Reuters safety adviser killed in strike on hotel in Ukraine

A member of the Reuters news agency team was killed and two others were injured in a strike on a hotel in the Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk.
Reuters said Ryan Evans was killed when a missile hit the hotel where he was staying while working as a safety adviser.

Three other members of the six-person Reuters team were safe and accounted for, the agency said.
“We send our deepest condolences and thoughts to Ryan’s family and loved ones. Ryan has helped so many of our journalists cover events around the world; we will miss him terribly,” Reuters said in a statement.
“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,” the news agency said.
Evans, 38, was a former British soldier who had worked for Reuters as a safety adviser since 2022.
Ukrainian authorities said his body was found in the rubble of the hotel at around 6:35 p.m. local time after a nearly 20-hour search.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy sent condolences to family and friends of Evans.
Zelenskyy added that Russia had used more than 100 missiles and drones on Saturday to target “critical civilian infrastructure.”
Regional officials said four other journalists, with German, Latvian, Ukrainian and U.S. citizenship, were injured in the strike on the hotel.
The attack hit Hotel Sapphire around 10.35 p.m. local time Saturday. The hotel had regularly been used by media and aid workers as a base when reporting in the region.
Ukraine said Russian attacks killed 15 civilians in the past day.
Reuters said it has not independently verified if the missile was Russian or if the strike was deliberate.
Vadym Filashkin, the head of the Donetsk region, said on social media site Telegram Sunday that authorities and rescue workers were on site.
“Debris clearance and rescue operations are ongoing,” he said, adding, “Seventeen private houses, six high-rise buildings, three enterprises, an administrative building and a coffee shop were damaged.”
Reuters said that Russia’s Ministry of Defense had not responded to a request for comment.
Footage shared on X by VOA sister network Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty showed rescue workers removing at least one body from the rubble, and damage to the hotel and surrounding buildings.
At least 15 journalists have been killed covering the war in Ukraine, since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, according to data by the Committee to Protect Journalists.
Six of those were foreign correspondents, including Fox News video journalist Pierre Zakrzewski and American filmmaker Brent Renaud.
Some information for this report was provided by The Associated Press and Reuters.