Russian attack that killed 10 at Ukrainian restaurant appeared to come from ‘the bottom of the earth’

Colombian writer Hector Abad, who dined at a restaurant in the Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk hit by a Russian missile, described the explosion this Wednesday as if it “came from the bottom of the earth.”

The attack killed 10 people and injured more than 60, including Ukrainian writer Viktoria Amelina, who accompanied Abad and other Colombians and is in critical condition with skull injuries.

Abad was in a restaurant with former peace commissioner Sergio Jaramillo and journalist Catalina Gomez, both Colombians, during the Russian attack on a city in the Donetsk region, in the Donbass (east).

It was “a very loud, very dry sound, and everything went flying,” Jaramillo said during a telephone conversation with the Spanish agency EFE when he returned with Abad to Kyiv.

“I fell to the ground like I was struck by lightning,” Abad said of what followed.

The Colombian writer said that he then looked at other elements of the group he had spoken to a few minutes before.

“When I managed to get up, I saw that Victoria [Amelina] she was very pale, motionless, sitting. Although we called her, she did not respond,” he told EFE.

The Ukrainian writer was taken to the hospital, where she is still being treated.

Both Abad and Jaramillo said that reality seemed to be happening “in slow motion” amid the destruction and chaos caused by the explosion.

“There were many cries of despair, horror, people running, journalists, women, young people, the elderly,” Abad said.

“And then the ambulances and people started arriving, the rescuers, the doctors,” added the writer, who has works published in Portugal such as Oculta or We Are the Oblivion We Want.

The Russian army said that the attack on Kramatorsk was aimed at the “temporary command post of the 56th motorized rifle brigade of the Ukrainian army.”

Russia has consistently denied attacks on civilians or civilian infrastructure in the war it launched against Ukraine on February 24, 2022.

Abad and Jaramillo traveled to Ukraine to participate in the Kyiv Book Fair, where they presented the Aguanta Ucrania! for the Ukrainian public.

The campaign, launched by Jaramillo, aims to show support for Ukraine from Latin America and draw the attention of the Latin American public to Ukrainian reality.

Jaramillo and Abad traveled to eastern Ukraine to learn about war crimes attributed to Russian forces in a trip that left the Ukrainian writer between life and death.

Victoria Amelina, 37, is the author of two novels and a children’s book, and in December 2021 was awarded the Joseph Conrad Literary Prize of the Kyiv Polish Institute.