Rescue workers in the rubble of Kramatorsk’s Hotel Sapphire, 25 August 2024. Photo: SOTAvision / Telegram

A journalist with news agency Reuters was confirmed to have been killed and seven others seriously injured in a Russian missile strike on a hotel in the Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk late on Saturday night, Ukrainian public broadcaster Suspilne reported on Sunday evening.

A six-person Reuters crew was staying at the two-storey Hotel Sapphire in the city, which is located in the Ukrainian-controlled part of the Donetsk region, when a Russian Iskander missile struck the building, reducing much of it to rubble, Radio Liberty’s Ukrainian Service reported on Sunday morning.

Four journalists, two of whom worked for Reuters, were hospitalised with serious injuries, while efforts to reach a third, unaccounted for member of the Reuters team lasted for 19 hours, and had to be interrupted several times due to renewed Russian shelling of the city, according to Radio Liberty.

The Donetsk region Prosecutor confirmed on Sunday evening that a body had been recovered from the rubble of the hotel, with Donetsk Governor Vadym Filashkin later adding that the deceased was a British journalist born in 1984.

“Today in Kramatorsk, the entire day was spent clearing the rubble after a Russian missile strike,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his nightly address to the nation on Sunday evening, adding that those injured were US, UK and Ukrainian citizens who were “deliberately” targeted in an attack that he described as “calculated”.

“Seven people were injured, and one person lost their life. My deepest condolences to the families and loved ones,” Zelensky said, adding that “the world must not stop exerting pressure on the terrorist state,” and that “Russia must be forced to seek peace.”

Russian missile strikes elsewhere in frontline regions of Ukraine killed four people and injured another 37, Reuters reported on Sunday evening.