By Max Hunder
KRAMATORSK, Ukraine (Reuters) -Two Russian missiles struck the eastern Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk on Tuesday and killed at least four people, police and the military said, as rescue crews combed through a shattered restaurant in search of casualties.
Ukraine’s national police put the toll in the 8 p.m. strike at four dead and 42 injured.
Emergency workers scurried in and out of the restaurant as residents stood outside embracing and surveying the damage from the strike.
The building was reduced to a twisted web of metal beams. Police and soldiers emerged carrying a stretcher bearing a man in military trousers and boots. He was placed in an ambulance, though it was not clear whether he was still alive.
Two men screamed in frenzied tones for a tow rope, then ran back towards the rubble.
“I ran here after the explosion because I rented a cafe here. … Everything has been blown out there,” Valentyna, 64, told Reuters.
“None of the glass, windows or doors are left. All I see is destruction, fear and horror. This is the 21st century.”
Video footage posted by the Donetsk regional governor Pavlo Kyrylenko showed wailing emergency vehicles pulling into the affected area and rescue teams in protective equipment moving in the building’s shattered structure.
Other footage on military Telegram channels showed one man, his head bleeding, receiving first aid on the pavement.
Kramatorsk is a major city west of the front lines in Donetsk province and a likely key objective in any Russian advance westward seeking to capture all of the region.
The city has been a frequent target of Russian attacks, including a strike on the town’s railway station in April 2022 that killed 63 people.
Russia denies targeting civilian sites in what it has described as a “special military operation” since invading its neighbour in February 2022.
(Writing by Ron Popeski, editing by Chizu Nomiyama, Leslie Adler, Mark Heinrich and Cynthia Osterman)
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