British journalist killed in Russian attack, Ukraine says

A British journalist working for the Reuters news agency was killed and four other Western journalists injured in a Russian missile attack on a hotel in Ukraine, local officials said on Sunday.

The man's body was only recovered from the rubble hours after the overnight Russian attack on the eastern Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk, the Ukrainian governor of the Donetsk region, Vadym Filashkin, said on Telegram.

Four journalists - German, Latvian, Ukrainian and U.S. citizens, also working for Reuters - were rescued and suffered fractures, cuts and other injuries.

Reuters earlier reported that one member of a six-person team staying at the hotel was still missing, while two were taken to hospital and another three were accounted for.

The Ukrainian public prosecutor's office announced that the building had been hit by an Iskander-M missile.

The attack was confirmed in pro-Russian blogs. According to them, Kramatorsk was attacked with heavy FAB-1500 glide bombs. However, the bloggers said that a machine-building factory and several military objects were hit.

Five people were meanwhile killed by Ukrainian shelling in the settlement of Rakitnoye in the western Russian region of Belgorod, the local authorities said on Sunday.

"The number of injured has risen to 13," Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov wrote on his Telegram channel. Several minors are among those wounded, and some are said to be seriously injured.

Twelve residential buildings, two shops and seven cars were damaged in the bombardment. Rakitnoye is located just over 10 kilometres from the Ukrainian border. Around 10,000 people live in the settlement.

Heavy Russian fire on eastern Ukraine's Sumy region killed four and injured at least 13 others, according to local officials.

Some 260 attacks from various weapons were documented in the past 24 hours in the Sumy area, considered the main supply line for Ukrainian troops in the western Russian region of Kursk.

In addition to fresh troops, ammunition and other support for the soldiers are also brought to the front line through the city.

In early August, Ukrainian troops began an incursion into Kursk, which borders the Sumy area, seeking to force Moscow to the negotiating table to end the war launched by the Kremlin in 2022.

It is the first time that Kiev has shifted the war onto Russian soil. Ukrainian forces have been fending off Russia's full-scale invasion since February 2022. Russia continues to occupy large parts of eastern and southern Ukraine.