Twin sisters killed in missile strike in Kramatorsk, Ukraine Authorities in Kramatorsk have named two of the victims of last night’s attack as 14-year-old twins Yuliya and Anna Aksenchenko. In a Telegram post, the city’s council extended its condolences to the parents of the girls, saying that “a Russian rocket stopped the beating of the hearts of two angels”. “We share the grief of your family and together with you we bow our heads in deep sorrow,” it said. https://t.me/kramatorsk_rada/12986 https://t.me/s/kramatorsk_rada

Two twin sisters were among the children who were killed in a Russian missile attack at a restaurant in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk, authorities have said.

Yuliya and Anna Aksenchenko, 14, were among the three children reported to have died in the attack on Tuesday night, Kramatorsk City Council said in a post on private messaging app Telegram.

Describing how they would have turned 15 in September, the post read: “A Russian rocket stopped the beating of the hearts of two angels.”

In a condolence message to their parents, the council said: “In this bitter moment, we share the grief of your family and together with you we bow our heads in deep sorrow.”

Veronika Bakhal, a spokeswoman for the Donetsk region emergency services, said rescuers have recovered the bodies 10 people from the rubble. A further 56 people have been reported injured.

The third child killed In the attack was aged 17, said Ukraine’s Prosecutor General Andrii Kostin.

A second missile hit a village on the fringes of Kramatorsk, injuring five.

“Rescuers are working through the rubble of the destroyed building and searching for people who are probably still under it,” emergency service officials said on Telegram.

A Russian missile also hit a cluster of buildings in Kremenchuk, about 230 miles west in central Ukraine, exactly a year after an attack on a shopping centre there that killed at least 20 people. No casualties were reported in the latest attack.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the attacks were an “act of terror” that showed that Russia “deserved only one thing as a consequence of what it has done – defeat and a tribunal”.

The local eatery was frequented by journalists, aid workers and soldiers who use Kramatorsk as a base of operations. The city lies only a few kilometres from the front line.

Ukrainian MP Oleksiy Goncharenko posted pictures purporting to show a baby covered in blood after being wounded by fragments of the missile.

“Meanwhile, propagandists on Russian TV justify the actions of the army and claim that they hit a military facility. It looks like a small Ukrainian child is a military facility,” he said.

A pizzeria In Kramatorsk 20 minutes before the Russian missile strike.

“Rescue work continues. People are still screaming under the debris. It will be a long night” – journalist @arnauddedecker writes (the photo is by him) pic.twitter.com/tjNgpjBD7C

— Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) June 27, 2023

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 last year that killed 63 people. There were at least two strikes on apartment buildings and other civilian sites earlier this year.

Russia denies targeting civilian sites in what it has described as a “special military operation” since invading Ukraine in February 2022. (I News)

•Yuliya and Anna Aksenchenko, 14, were among the three children reported to have died in the attack (Photo: Telegram)

Update news