Russian forces attacked a hotel in Kharkiv late Wednesday known to house foreign journalists, leaving 13 injured, including at least one Turkish reporter covering the Kremlin’s indiscriminate assaults on Ukraine.
Two Russian missiles slammed into the Park Hotel in the center of Kharkiv at about 10:30 p.m. local time, according to Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov, just about the time when the more than two dozen guests of the hotel would’ve likely been settling in for the night.
An Anadolu journalist was among those injured in the onslaught, according to Terekhov. The Turkish news agency confirmed separately that two of its correspondents had been sent to a hospital after getting caught up in the attack; one of them, reporter Davit Kachkachişvili, was said to have suffered cuts to his hands.
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Local authorities said an elderly woman was also wounded in the strike, along with several other civilians who just happened to be staying at the hotel.
Footage from the scene showed medics rushing to treat the more severely wounded, including a man carried out on a stretcher who was covered in blood and crying out in pain.
“Russian strikes against civilians continue. Russian propagandists tell their out-of-touch citizens about mercenaries living in hotels. For them, mercenaries are civilians, children...” Andriy Yermak, the head of the Ukrainian president’s office, wrote on Telegram.
Volodymyr Timoshko, the head of the National Police in the Kharkiv region, said the main target of the missile strike was the foreign journalists staying at the hotel to cover the war.
The attack came less than a week after the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists demanded an investigation into missile attacks targeting journalists in Ukraine.
“Journalists who risk their lives covering Russia’s war in Ukraine are civilians under international humanitarian law and should never be viewed as combatants,” Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator, said in a statement on Jan. 5.
Russian forces have routinely fired missiles at popular gathering spots for foreign journalists and volunteers. On Dec. 30, the Kharkiv Palace Hotel was hit, injuring a producer for German public broadcaster ZDF.
In August, Russian forces lobbed Iskander ballistic missiles at the Druzhba hotel in Pokrovsk, in the Donetsk region, killing seven people. Foreign journalists were known to favor both the hotel and a nearby pizzeria that was also destroyed.
In July, award-winning Ukrainian writer Victoria Amelina was killed in a Russian attack on a pizzeria in the Donetsk region frequented by journalists. Ten others were killed in that strike as well.
Christina Lamb, chief foreign correspondent for the Sunday Times, suggested on X that the latest strike was “deliberate targeting to put people off reporting Ukraine.”
But, she added, “Rest assured we won’t.”
