ALBAWABA - Ryan Evans, Reuters safety adviser, and former soldier, was killed in a Russian airstrike on the hotel he was staying in Kramatorsk, Donetsk, the news agency reported.
Evans was part of a six-person team staying at the Hotel Sapphire on Saturday when a Russian missile strike targeted them, where he was killed in addition to two Reuters journalists being 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.
According to the agency, the three other Reuters staff members who were inside the hotel during the strike have been reported missing and are now safe and accounted for.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that a Russian Iskander ballistic missile, which has a maximum range of 500 kilometers, had struck the hotel.
During his evening press conference on Sunday, Zelenskyy stated: "An ordinary city hotel was destroyed by the Russian Iskander. absolutely purposeful, thought out ... my condolences to family and friends,".
Zelenskiy said on Sunday night that two additional areas in the Kursk region had been taken over by Kyiv's soldiers, who had moved up to 3 kilometers in that direction.
Five persons were reportedly killed by Ukrainian shelling at Rakitnoye, a town in the Belgorod region east of the incursion area and south of Kursk, according to Russian sources. Vyacheslav Gladkov, the regional governor of Russia, said that 13 more people had been hurt.
For almost a year, Russia has been striking hotels located in frontline regions. Seven people were killed in August of last year in a missile attack on the Druzhba hotel in Pokrovsk, which is located in the Donetsk area. In January, a hotel blast in Kharkiv injured eleven people.
