Red Cross workers killed by Russian strike on aid truck

President Zelensky condemned the alleged attack on a Red Cross truck and another missile strike on a civilian cargo ship in the Black Sea.

Flames engulf ICRC vehicles in the village of Virolyubivka in Donestk. Picture: National Police of Ukraine via AFP

Three Red Cross workers have been killed in an alleged Russian artillery strike in eastern Ukraine which hit their truck and left it engulfed in flames.

The Ukrainians died while preparing to unload wood and coal briquettes for vulnerable households in the village of Virolyubivka, about 11km from the front line in the Donetsk region.

“Another Russian war crime,” President Volodymyr Zelensky wrote on X. “Today, the occupier attacked vehicles of the International Committee of the Red Cross humanitarian mission in the Donetsk region.”

ICRC president Mirjana Spoljaric Egger said in a statement confirming the deaths it was “unconscionable that shelling would hit an aid distribution site”.

“Our hearts are broken today as we mourn the loss of our colleagues and care for the injured,” she said. “This tragedy unleashes a wave of grief all too familiar to those who have lost loved ones in armed conflict.”

The ICRC, which did not apportion blame for the strike, said two other staff were wounded but that the aid distribution “had not begun and no residents were affected by the explosion”.

The organisation said its humanitarian teams were regularly present in Donetsk and its vehicles were clearly marked with the Red Cross symbol.

The ICRC stressed that it was a “neutral, impartial and independent organisation with an exclusively humanitarian mandate” and called for “every precaution” to be taken to protect aid workers.

Photographs from Virolyubivka showed a police medic looking on as flames swept over a white lorry with a large red cross on the side. A later image showed a smoking shell. The identities of the victims were not disclosed.

Mr Zelensky called for a “principled and tough” response to the strike. “Everything about this war is crystal clear: Russia brings evil and Ukraine protects lives,” he said. “If anyone says they want to ‘hear both sides out’, Russia takes this as a permission to continue killing.” There was no immediate response from Moscow to the Ukrainian allegation of Russian involvement.

The burnt-out remains of a truck. Picture: National Police of Ukraine via AFP

Ukrainian parliament commissioner for human rights Dmytro Lubinets said the ICRC staff members were in the truck when it was shelled.

Vadym Filashkin, head of the Donetsk region military administration, which oversees Ukrainian territory, said they had been victims of an artillery strike.

Mr Lubinets urged the Red Cross to publicly attribute the attack to Russia. “The shelling is already known about, but the ICRC ... remain silent!” he wrote.

Mr Zelensky also urged the world to condemn a Russian missile strike on a civilian cargo ship in the Black Sea, the first attack of its kind. He said the missile hit a ship carrying Ukrainian wheat going to Egypt, causing damage but no casualties.

“Today’s strike ... was against an ordinary civilian vessel immediately after leaving Ukrainian territorial waters,” he said, adding that Ukraine was “one of the key global donors of food security”, providing critical supplies to Africa and the Middle East.

In a later statement, the Ukrainian navy said the ship was hit with a cruise missile. “As a result of the attack, the bulk carrier AYA, which was transporting grain from the Ukrainian port of Chornomorsk to Egypt and was in the Black Sea at the time, was severely damaged,” the navy said.

Romanian coast guard spokesman Andrei Ene told Agence France Presse that the vessel “did not enter Romanian territorial waters”, adding that the ship was “functional, (and) floating”.

About 55km off the Romanian village of Sfantu Gheorghe, the vessel’s shipmaster had transmitted a radio message overnight, revealing there had been an explosion on board, the coast guard said in a statement.

So far, the ship had neither requested assistance, nor “entry into the Port of Constanta”, said Romanian Naval Authority spokeswoman Irina Puscasu.

THE TIMES