Journalist Davit Kachkachishvili and photographer Özge Elif Kızıl of the Turkish news agency Anadolu were injured by the Russian shelling strike of the Park Hotel in Kharkiv on January 10, reports the news agency.

According to the media outlet, the upper floors of the hotel were completely destroyed. The journalist and the photographer were taken to a hospital for examination by an ambulance. Kachkachishvili has minor cuts on his hands.

The crew’s car was destroyed, as were most of the cars parked nearby.

The head of the Kharkiv Oblast Military Administration, Oleh Synehubov, said that the Russians fired two S-300 missiles at the hotel around 10:30 p.m.

According to the Kharkiv Oblast Prosecutor’s Office, 13 people were injured by the shelling, including the two Anadolu employees, who are citizens of Turkiye and Georgia.

As of now, 10 people have been hospitalised, and three received medical assistance on the spot. The missiles are said to have been fired from the Belgorod region of Russia.

The police have opened a pre-trial investigation into violation of the laws and customs of war (Part 1 of Article 438 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine).

Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov stressed that the strike was targeting civilian infrastructure, not a military facility.

Volodymyr Tymoshko, the head of the Main Office of the National Police in the Kharkiv oblast, said that Russia had shelled the hotel in Kharkiv deliberately and that all the victims were civilians.

“They are all civilians, including foreign journalists, they work in Kharkiv oblast, Donetsk oblast, reporting the truth about the crimes committed by the ruscists on Ukrainian soil. Russia hit the hotel deliberately – a 4-meter-deep crater was discovered on the spot, and a Russian rocket destroyed another building nearby,” Tymoshko said.

In a comment to Suspilne, Tymoshko reported that the hotel struck by the Russians was predominantly used by foreign journalists.

“Soldiers have never stayed in this hotel, almost all of Kharkiv knows that. This hotel was used by journalists. It was a well-known fact. At the time of the attack, foreign journalists, namely from Turkiye, were staying in the hotel. This leads me to believe that the Russian Federation was targeting the mass media specifically,” he said.