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Ryan Evans, a member of the Reuters team reporting on the war in Ukraine, was killed, and two other Reuters journalists were injured in a Russian missile strike on Kramatorsk that occurred late at night on Aug. 24, the news agency said.
A total of six people have been injured in the attack, including two local female residents, Ukraine's National Police confirmed.
Two of the agency's journalists were being treated in hospital; one of them was seriously injured. "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," Reuters said.
In a statement, Reuters it said a six-person team had been staying at the Hotel Sapphire when it was hit by "an apparent missile strike." Ukraine's General Prosecutor's Office said the attack happened around 10:35 p.m. on Aug. 24.
Evans, a former British soldier, had been working with Reuters since 2022 and advised its journalists on safety around the world including in Ukraine, Israel and at the Paris Olympics. He was 38 years old.
Earlier on Aug. 25, Donetsk Oblast Governor Vadym Filashkin said in post on Telegram that two journalists had been injured and another as missing, adding they were "citizens of Ukraine, the U.S. and Great Britain."
Ukraine's State Emergency Service later said Russian forces carried out the strike with an Iskander-M ballistic missile. Filashkin said a high-rise residential building was also damaged in the attack and rescue operations were ongoing.
Kramatorsk is often used as a base for journalists traveling to and from the front lines in the east of Ukraine.
The city comes under regular Russian attacks, and a strike on a restaurant in the city center, popular with volunteers, journalists, and soldiers, in June 2023 killed 13 people and injured dozens of others.
The well-known Ukrainian writer Victoria Amelina was seriously injured in the June 2023 strike and later died in hospital.
Amelina's work has been translated into numerous languages, including English, Polish, Italian, Spanish, German, Croatian, Dutch, Czech, and Hungarian.
She founded the Niu-York Literature Festival in 2021, which took place in the front-line town of Niu-York in Donetsk Oblast. It was postponed in 2022 due to Russia's full-scale invasion.
Chris York
