At least five dead as Russia strikes Pokrovsk hotel used by journalists

Russian forces launched missile strikes on the eastern Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk, killing five people and hitting a hotel used by journalists.

Kyiv said dozens were injured in the strikes which also hit a block of flats and a pizza restaurant.

Videos posted on social media after the attack on Monday showed the Druzhba Hotel had been badly damaged.

President Volodymyr Zelensky said Moscow had struck an “ordinary residential building” and published footage of a typical Soviet-era five-storey building that had its top floor destroyed.

Pokrovsk lies some 43 miles north-west of the city of Donetsk, held by Russia, about 30 miles from the front line. It had a pre-war population of around 60,000 people.

“Five people died,” Igor Klymenko, Ukraine’s minister of internal affairs, said on Telegram.

The second attack killed a high-ranking emergency official of the Donetsk region, he added.

He later said the number of wounded increased to 31.

“Among them are 19 police officers, five rescuers and one child,” said Mr Klymenko.

He added that the rubble was still “being cleared” and that “search and rescue operations are ongoing”.

Mr Zelensky had earlier warned of “victims” in the strike, sharing a video of people clearing rubble from the building.

It showed civilians helping people lying on the floor outside a building and an ordinary car covered in rubble.

The footage also showed a second building that appeared to be heavily damaged.

The head of the Donetsk region, Pavlo Kyrylenko, said the strikes damaged two “private sector residential buildings, a hotel, catering establishments, shops and administrative buildings.”

He warned of the “threat of repeated attacks” and urged residents to take shelter.

In June, a Russian missile strike killed 13 people at a popular pizza restaurant in eastern Ukraine.

More than 60 people were injured in that attack, in Kramatorsk.