Russian strikes at restaurant in Ukraine kill 11, including three kids, injure 56

Russian rocket strikes in Ukraine killed at least 11 people andinjured 56on Tuesday, said the country's interior minister. Among the dead at the cafe which was hit in Kramatorsk, a town located in eastern Ukraine, include three children, two of whom were twin sisters.

"As of 07:00 (0400 GMT) on June 28, the bodies of eight dead people (including three children, two of them born in 2008 and 2011) were unblocked from under the rubble of the destroyed cafe building," the State Emergency Service of Ukraine said on Telegram.

The educational department of Kramatorsk city council said in a Telegram post,"Two sisters, both age 14, died in the missileattack."

The Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs said that the attack in Kramatorsk wounded another 56 people.

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The rocket strikes hit a restaurant in the town of Kramatorsk, one of the largest still under Ukrainian control in the east, and is a popular eatery that is frequented by both journalists and soldiers.

As per Ukrainian police, Russia fired two S-300 surface-to-air missiles at the city.The S-300 is a surface-to-air missile that cannot hit targets on the ground accurately, but have been repurposed it for loosely targeted strikes on cities.

"There were a lot of people in there -- there are children under the rubble," said Yevgen, who had been dining with two friends at the Ria Pizza restaurant.

"We were just about to leave," he said, but one of his friends was not "under the rubble", he told AFP after the blast.

As per AFP reports, a crowd quickly gathered at the site of the strike where fires broke out after the strikes as soldiers and rescue workers searched for other victims.

President Volodymyr Zelenskycondemned the missile strikes saying that S-300 missiles were used to carry out the deadly attacks.

"Exactly on the anniversary of the Russian terrorists' attack on Kremenchuk, on a shopping mall, where22 people were killed, Russian savages again fired missiles at the Kremenchuk district," he said.

"Today, Russian terrorists also brutally shelled Kramatorsk... Unfortunately, there are killed and wounded. Assistance is being provided. The rubble is being cleared."

According to Donetsk governor Pavlo Kyrylenko, two Russian rockets hit the city of 150,000 people, one of the largest still under Ukrainian control in the country's besieged east.

"There was a good crowd" at the restaurant when the missile hit, one of its cooks, a 32-year-old Ruslan, told AFP.

"I had just arrived: I was standing there, and then I was buried," he said. "I was lucky."

Natalia, in tears, explained that her half-brother Nikita, 23, was inside near the pizza oven.

"They can't get him out, he was coveredby debris," she said.

The strike also caused destruction and damaged several nearby buildings which have often been targeted by Russian forces since the invasion launched by Russia in February 2022.

"People told me they heard a plane flying, there was a hissing and then an explosion," a 19-year-old Ukrainian soldier who gave his war name as "Ghost", and was nearby when the strike occurred, told AFP.

He quickly entered the restaurant to help rescue workers. "A girl was trapped, injured. They haven't yet been able to get her out," he said.

Kramatorsk is located in Donetsk, one of the four Ukrainian provinces that Russia claimed to annex last September but does not fully control.

(With inputs from agencies)

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