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A Russian missile attack on a pizza restaurant in the eastern city of Kramatorsk has killed at least 11 people, including three teenagers, and left more than 60 people injured. Authorities in the city have named 14-year-old twins, Yuliya and Anna Aksenchenko, as being among the dead. 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". Another girl, aged 17, was also killed "We share the grief of your family and together with you we bow our heads in deep sorrow," the city council said. What happened in the attack? The Pizza RIA restaurant was popular with both locals, as well as aid workers and journalists – and was said to be crowded when it was hit on Tuesday evening. "I ran here after the explosion because I rented a cafe here.... Everything has been blown out there," said Valentyna, a 64-year-old woman who declined to give her surname. "None of the glass, windows or doors are left. All I see is destruction, fear and horror. This is the 21st century," she told Reuters. Police said around 60 people were injured in the strike, which turned the restaurant into a pile of twisted beams. Emergency services posted pictures online of rescue teams sifting through the site with cranes and other equipment. The Donetsk regional governor – the area where Kramatorsk is located – Pavlo Kyrylenko told national television that people were visible under the rubble. Their condition was unknown, he said, but "we are experienced in removing rubble". Video footage on military Telegram channels showed one man, his head bleeding, receiving first aid on the pavement. Eight people had been rescued alive from the rubble and at least three more were believed to be trapped, Veronika Bakha, the spokeswoman for the Donetsk region emergency services said. The attack also damaged 18 multi-story buildings, 65 houses, five schools, two kindergartens, a shopping center, an administrative building and a recreational building, the regional governor, Mr Kyrylenko, said. Why Kramatorsk? Russia has been keeping up an aerial assault across Ukraine for months. Kramatorsk is a major city west of the frontlines in Donetsk province, a key logistics hub. It would likely be a key objective in any Russian advance westward seeking to capture all of the region. The city has been a frequent target of Russian attacks, including a strike on the town's railway station in April 2022 that killed dozens. It was one of the worst single air strikes of the war. There were at least two strikes on apartment buildings and other civilian sites earlier this year. Officials initially blamed the strike in Kramatorsk on an S-300 missile, a surface-to-air weapon that Russia's forces have repurposed for loosely targeted strikes on cities, but the National Police later said Iskander short-range ballistic missiles were used. Russia denies targeting civilian sites in its invasion of Ukraine – which began in February 2022 – a claim rubbished by Ukrainian officials and Western allies of Kyiv. Kramatorsk's position in the Donetsk region, one of four Ukrainian provinces that Russia claimed to annex last September but does not fully control. Russia annexed the region of Crimea almost a decade ago. Ukrainian-held parts of the partially occupied provinces have been hit especially hard by Russian bombardment. The Kremlin demands that Kyiv recognize the annexations, while Kyiv has ruled out any talks with Russia until its troops pull back from all occupied territories. Kyiv recently launched a much-anticipated counteroffensive to take back occupied territory. What other strikes have there been in the last 24 hours? A second missile hit a village on the fringes of Kramatorsk on Tuesday, injuring five. A Russian missile also hit a cluster of buildings in Kremenchuk, about 230 miles west in central Ukraine, exactly a year after an attack on a shopping mall there that killed at least 20. No casualties were reported in the latest attack. On Wednesday morning, the head of the Kharkiv region said 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. What has been the Ukrainian response? On Wednesday, Ukrainian authorities arrested Wednesday a man they accused of helping Russia direct the missile strike. The Security Service of Ukraine alleged in a message on Telegram that the man had filmed the restaurant for the Russians and informed them about its popularity. Vasyl Malyuk, the head of the Security Service of Ukraine, said in a statement: “The agent of the Russian Federation will definitely answer to the Ukrainian court. But his detention is also a signal to all other adjusters and traitors who work for the enemy. Remember – the punishment is inevitable!” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his nightly video message on Tuesday that the attacks showed that Russia "deserved only one thing as a consequence of what it has done – defeat and a tribunal". Ukraine has been pushing for a war crimes tribunal to deal with Russia's actions in Ukraine, and have been gathering evidence. Reuters and Associated Press contributed to this report Read More The Body in the Woods | An Independent TV Original Documentary The harrowing discovery at centre of The Independent’s new documentary Twin sisters, aged 14, among at least 11 dead in Russian missile strike in Ukraine Cambodian leader Hun Sen, a huge Facebook fan, says he is jumping ship to Telegram Footage shows scale of destruction after Russian strike on Kramatorsk restaurant

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NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg says he's called a meeting of senior officials on July 6 to try to overcome Turkish objections to Sweden joining the military alliance

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A man tore up and burned a copy of the Quran outside a mosque in Sweden on the first day of Eid – after police granted permission for the demonstration Police later charged the man with agitation against an ethnic or national group. While Swedish police have rejected several recent applications for anti-Koran demonstrations, courts have overruled those decisions, saying they infringed on freedom of speech. "It's legal but not appropriate," Sweden’s Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said. The protest risks sparking a fresh diplomatic row with Turkey, who have been holding up Sweden’s bid to join Nato – an application made in the wake of Russia’s invasion of UKraine – over such protests, as well as accusations from Ankara that Stockholm is harbouring people it considers terrorists. Turkey has asked for a number of extraditions and for Sweden to address its security concerns. At the protest, some 200 onlookers witnessed one of the two organisers tearing up pages of a copy and wiping them on his shoe – before eventually setting the book on fire. After the burning, police charged the man who set fire to the Koran with agitation against an ethnic or national group and with a violation of a ban on fires that has been in place in Stockholm since mid-June. Some of those present shouted ‘God is great’ in Arabic to protest against the burning, and one man was detained by police after he attempted to throw a rock. Representatives of the mosque were disappointed by the police decision to grant permission for the latest protest on the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, mosque director and Imam Mahmoud Khalfi said on Wednesday. "The mosque suggested to the police to at least divert the demonstration to another location, which is possible by law, but they chose not to do so," Mr Khalfi said in a statement. Sweden applied to joint the alliance in the wake of the Kremlin launching its invasion of Ukraine last year, alongside neighbour Finland. The pair decided to drop their long-held stance of military neutrality in the face of Moscow’s aggression. Finalnd were welcomed into the bloc in April, and there were hopes that Sweden could follow suit at a summit in Lithuania in July. But that requires sign-off from all the blocs members. Beyond Turkey, Hungary has also been dragging out ratifying the move, despite officials suggesting they were behind the move. The Nato secretary-general, Jens Stoltenberg, announced on Wednesday that he has called a meeting of senior officials from Turkey, Sweden and Finland on 6 July, ahead of the summit later in the month, to try to overcome Turkish objections. "The time is now to welcome Sweden as a full member of Nato," Mr Stoltenberg told reporters as he announced his last-ditch effort. Foreign ministers, intelligence chiefs and security advisers from Turkey, Sweden and Finland, which joined Nato in April, will be taking part in the talks in Brussels. But the chance of membership being granted in July now look increasingly remote. The Turkish foreign minister, Hakan Fidan, condemned the protest as “vile” in a tweet. He added that it was unacceptable to allow anti-Islam protests in the name of freedom of expression. In late January, Turkey suspended talks with Sweden on its Nato application after a Danish far-right politician burned a copy of the Quaran near the Turkish embassy in Stockholm. In a phone call – that took place on Wednesday seemingly before the latest burning – Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, that while Sweden had taken steps in the right direction, there were still aspects of their behaviour that were “unacceptable” to Ankara. Meanwhile, Hungary’s parliament postponed ratifying Sweden's Nato accession to its autumn legislative session. The postponement, the latest in a long succession of delays that have gone on for a year, there was no suggestion in the announcement that the protest in Stockholm had played a part. Additional reporting by Reuters Read More NATO chief convenes July 6 talks hoping to convince Turkey to let Sweden join NATO warns not to underestimate Russian forces, and tells Moscow it has increased preparedness Cleverly to renew UK backing for Sweden’s Nato bid during visit

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