Russian strike on Kramatorsk: Wounded Polish journalist remains in Ukraine

Polish journalist and volunteer Monika Andruszewska, who was injured in a Russian missile attack on Kramatorsk on the night of August 25, is not going to return to Poland for treatment, she will stay in Ukraine.

Andruszewska said this in a comment to an Ukrinform correspondent.

According to the journalist, she received minor cuts from broken glass as a result of the missile strike.

“It was nothing to worry about. When the blood was washed off and the glass was removed from the skin, it turned out to be minor injuries,” she said.

According to her, because of this, she does not intend to return to Poland now, but will stay in Ukraine with a volunteer mission.

However, Andruszewska said that significant damage was caused to the car in which she was with another Ukrainian volunteer who also sustained minor injuries. Therefore, she is more worried about how to repair the car and bring the five dogs she took from the front line to Kyiv to find new owners.

The Polish volunteer noted that this was not the first time she had been under Russian missile fire, although it was the first time she had come under an Iskander missile attack.

She expressed her condolences to the journalists who suffered from the rocket attack, emphasizing that this is a daily reality in Ukraine, especially in the frontline cities in the Donetsk region.

“And the truth is this: Russia is killing and injuring Ukrainian civilians every day, including people like us who are just driving a car through peaceful cities. This situation has attracted a lot of attention from the world media because of wounded journalists. I hope that this will at least draw the world's attention to what is happening in Ukraine. That must be stopped,” the journalist emphasized.

Andruszewska said that she was in Kramatorsk on a volunteer mission, delivering drones, chargers, etc. to Ukrainian military units near the front line, purchased with funds raised jointly with one of the most popular Polish writers, Szczepan Twardoch. The day before, Twardoch posted on the social media platform X that Russians from St. Petersburg, who had translated his book “The King,” had contacted him and asked for his permission to publish it in Russia. He replied that the publication of his books in Russia can only be discussed when Russia “stops firing Iskanders at his friends in Ukraine, and all Russian soldiers leave the territory of Ukraine alive or as cargo 200, including with the help of equipment that he still plans to purchase through organized fundraising.”

As reported by Ukrinform, the British agency Reuters confirmed the death of its safety adviser Ryan Evans following the Russian strike on Kramatorsk. Two other members of the agency's team were hospitalized, one of them suffered serious injuries. According to the agency, three other journalists who were in the hotel at the time of the attack are not in danger.

On the night of August 25, Russian troops launched a missile attack on a hotel in Kramatorsk, where Reuters journalists were staying. Among the injured journalists were citizens of Ukraine, the United States, Latvia, Germany, the United Kingdom, and Poland.