Ukraine War: Drone Footage Shows Pizzeria Destroyed by Missile Strike

Drone footage has revealed the scale of the devastation inflicted on a pizzeria where two sisters were killed in a Russian missile strike on the eastern Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk.

Yulia and Anna Aksenchenko, both 14, were named as two of the three children killed in the attack on the bustling restaurant on Tuesday evening. A 17-year-old girl was also killed.

"Russian missiles have stopped the beating hearts of two angels," the Kramatorsk City Council's education department said.

The prosecutor general stated that 60 people, including an eight-month-old baby, were wounded in the strike, which turned the popular Ria Lounge into a twisted web of metal beams.

Footage published by Ukrainian authorities showed rescue workers operating late into the night, sifting through the wreckage in search of bodies.

Several cranes were brought in to pull large reinforced concrete beams out of the missile-hit building.

Rescuers with dogs searched the rubble in the hope of finding trapped victims left beneath mountains of crushed stone.

According to Kramatorsk mayor Oleksandr Honcharenko, the body of a boy was pulled from beneath the rubble. Search and rescue operations are ongoing.

He did not specify the boy's age, but said that emergency services had rescued at least seven survivors.

According to Ukrainian officials, Russia used two long-range S-300 surface-to-air missile systems to strike the Donbas city on Tuesday evening.

The air defense system was deployed by Moscow's troops to hit stationary ground targets in Ukraine with reduced accuracy due to the lack of built-in GPS systems in the projectiles.

British intelligence officials had previously warned that there was a "high probability" that the weapon, primarily used as an air defense system, would miss its intended targets during ground attacks.

Dozens of people were reportedly inside the Ria at the time of the blast, which occurred at around 8:00 PM local time.

Russian sources reported that Moscow's forces targeted the building because it was a regular "banquet" spot for "NATO mercenaries."

Rescuers carried one person in military uniform out from under the debris, but the majority of the victims were civilians.

Kramatorsk is a popular resting place for Ukrainian soldiers taking a break from front-line service in Donbas, as well as foreign aid workers and journalists.

Two Dutchmen who had been handing out French fries in the war-torn country reportedly survived the strike with a few cuts and scratches.

"We had just finished eating and had already asked for the check when suddenly a giant blast went off. Because part of the restaurant collapsed and fragments of the glass facade flew in all directions from the air pressure, there was blood and screaming everywhere," said one of the pair, 54-year-old Franky van Hintum.

The city has been a frequent target of Russian attacks: in April of last year, a strike on the city's railway station killed 63 people.

The latest strike damaged 18 multi-story residential buildings, 65 houses, five schools, two kindergartens, a shopping mall, an administrative building, and a recreation center.

The Ukrainian security service SBU said on Wednesday that it had detained an alleged Russian agent suspected of helping Moscow's forces direct fire at the restaurant.

The man, whose name was not disclosed by intelligence chief Vasyl Maliuk, lived in Kramatorsk and worked for a local gas logistics firm.

A second missile hit the village of Bilenke on the outskirts of Kramatorsk, leaving five people wounded.

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Sources:
The Telegraph — Kramatorsk Missile Strike