Victoria Amelina: Ukrainian writer dies after Russian missile strike on Kramatorsk pizzeria

War crimes researcher Victoria Amelina, 37, became the 13th person to die from the attack
Victoria Amelina, 37, died from her injuries in hospital
Matt Watts3 July 2023

An award-winning Ukrainian writer has died from her injuries after a Russian missile hit a pizza restaurant in the eastern city of Kramatorsk.

Victoria Amelina, 37, a war crimes researcher, became the 13th person to die from the attack on Tuesday.

She had been dining with a delegation of Colombian journalists and writers in the city’s popular Ria Lounge when the missile hit.

Around 60 others were injured in the attack, while others to die included twin sisters Anna and Yuliia Aksenchenko.

Human rights activists have branded the attack a war crime.

Aftermath of a Russian missile attack in Kramatorsk
The aftermath of a Russian missile attack in Kramatorsk
via REUTERS

Ms Amelina was rushed to hospital in Dnipro, but succumbed to her injuries on Saturday, 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,” the group said in a statement.

“In the last days of Victoria’s life, her family and friends were by her side.”

Amelina was one of Ukraine’s most celebrated young writers who started documenting war crimes after Russia’s full-scale invasion last year. She also started working with children near the frontline.

Last year she unearthed the diary of children’s writer Volodymyr Vakulenko, who was abducted and killed by Russian troops in the city of Izyum soon after the invasion.

Her first non-fiction book in English, War and Justice Diary: Looking at Women Looking at War, is due to be published.

A post pinned to her Twitter profile shows Amelina taking a photo of a bombed building in Ukraine.

“It’s me in this picture,” the post reads.

“I’m 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?”

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