Award-winning Ukrainian writer Victoria Amelina dies after Russia’s missile strike on Kramatorsk

This was reported by the PEN Ukraine writers’ association, according to Espreso.

On Tuesday, July 4, a farewell ceremony for Ukrainian writer Victoria Amelina will be held in Kyiv, and on July 5, the funeral service and burial will take place in Lviv.

The celebrated Lviv author Victoria Amelina died on July 1 at Mechnikov Hospital in Dnipro. She sustained fatal injuries as a result of a Russian missile attack on a pizza restaurant in Kramatorsk on June 27.

"On June 27, Victoria Amelina, a Ukrainian writer and war crimes documentarian with the Truth Hounds organization, was in Kramatorsk with a delegation of Colombian journalists and writers. While they were having dinner at the Ria Lounge restaurant in the city center, Russian forces launched a missile attack on the building, leaving Victoria seriously injured. Doctors and paramedics in Kramatorsk and Dnipro did their best to save her life, but her injury was fatal. In the last days of Victoria's life, her family and friends were by her side," PEN Ukraine noted.

They also added that the analysis of the destruction and witness testimony indicates that the Russians used an Iskander precision-guided missile. They knew for sure that they were firing at a place where there would be a large crowd of civilians. Victoria Amelia became the 13th casualty, about 60 people were wounded.

For reference. Victoria Amelina was born on January 1, 1986 in Lviv. During her school years, she moved to Canada with her father, but soon decided to return to Ukraine. In 2007, she received a master's degree in computer technology from Lviv Polytechnic National University with honors. In 2005-2015, she worked for international technology companies.

In 2014, Victoria published her debut novel ‘The November Syndrome, or Homo Compatiens’. The book was included in the top ten best prose publications according to the annual rating of LitAktsent, a Ukrainian literature website. The following year, the novel was republished and shortlisted for the Valeriy Shevchuk Prize.

In 2015, Victoria Amelina suspended her IT career to devote herself to writing. In 2016, she published her first children's book, Someone or the Water Heart. Her next book for children, The E-E-Excavator Stories of Eka, was published in 2021. In 2017, Staryi Lev Publishing House published Victoria's second novel, ‘Dom's Dream Kingdom’. The book was shortlisted for national and international awards: LitAccent of the Year - 2017, the UNESCO City of Literature Prize, and the European Prize for Literature. The Zaporizhzhia Book Fair named ‘Dom's Dream Kingdom’ the best prose book of the year.

Viktoria Amelina's books have been translated into Polish, Czech, German, Dutch, and English. Recently, her novel ‘Dom's Dream Kingdom’ was translated into Spanish.

In 2021, Victoria won the Joseph Conrad Literary Prize. In the same year, she founded the New York Literary Festival, which took place in the village of New York in the Bakhmut district of the Donetsk region.

Due to Russia's full-scale war against Ukraine, Victoria Amelina became not only a writer. In the summer of 2022, she joined the human rights organization Truth Hounds. Together with the team, she worked as a documenter of war crimes in the de-occupied territories in eastern, southern, and northern Ukraine, including Kapitolivka in the Izium area, where she found the diary of the writer Volodymyr Vakulenko, who was killed by the Russian troops.

At the same time, Victoria began work on her first nonfiction book in English, War and Justice Diary: Looking at Women Looking at War, which will soon be published abroad. In this book, Victoria tells the story of Ukrainian women who document war crimes and their lives during the war.

Russia’s missile attack on Kramatorsk

The first to report the attack on Kramatorsk on June 27 was the head of the Donetsk Regional Military Administration, Pavlo Kyrylenko. The attack took place at about 7:32 p.m., and the data on casualties and damage was being clarified.

The head of the Ukrainian President's Office, Andriy Yermak, also promptly tweeted about this. He noted that in addition to Kramatorsk, the village of Bilenke came under fire.

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The Prosecutor General's Office reported that as of 11:00 p.m., four people, including a 17-year-old girl, were killed when a missile hit a restaurant. Forty-two people sustained injuries of varying severity, including an 8-month-old baby.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy commented on the attack on Kramatorsk, saying that each such manifestation of terror proves again and again to the whole world that Russia deserves only one thing as a result of all it has done - defeat and a tribunal, fair and lawful trials against all Russian murderers and terrorists.

On June 28, the missile strike adjuster was detained. He was notified of being suspected of treason.

Read more about the events here.