Local authorities said the hotel was hit by a Russian Iskander-M ballistic missile, causing the reporters to suffer blast injuries, concussions and cuts to their bodies.
Associated Press reporters on the scene described the hotel as a “field of rubble”; hours after the attack, excavators were still being used to clear away the rubble.
In addition to the hotel, a nearby multi-storey building was also destroyed, said the governor of the Donetsk region, Vadym Filashkin.
Reuters said it was “devastated” by the loss of its security adviser. Two journalists were hospitalized in the attack, one of them seriously injured, while three others were unhurt.
Reuters said Evans “helped keep so many of our journalists safe as they covered events around the world. He was a dear colleague and friend and we will miss him terribly.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky condemned the attack. “Despite all this, the world must not stop putting pressure on the terrorist state,” he said, referring to Russia after its invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
The Russian Defense Ministry did not respond to a request for comment.
Kramatorsk – the last major city under Ukrainian control in the Donetsk region – is often used as a base for aid workers and foreign journalists.
The eastern Ukrainian region of Kharkiv also came under Russian shelling, resulting in numerous injuries among the civilian population, the region’s governor, Oleh Syniehubov, wrote on Sunday via the messaging service Telegram.
In the Chuhiiv region of Kharkiv, five people were injured, including a four-year-old boy and a 14-year-old girl, when two houses were hit by a Russian attack.
In the city of Kharkiv, eight people were injured when a two-story house was set on fire in a Russian attack.
In Russia, five people were killed in Ukrainian artillery shelling in the border region of Belgorod, officials said on Sunday.
Twelve other people were injured in the Russian village of Rakitone, 38 kilometers from the Ukrainian border, including a 16-year-old girl who is in critical condition, regional governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said on Sunday.
Another man also died in a separate drone attack on the border village of Solovewka, Gladkov later wrote on social media.
Kiev said on Sunday that it had made further advances into the Russian region of Kursk, where it launched a counteroffensive on August 6.
Zelensky claimed that Ukraine’s surprise invasion of Kursk had led to small advances – “from one to three kilometers” – and resulted in the takeover of two other Russian settlements.
Kiev’s invasion caught Russia unprepared, shook Moscow and led to the displacement of over 130,000 people. However, it did not stop the advance of Russian troops in eastern Ukraine.
Meanwhile, Ukraine accused neighboring Moscow-allied Belarus – which had allowed Russia to use its territory as a launching pad for the February 2022 invasion – of “concentrating” troops on the border and warned the country against carrying out “unfriendly” actions.
Late Sunday, Kiev said Ukrainian intelligence had discovered that Belarus was deploying equipment and troops at the border “under the guise of exercises.”
The Foreign Ministry said Ukrainian intelligence had also registered the presence of fighters from the Wagner mercenary group, some of whom have been hosted by Belarus since their leader’s failed uprising last year.
Minsk was called upon to “stop unfriendly actions and withdraw its troops from the state border of Ukraine”.
In 2022, Minsk allowed Russian troops to deploy in Belarus for “exercises” before Moscow launched its invasion in February.
Ukraine also said the military exercises in the border region posed a threat to “global security” because it was close to the Chernobyl nuclear power plant – the site of the world’s worst nuclear disaster.
Associated Press and Agence France-Presse
