Twin sisters aged just 14 were among 11 people killed when a missile reportedly fired by Russia struck a Ukrainian restaurant on Tuesday evening.
At least 61 people including an eight-month-old baby were also injured in the attack in the Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk, officials have said, while several people are feared to remain trapped in the wreckage.
The twins killed in the strike have been named by Iuliia Mendel, spokesperson for Ukrainian president Voldymyr Zeklensky, as Yulia and Anna Aksenchenko, who had just graduated from eighth grade and would have celebrated their 15th birthdays in September.
Kramatorsk City Council said on Telegram that a 17-year-old girl was also among those killed in the attack.
Teenage twin sisters were among those killed in a Russian missile strike in Ukraine's eastern city of Kramatorsk on Tuesday, the local city council confirmed.
— Iuliia Mendel (@IuliiaMendel) June 28, 2023
Yulia and Anna Aksenchenko, who were 14 years old, had graduated from 8th grade and would have celebrated their 15th… pic.twitter.com/PztFuzkJCE
A search and rescue mission remained underway on Wednesday at the site of the pizza restaurant, which was left pile of twisted beams.
The missile hit both the restaurant and shopping centre in the city centre just after 8pm, according to Ukraine’s interior ministry.
The Kremlin appeared to deny involvement in the attack on Wednesday, claiming Russia only strikes military targets and not civilian ones.
“As of now, rescuers have recovered the bodies of 10 people from the rubble,” Veronika Bakhal, spokeswoman for the Donetsk region emergency services, told Ukrainian television on Wednesday.
Eight people had been rescued alive from the rubble and at least three more were believed to be trapped, she said.
Kramatorsk City Council said on Telegram that bomb technicians, investigators, criminologists, paramedics, and patrol officers were contnuing to work at the scene of the tragedy, while victims and their relatives were being given “medical and psychological aid”.
Kramatorsk is a major city west of the front lines in Donetsk province and a likely key objective in any Russian advance to move westward to capture all of the region.
The city has been the frequent target of Russian attacks, including a strike on the town’s railway station in April last year that killed 63 people.
Asked about the attack, 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.”
President Joe Biden on Sunday told Mr Zelensky that the United States “will continue to stand with Ukraine and provide Ukraine with weapons and equipment to defend itself against Russian aggression,” the spokesperson said.
The missile attacks came as Vladimir Putin told Russian military leaders that they had prevented an all out “civil war” by persuading mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin to abort his armed march on Saturday.
Speaking at the Kremlin on Tuesday, the Russian president told up to 2,500 members of the military and security forces that they had saved the country from chaos.
“You have defended the constitutional order, the lives, security and freedom of our citizens. You have saved our Motherland from upheaval. In fact, you have stopped a civil war.”
He was joined by Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu, whose dismissal had been one of the mercenaries’ main demands.
Russia was plunged into crisis on Saturday after Wagner forces left Ukraine and began to move hundreds of miles towards Moscow on a “march for justice”. It followed a bitter, long-running feud between Prigozhin and Russia’s military brass.
