Russian missile hit Ukrainian restaurant in the ‘blink of an eye,’ says survivor

The atmosphere at a restaurant in eastern Ukraine was casual and relaxed on Tuesday night — until a Russian missile struck.

The attack killed at least 11 people — including three teenagers — at Ria, a restaurant in the city of Kramatorsk that was a popular spot for residents as well foreign aid workers and journalists covering the war.

“It was like a peaceful scene with people chatting to each other, like sitting and having a good time,” Wojciech Grzedzinski, a Polish photographer who was there when the bomb hit, told As It Happens host Nil Köksal.

“No one would think that this kind of thing might happen.”

WATCH | First responders search for survivors:

Grzedzinski says Ria was crowded when the missile hit. He was at his table enjoying the evening when, all of a sudden, he felt what he described as a “shock wave” hit him. 

“It was just a moment. It was just like a blink of an eye, and everything happened,” he said. 

Before he could make sense of what had happened, he was on the floor between his table and the bench he’d been sitting on, surrounded by chaos and debris. As he scrambled around for his camera, he saw a leg jutting out of the rubble. 

Russia has maintained throughout the war that it doesn’t target civilians, and Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov repeated that claim on Wednesday.

The United Nations estimates that more than 20,000 civilians have been killed in Ukraine since Russia invaded the country in February of last year.

Dozens injured, 1 arrested

The attack left 61 people wounded, Ukraine’s National Police said. As of Wednesday afternoon, officials were still searching the rubble for survivors and bodies.

The missile also damaged 18 multi-storey buildings, 65 houses, five schools, two kindergartens, a shopping centre, an administrative building and a recreational building, said regional Governor Pavlo Kyrylenko.

“Everything has been blown out there,” Valentyna, a 64-year-old woman who declined to give her surname, told Reuters at the scene of the attack. “None of the glass, windows or doors are left. All I see is destruction, fear and horror. This is the 21st century.”

Among the victims are twin sisters Anna and Yulia Aksenchenko, who would have turned 15 in September, said Ukraine’s defence ministry, which shared a picture of the smiling girls.

A 17-year-old, who hasn’t been publicly identified, was also killed, prosecutor general Andrii Kostin said.

The Security Service of Ukraine arrested a gas transportation company employee on Wednesday, accusing him of filming the restaurant for the Russians and informing them about its popularity. They did not provide evidence for allegations.

‘There were no military targets,’ says survivor

Russia, which has been dealing with internal strife after a state-affiliated mercenary group staged a short-lived armed rebellion over the weekend, said Wednesday that it had struck a Ukrainian army command post in Kramatorsk on Wednesday.

Grzedzinski says he finds the Russian narrative hard to believe.

“There were no military targets surrounding this restaurant, only civilian buildings,” he said. “This restaurant was a target and that’s it. You know, there is no other explanation.”

The strike was one of several across Ukraine late Tuesday and early Wednesday. Russian forces shelled 16 settlements in the southern Zaporizhzhia region, the Ukrainian presidential office reported, and a second missile hit a village on the fringes of Kramatorsk, wounding four people.

Kramatorsk is in Donetsk, one of four Ukrainian provinces that Russia annexed last September, but does not fully control.

The Kremlin demands that Kyiv recognize the annexations, while Kyiv has ruled out any talks until Russian troops pull back from all occupied territories.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his nightly video message on Tuesday that the attacks showed Russia “deserved only one thing as a consequence of what it has done — defeat and a tribunal.”

Grzedzinski, meanwhile, says he’s still grappling with what he experienced.

It’s “pure luck” that he survived, he said.

“If I would have picked some other table, probably we wouldn’t [be talking] right now.”

With files from Reuters and The Associated Press. Interview with Wojciech Grzedzinski produced by Chris Harbord