A member of the Reuters news agency was killed and two of its journalists were injured when a missile struck a hotel in eastern Ukraine where they were staying, Reuters said in a statement Sunday.
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Reuters safety adviser killed, journalists injured in hotel strike in Ukraine
“We are urgently seeking more information about the attack, including by working with the authorities in Kramatorsk, and we are supporting our colleagues and their families,” said the statement posted on X by Reuters’ press team.
Two journalists were in the hospital; one of them was being treated for serious injuries, the news agency said. Three other team members had been accounted for and were safe, it said. No further details were provided about the other team members.
According to a Reuters news article on the attack, Evans, 38, was a former British soldier who had been working for the agency since 2022, providing safety advice in places including Ukraine, Israel and at the Paris Olympics.
Numerous journalists have been killed or wounded during the years-long Ukraine conflict. News outlets often enlist safety advisers with military backgrounds in a bid to protect their correspondents in war zones.
The eastern Donetsk region has experienced some of the fiercest fighting of the conflict, because of its location near the front line. Journalists sometimes embed there with combat units, within miles of Russian forces.
Ukraine’s state emergency service said the two-story hotel was partially destroyed after it was struck by a Russian Iskander missile, a ballistic missile capable of traveling long distances. Emergency services searched the building for survivors on Sunday, combing through some 60 tons of rubble, according to a post on Telegram.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky blamed Moscow for the attack in his nightly address Sunday.
“An ordinary city hotel was destroyed by a Russian Iskander missile — deliberately, purposefully,” he said. “This strike injured seven people and took one life.”
The Washington Post was unable to independently verify whether the missile was fired by Russia, or if the hotel was deliberately targeted. Russia’s defense ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In a regular update on Telegram, the Russian defense ministry said its military had thwarted Ukrainian attempts to carry out attacks on Russian territory Sunday.