Updated: 8:40am (AEST)
Kramatorsk, Ukraine
Reuters
Two Russian missiles on Tuesday struck the eastern Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk and killed at least four people, local officials and police said, as rescue crews combed through a shattered restaurant in search of casualties.
The dead included a child while 42 people were injured at the restaurant, according to the city council in Kramatorsk, a city frequently targeted by Russian attacks. The second missile hit a village on the fringes of Kramatorsk, injuring five.
A view shows a building of a restaurant heavily damaged by a Russian missile strike, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in central Kramatorsk, Donetsk region, Ukraine, on 27th June, 2023. PICTURE: Head of the Donetsk Regional Military-Civil Administration Pavlo Kyrylenko via Facebook/Handout via Reuters
A Russian missile also hit a cluster of buildings in Kremenchuk, about 375 kilometres west in central Ukraine, exactly a year after an attack on a shopping mall there that killed at least 20. No casualties were reported in the latest attack.
In Kramatorsk, emergency workers scurried in and out of the shattered restaurant as residents stood outside embracing and surveying the damage.
The building was reduced to a twisted web of metal beams. Police and soldiers emerged with a man in military trousers and boots on a stretcher. He was placed in an ambulance, though it was not clear whether he was still alive.
Two men screamed in frenzied tones for a tow rope, then ran back towards the rubble.
“I ran here after the explosion because I rented a cafe here…Everything has been blown out there,” Valentyna, 64, told Reuters.
“None of the glass, windows or doors are left. All I see is destruction, fear and horror. This is the 21st century.”
Emergency services posted pictures online of rescue teams sifting through the site with cranes and other equipment.
Donetsk regional governor Pavlo Kyrylenko told national television that people were visible under the rubble. Their condition was unknown, he said, but “we are experienced in removing rubble”.
Video footage on military Telegram channels showed one man, his head bleeding, receiving first aid on the pavement.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in his nightly video message that the attacks showed that Russia “deserved only one thing as a consequence of what it has done – defeat and a tribunal”.
Kramatorsk is a major city west of the front lines in Donetsk province and a likely key objective in any Russian advance westward seeking to capture all of the region.
The city has been a frequent target of Russian attacks, including a strike on the town’s railway station in April, 2022, that killed 63 people. There were at least two strikes on apartment buildings and other civilian sites earlier this year.
Russia denies targeting civilian sites in what it has described as a “special military operation” since invading its neighbour in February, 2022.
Meanwhile, AP reports that Pope Francis’ peace envoy arrived in Moscow on Tuesday in hopes of helping find “a solution to the tragic current situation” of the war in Ukraine, weeks after making a preliminary visit to Kyiv, the Vatican said.
The mission by Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, a veteran of the Catholic Church’s peace initiatives, comes as the Kremlin is reeling from the weekend armed rebellion led by mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin. Russia has since dropped charges against Prigozhin and others who took part in the brief mutiny.
Details of Zuppi’s itinerary weren’t immediately clear. When he visited Kyiv earlier this month, he met with President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. In Moscow, one likely visit would be paid to the Moscow Patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church, whose leader Patriarch Kirill has strongly supported the war.
The Vatican has said Zuppi is hoping to find “paths of peace” in his shuttle missions.
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On the Moscow leg, Zuppi was accompanied by an official from the Vatican secretariat of state. His car was seen arriving at the Moscow embassy Tuesday evening, according to footage aired on Italian state-run RAI television, which said he was expected to have meetings with religious and possibly political figures in the coming days.
He is due to remain in Moscow until Thursday, which is the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul – an important day for both Catholic and Orthodox Christians.
“The principle aim of the initiative is to encourage gestures of humanity that can contribute to favour a solution to the tragic current situation and find paths to a just peace,” the Vatican statement said.
Zuppi, 67, is the Archbishop of Bologna, president of the Italian bishops conference and a veteran of the Catholic Church’s peace mediation initiatives through his longtime affiliation with the Sant’Egidio Community. Through the Rome-based charity, Zuppi helped mediate the 1990s peace deals ending civil wars in Guatemala and Mozambique, and headed the commission negotiating a cease-fire in Burundi in 2000, according to Sant’Egidio.
A pastor in Francis’ style and considered “papabile” – having the qualities of a future pope – Zuppi was tapped by Francis in May.
The Argentine Jesuit pope has repeatedly expressed solidarity with the Ukrainian people and called for peace, but he has refrained from calling out Russia or President Vladimir Putin by name.
The Vatican has a tradition of quiet diplomacy and not taking sides in conflicts, in hopes of helping forge peaceful outcomes.
– With NICOLE WINFIELD, Rome, Italy/AP
