot of wounded. It is painful.”
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Children injured in deadly attack on Kramatorsk
Ukraine’s defence ministry shared footage showing the extensive damage to local buildings and a distressed mother looking for her missing daughter, who she said worked in the restaurant that was hit.
In a statement it said: “Russia is still targeting civilians in Ukraine.”
It said children were among the dead, and an infant was injured in the blast.
Pic: National Police of Ukraine via AP
Russian missile ‘designed to bring down a plane’ hit pizzeria
Sky News’ international affairs editor Dominic Waghorn said the restaurant was popular with locals and well known to foreign journalists who would often stop there on their way to the frontline.
He said an eight-month-old baby is one of the dozens injured.
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Victim of Russian missile attack speaks
“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,” Waghorn said.
“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.”
Read more:
Dramatic footage of Wagner march show how events unfolded
Ukraine has recaptured territory held by Russia since 2014
Russia denies targeting civilians
Asked about the attack in Kramatorsk, a spokesperson for the White House National Security Council said: “We condemn Russia’s brutal strikes against the people of Ukraine, which have caused widespread death and destruction and taken the lives of so many Ukrainian civilians.”
“Strikes are carried out on objects that are connected with military infrastructure in one way or another,” Mr Peskov told reporters on Wednesday.
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Russia confirms Kramatorsk strike
Russia has repeatedly denied targeting civilians since invading Ukraine on 24 February last year.
The Russian strikes are among the first since an aborted mutiny at the weekend.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin has said he let the armed march on Moscow by the Wagner mercenaries go on as long as it did to avoid bloodshed, while the group’s boss Yevgeny Prigozhin who led the uprising has said he never intended to overthrow the government.
Russian authorities say they have closed a criminal investigation into the uprising and are pressing no armed rebellion charge against Prigozhin or his followers.
US president-elect Donald Trump has suggested Israel and Hamas could agree a Gaza ceasefire by the end of the week.
Talks between Israeli and Hamas representatives resumed in the Qatari capital Doha yesterday, after US President Joe Biden indicated a deal to stop the fighting was “on the brink” on Monday.
A draft agreement has been sent to both sides. It includes provisions for the release of hostages and a phased Israeli troop withdrawal from Gaza.
Qatar says Israel and Hamas are at their “closest point” yet to a ceasefire deal.
Two Hamas officials said the group has accepted the draft agreement, with Israel still considering the deal.
An Israeli official said a deal is close but “we are not there” yet.
More than 46,500 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since Israel launched its ground offensive in the aftermath of the 7 October attacks, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.
Read more:
What’s in the proposed deal?
Palestinians inspect the site of an Israeli strike on beachfront cafe in Deir al Balah. Pic: Reuters
Biden hails possibility of agreement
President Biden said it would include a hostage release deal and a “surge” of aid to Palestinians, in his final foreign policy speech as president.
“So many innocent people have been killed, so many communities have been destroyed. Palestinian people deserve peace,” he said.
“The deal would free the hostages, halt the fighting, provide security to Israel, and allow us to significantly surge humanitarian assistance to the Palestinians who suffered terribly in this war that Hamas started.”
Qatari mediators have sent Israel and Hamas a draft proposal for an agreement to halt the fighting.
Analysis:
Deal might be close, but there are many unanswered questions
Pic: Reuters
Trump: ‘We’re very close’
President-elect Donald Trump has also discussed a possible peace deal during a phone interview with the Newsmax channel.
“We’re very close to getting it done and they have to get it done,” he said.
“If they don’t get it done, there’s going to be a lot of trouble out there, a lot of trouble, like they have never seen before.
“And they will get it done. And I understand there’s been a handshake and they’re getting it finished and maybe by the end of the week. But it has to take place, it has to take place.”
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Pic: AP
Israeli official: Former Hamas leader held up deal
Speaking on Tuesday as negotiations resumed in Qatar, an anonymous Israeli official said that an agreement was “close, but we are not there”.
They accused Hamas of previously “dictating, not negotiating” but said this has changed in the last few weeks.
“Yahya Sinwar was the main obstacle for a deal,” they added.
Sinwar, believed to be the mastermind of the 7 October attacks, led Hamas following the assassination of his predecessor but was himself killed in October last year.
Under Sinwar, the Israeli official claimed, Hamas was “not in a rush” to bring a hostage deal but this has changed since his death and since the IDF “started to dismantle the Shia axis”.
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Biden: ‘Never, never, never, ever give up’
Iran ‘weaker than it’s been in decades’
Yesterday, President Biden also hailed Washington’s support for Israel during two Iranian attacks in 2024.
“All told, Iran is weaker than it’s been in decades,” the president said.
Mr Biden claimed America’s adversaries were weaker than when he took office four years ago and that the US was “winning the worldwide competition”.
“Compared to four years ago, America is stronger, our alliances are stronger, our adversaries and competitors are
weaker,” he said.
“We have not gone to war to make these things happen.”
The US president is expected to give a farewell address on Wednesday.
A draft ceasefire deal on the table between Israel and Hamas would see 33 hostages set free and a phased withdrawal of IDF forces from parts of Gaza.
President Joe Biden said an agreement to stop the fighting was “on the brink” and high level negotiations between the two sides resumed in Qatar on Tuesday.
The deal would see a number of things happen in a first stage, with negotiations for the second stage beginning in the third week of the ceasefire.
It would also allow a surge in humanitarian aid into Gaza, which has been devastated by more than a year of war.
Details of what the draft proposal entails have been emerging on Tuesday, reported by Israeli and Palestinian officials.
Relatives and supporters of Israeli hostages hold photos of their loved ones during a protest on 8 January. Pic: AP
Hostages to be returned
In the first stage of the potential ceasefire, 33 hostages would be set free.
These include women (including female soldiers), children, men over the age of 50, wounded and sick.
Israel believes most of these hostages are alive but there has not been any official confirmation from Hamas.
In return for the release of the hostages, Israel would free more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners and detainees.
People serving long sentences for deadly attacks would be included in this but Hamas fighters who took part in the 7 October attack would not be released.
An arrangement to prevent Palestinian “terrorists” from going back to the West Bank would be included in the deal, an anonymous Israeli official said.
Read more:
A timeline of events since the 7 October attacks
The hostages who still haven’t returned home
Smoke billows as buildings lie in ruin in Beit Hanoun in Gaza. Pic: Reuters
Phased Israeli withdrawal from Gaza
The agreement also includes a phased withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza, with IDF troops remaining in the border perimeter to defend Israeli border towns and villages.
Security arrangements would be implemented at the Philadelphi corridor – a narrow strip of land that runs along the border between Egypt and Gaza – with Israel withdrawing from parts of it after the first few days of the deal.
The Rafah Crossing between Egypt and Gaza would start to work gradually to allow the crossing of people who are sick and other humanitarian cases out of Gaza for treatment.
Unarmed North Gaza residents would be allowed to return to their homes, with a mechanism introduced to ensure no weapons are moved there.
“We will not leave the Gaza Strip until all our hostages are back home,” the Israeli official said.
What will happen to Gaza in the future?
There is less detail about the future of Gaza – from how it will be governed, to any guarantees that this agreement will bring a permanent end to the war.
“The only thing that can answer for now is that we are ready for a ceasefire,” the Israeli official said.
“This is a long ceasefire and the deal that is being discussed right now is for a long one. There is a big price for releasing the hostages and we are ready to pay this price.”
The international community has said Gaza must be run by Palestinians, but there has not been a consensus about how this should be done – and the draft ceasefire agreement does not seem to address this either.
In the past, Israel has said it will not end the war leaving Hamas in power. It also previously rejected the possibility of the Palestinian Authority, which exercises limited governing powers in the West Bank, from taking over the administration of Gaza.
Since the beginning of its military campaign in Gaza, Israel has also said it would retain security control over the territory after the fighting ends.
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