Ukrainian writer Victoria Amelina dies after Kramatorsk strike: ‘Was dining with friends’

Award-winning Ukrainian writer Victoria Amelina died from injuries she suffered after a Russian missile hit a pizza restaurant in Kramatorsk.

The war crimes researcher and novelist became the thirteenth person to die as a result of the attack which Human rights activists have branded as a war crime.

Kramatorsk is under Ukrainian control but is close to Russian-occupied areas of the country. At least 60 others were also injured in the strike. Writers’ association PEN Ukraine said that medics “did everything they could to save her life, but unfortunately the wound was fatal”.

When the missile hit, Victoria Amelina was dining with a group of Colombian journalists and writers in the Ria Lounge. She was taken to hospital in Dnipro, but succumbed to her injuries, PEN Ukraine said.

“It is with great pain that we inform you that the heart of the writer Victoria Amelina stopped beating on 1 July. In the last days of Victoria’s life, her family and friends were by her side,” the group said.

Victoria Amelina had been documenting alleged war crimes since Russian invasion of 2022 and had also started working with children near the frontline. Her first non-fiction book in English, ‘War And Justice Diary: Looking At Women Looking At War’, is due to be published.

A post on her Twitter page showsVictoria Amelina taking a photo of a bombed out building in Ukraine where she describes herself as “a Ukrainian writer. I have portraits of great Ukrainian poets on my bag. I look like I should be taking pictures of books, art, and my little son. But I document Russia’s war crimes and listen to the sound of shelling, not poems. Why?”