The murder of Victoria Amelina

On June 27, 2023, Russia committed another war crime, sending an Iskander missile with a highly explosive warhead at the Ria Lounge restaurant in Kramatorsk (Donetsk region). At least 13 people were confirmed dead, and 60 wounded. Three children were among the dead, including two twin 14-year-old girls.

Victoria Amelina, a Ukrainian writer and member of PEN Ukraine, who has been documenting Russian war crimes with the human rights initiative Truth Hounds, was in Kramatorsk with a delegation of Colombian writers and journalists: Catalina Gomez, Hector Abad Faciolince, and Sergio Jaramillo. As they were having dinner at the Ria Lounge restaurant downtown, Russians launched the missile attack on the establishment. Victoria was severely injured. Doctors and paramedics in Kramatorsk and Dnipro did everything they could to save her life, but the injuries were incompatible with life.

Victoria Amelina passed away on July 1 in Mechnykov Hospital in Dnipro. On July 5 Victoria was buried in Lychakiv Cemetery in Lviv.

Victoria Amelina was a brilliant award-winning, worldwide known Ukrainian writer and human rights activist who spent her time since the beginning of the full-scale invasion documenting war crimes, working with children on frontline territories, and striving to revive a literary festival that she had founded in the town of New York in the Donetsk region. Now, Victoria has become a victim of a Russian war crime herself.

Victoria Amelina’s documentary book ‘Looking at Women Looking at War’ was presented in 2025. The book constitutes a collection of reportages about the Ukrainian women documenting Russian war crimes. These women have witnessed the worst terrors of Russia’s aggression and occupation. The book is a convincing explanation why Russia’s war against Ukraine began long before 2014 and why it is important for the world to remember Russia’s terror against Ukrainians in the 1930s and 1960s. Victoria Amelina has been posthumously awarded the British Orwell Prize for this book.