Image source, Reuters

More on the deadly missile strike on the city of Kramatorsk in Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region.

In the latest update, regional head Pavlo Kyrylenko told Ukrainian TV that Russia's "targets were civilian facilities" in the city.

He said the nearby village of Bilenke was also hit by Russia's Iskander missiles on Tuesday evening in what were two near-simultaneous strikes.

Kyrylenko said the death toll in Kramatorsk, where a popular cafe was destroyed, remains at 10, as rescuers continue searching the rubble. Dozens of people were injured.

Three people were wounded in Bilenke, he added.

Investigating Prigozhin’s whereaboutspublished at 14:14 British Summer Time 28 June 2023

14:14 BST 28 June 2023

BBC Verify has been working to establish the whereabouts of Yevgeny Prigozhin since his aborted "march of protest" on Saturday.

The Wagner chief’s last confirmed sighting was on Saturday night in Rostov-on-Don, Russia. This was shortly after he’d reportedly agreed to a deal that would see him relocate to Belarus.

Yesterday we reported that a plane linked to Prigozhin had flown from St Petersburg, Russia to a military base in Minsk – the Belarusian capital. Not long afterwards Belarus’ president, Alexander Lukashenko, said Prigozhin had arrived in the country.

Last night the plane left Minsk and headed towards Moscow. Its GPS was switched off for take-off and landing, but the destination seems clear from the flight path. It later flew to St Petersburg.

However, we cannot confirm if Prigozhin was onboard.

Meanwhile, we’ve also been tracking the movements of a second plane, which landed at the same Minsk airbase yesterday. We’re not sure who the owner is.

That plane also travelled to St Petersburg last night and is currently in the air again – destination as yet unknown.

BBC Verify will continue to monitor tracking sites and social media for any clues as to Prigozhin’s whereabouts.

Local residents in Kramatorsk have been watching the events unfold since last night.

Valentina owns a cafe close to where the strike hit. "Everything has been blown there, there is nothing, no windows, no doors," she said.

Many have been watching people being rescued from the rubble.

The Ukrainian Prosecutor-General's Office (PGO) said it has identified a resident of Kramatorsk who may have helped Russia direct the missile that hit the restaurant last night.

The PGO said on Telegram that the suspect sent a video of the restaurant and nearby cars to a representative of the self-proclaimed, Russia-controlled Donetsk People's Republic shortly before the attack.

Ukraine's security service SBU said the suspect was arrested.

The claims have not been independently verified.

Frank Gardner
Security Correspondent

Image source, AFP

The prospect of an unknown number of Wagner mercenaries turning up in Belarus is deeply unwelcomed by its Nato neighbours in Eastern Europe. Officials in the Baltic states say they are closely monitoring the situation.

The Wagner Group recruited heavily from Russian penal colonies, promising convicts their freedom if they survived six months on the battlefront in Ukraine.

Thousands of convicted murderers, rapists and robbers swelled the ranks of Wagner, many of whom perished in the intense fighting around Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine.

But following last weekend’s aborted mutiny by Yevgeny Prigozhin and some of his men, a deal on the future of Wagner has been thrashed out between him, the Kremlin and the Belarus leader, President Lukashenko.

While the exact details of the deal appear to be still under negotiation, Russia has given Wagner fighters three choices: join the mainstream Russian army, go home or go to Belarus.

It is not yet clear how many will go to Belarus, which borders Nato members Poland, Latvia and Lithuania, nor what they will do there.

But Belarus has offered them a camp and there are concerns in Nato about the presence of battle-hardened mercenaries and former convicts setting up camp so close to its borders.

Polish President Andrzej Duda has arrived in Kyiv for talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, his office said.

Their talks will revolve around the current state of fighting in Ukraine, “including the threat of a Russian attack on the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant", according to Duda's office.

The two leaders will also prepare for July’s NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania.

Lyse Doucet
Chief International Correspondent

“They almost bumped us off,” reflects former Colombia peace negotiator Sergio Jaramillo Caro, who was sitting in the RAI pizzeria in Kramatorsk when it came under attack on Tuesday.

"We suffered only minor injuries," Jaramillo, Colombia’s former High Commissioner of Peace, tells the BBC.

Colombian journalist Catalina Gomez, and leading novelist and editor Héctor Abad Faciolince were all eating dinner at the same table when Russian missiles slammed into the popular restaurant.

They are in Ukraine gathering information for their organisation "¡Aguanta Ucrania!" which campaigns to strengthen the solidarity of Latin American countries with Ukraine.

But a leading Ukrainian writer sitting with them, whose identity is not being disclosed, is “now fighting for her life,” Caramillo says. “She's in a critical condition."

“Please pray for her,” he pleaded.

Sarah Rainsford
BBC Eastern Europe Correspondent, in Warsaw

Image source, Reuters

Days after he led a mutiny that Vladimir Putin claimed was so dangerous it could have sparked civil war, there are indications that Yevgeny Prigozhin is not only still a free man but even, possibly, back in Russia.

He hasn’t been heard of in person since an audio recording he released on Monday afternoon.

On Tuesday, the leader of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, confirmed that the Wagner group head was in the country. But that same evening, a plane linked to Yevgeny Prigozhin took off again from near Minsk and flew towards Russia.

Tracking data shows the plane first heading towards Moscow and then later for Prigozhin’s hometown of St Petersburg. It landed in the early hours of Wednesday morning.

We don’t know whether the Wagner leader was on board, but we believe this is the business jet he used to fly to Belarus yesterday. A second plane, whose movements have mirrored those of the first in recent days, flew directly from Minsk to St Petersburg at around the same time.

Lukashenko, who has described in colourful detail his own efforts to mediate during the mutiny and get Prigozhin to call off his troops, has said that Wagner group fighters are welcome in Belarus. He said they could "pitch their tents" at a disused army base but there is no indication that any have yet arrived, or what they would do there.

• Rescue efforts in Kramatorsk continue, after the city was hit by a missile strike
• Ten people are dead, including twin 14-year-old sisters, and 61 injured. It is believed at least three more people are still under the rubble
• The Kremlin claims that the Russian army only carries out strikes on military targets - without any further comment
• There was another attack on Kharkiv today, where the head of the region said three civilians were killed
• Ukraine's President Zelensky speaks in his country's parliament, saying that his country will never agree to any variant of frozen conflict

Mayeni Jones
Reporting from Kyiv

As the rescue operation at the site of a missile strike in Kramatorsk continues, Ukrainian police say the death toll has increased to 10, and 61 people were wounded.

According to the emergency services, there are still victims under the rubble.

The prosecutor general says the strikes were carried out with Iskander ballistic missiles. These Russian-made, short-range missiles are harder to intercept by air defence systems because of the speed with which they strike.

Kramatorsk's relative proximity to Russian positions (about 18 miles or 30km) also makes it vulnerable to air strikes.

Among the dead were a 17-year-old girl and 14-year-old twin sisters. An eight-month-old baby was also wounded, although police say there is no threat to his life.

The Ukrainian security service claims it has detained a Russian agent who they say was involved in delivering information on the targeted location to Russian forces, including how busy the area was and where cars were parked.

Image source, Ukrainian Presidential Press Service

More now on President Zelensky's speech in Ukraine's parliament.

He says his country "will never agree to any variant of a frozen conflict", stressing that all invading Russian soldiers must leave Ukrainian territory.

He also mentions his "peace formula", which envisages Russian reparations to Ukraine for the war damage and trials of those responsible for mass deaths and destruction.

Referring to the current Russian authorities, Zelensky calls them "gangsters who have seized power" and are now "terrorising the world".

He adds that they will end up in The Hague, where the International Criminal Court is located.

Russia only carries out strikes on military-linked targets, Vladimir Putin's spokesman says.

Dmitry Peskov was responding to a question about the attack on a busy restaurant in the Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk which left 10 people dead and 61 others injured, and which has been widely blamed on Russia.

Peskov provided no details to back up his statement.

Russia has been accused of hitting multiple civilian targets across Ukraine since Putin ordered a full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Ukrainian and international investigators are pushing for war crimes trials against Russia, saying they have gathered enough evidence.

Image source, Ukrainian Presidential Press Service

It's Ukraine's Constitution Day today, marking the anniversary of a parliamentary approval of the country's main law on 28 June 1996.

President Volodymyr Zelensky is now addressing Ukrainian lawmakers in the Verkhovna Rada (parliament) in the capital Kyiv.

He says that Ukraine has now become a "global centre of courage".

Millions of Ukrainians, Zelensky says, want to "build a victorious Ukraine, and we will do it!"

The president and the MPs then honour Ukrainian soldiers - the dead and those still fighting Russian invading troops - by a minute of applause.

While the rescue efforts continue in Kramotorsk, Ukraine has reportedly been hit by another attack from Russia.

According to Kharkiv's regional head, three civilians have been killed in Russian shelling.

"Unfortunately, as a result of this shelling, three civilians in the village of Vovchanski Khutory were killed near their homes," governor Oleh Synehubov wrote on the Telegram messaging app.

He said the victims were men aged 45, 48 and 57.

The destroyed restaurant RIA Pizza in Kramatorsk city centre was popular among local residents, as well as volunteers, soldiers and war reporters.

Financial Times' Christopher Miller tweeted that "every correspondent covering the war has probably dined" there.

Journalist and author Colin Freeman says he had a lucky escape.

He wrote: "7.00pm: was sitting in a restaurant in Kramatorsk, eastern Ukraine, browsing menu 7.02pm: called away on other business to far side of town, left restaurant 7.30pm: restaurant hit by missile."

Arnaud de Decker, another foreign journalist, has posted a picture from inside the eatery. He says he took the photo "about 20 minutes before the explosions".

Image source, Donetsk regional state administration

The missile strike in Kramatorsk is not the first that the city has suffered.

In April last year 63 people, including children were killed when rockets hit a railway station in Kramatorsk.

Ukrainian officials at the time said thousands of people were in the busy station, waiting for evacuation trains, desperate to flee heavy Russian shelling across the wider Donetsk region.

Both Ukraine and Russia blamed each other for the deadly attack.

An aid worker who saw people crowding at the station, counted between five and 10 explosions during the attack.

He said: "Two minutes after we had driven by, you feel it before you hear it: the boom, the explosion."

The US, EU and UK condemned the incident.

Paul Kirby
Europe digital editor

Image source, National police of Ukraine/HANDOUT HANDOUT/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock

Kramatorsk has seen so many Russian attacks on its people because it's only around 40km (25 miles) from the front line and used as a vital logistics hub.

This time it was a crowded pizza restaurant. Three teenage girls are among the 10 who died - two were twin sisters, officials say.

This kind of missile attack on a civilian target has taken place throughout this invasion and Ukraine's defences struggle to deal with the type of Russian Iskander ballistic missile that was apparently used last night.

But why now? On one level it is one of those periodic attacks, like the deadly attack on a crowded shopping centre in Kremenchuk exactly a year before.

But it's also a signal from Russia's military that despite the turbulence of recent days within its own borders, the war in Ukraine continues.

The Prigozhin mutiny raised questions about morale in the Russian army. This deadly strike on civilians enjoying a summer evening out was a signal that nothing has changed.

The death toll in Kramatorsk has now risen to 10, says a senior official from Ukraine's emergencies service DSNS.

Veronika Bakhal, a DSNS spokesperson, told Ukrainian TV that another three people are feared to be under the rubble.

She added that a search and rescue operation was continuing.

Image source, Telegram

Authorities in Kramatorsk have named two of the victims of last night's attack as 14-year-old twins Yuliya and Anna Aksenchenko.

In a Telegram post, the city's council extended its condolences to the parents of the girls, saying that "a Russian rocket stopped the beating of the hearts of two angels".

"We share the grief of your family and together with you we bow our heads in deep sorrow," it said.

Mayeni Jones
Reporting from Kyiv

Image source, Getty Images

The missile strikes on Kramatorsk are significant for a couple of reasons.

This is the largest number of casualties as a result of an air raid since April, when a missile strike on a residential building on the city of Uman in central Ukraine resulted in 23 deaths, including three children.

Many Ukrainian cities have beefed up their air defence systems in recent months, partly as a result of equipment donated by western allies. This has dramatically reduced the number of casualties caused by air strikes but as this incident shows, Russia can still cause significant damage to lives and infrastructure.

The timing of the incident is also significant: on the anniversary of another attack on a city centre. A year ago Russian missiles targeted a shopping mall in the central Ukrainian city of Kremenchuk, killing 22 people.

Russia also fired missiles at Kremenchuk yesterday, although there were no casualties.