‘VICTIM OF A WAR CRIME’

Ukrainian Author Dies After Russian Missile Strike on Restaurant

Victoria Amelina was critically wounded in an attack on a pizza restaurant in eastern Ukraine that killed at least a dozen other people, including a pair of 14-year-old twins.

A writer and war crimes researcher died of injuries sustained in a Russian missile strike in eastern Ukraine earlier this week, PEN Ukraine said Sunday. It was reported after the Tuesday evening attack on a popular pizza restaurant in Kramatorsk that Victoria Amelina, who had been dining there with a delegation of Colombian writers and journalists, was among those hospitalized. PEN Ukraine said that doctors had worked to save her, but that her injuries proved “fatal and incompatible with life.” She was 37. The missile strike wounded at least 60 others and killed at least 13 people, including a pair of 14-year-old twins. In an earlier statement that confirmed Amelina was among those injured in the assault, PEN Ukraine and war crimes watchdog Truth Hounds said, “There were no military objects that could have been a legal target for the attack around that day.” The statement noted that members of both groups had traveled to the war’s frontlines with Amelina many times. “Now, Victoria has become a victim of a war crime herself.”