Global Courant
Award-winning Ukrainian writer Victoria Amelina was among those killed in a deadly Russian missile attack on a popular restaurant frequented by journalists and aid workers in eastern Ukraine, according to PEN America.
Amelina, 37, who had shifted her focus from literature to documenting post-invasion Russian war crimes, died of her injuries following the June 27 strike in the city of Kramatorsk, the literature and human rights organization said in a statement on Sunday.
At least 11 others were killed and 61 injured in the attack around dinnertime, when the restaurant was usually busy. Ukrainian authorities arrested a man a day later and charged him with helping Russia lead the attack.
The attack and other attacks across Ukraine that day suggested that the Kremlin was not easing its bombardment of the country, despite political and military unrest at home following a short-lived armed uprising in Russia on June 24.
PEN America mourns the death of award-winning Ukrainian author and pic.twitter.com/P3ctWZD9r6
PEN Ukraine announced Amelina’s death after informing her family. Amelina was in Kramatorsk with a delegation of Colombian writers and journalists. She had documented Russian war crimes with the human rights organization Truth Hounds.
“Victoria Amelina was a celebrated Ukrainian author who used her clear and strong voice to investigate and expose war crimes following the massive military invasion of Ukraine in February 2022,” said Polina Sadovskaya, Eurasia Director at PEN America. “She brought a literary sensibility to her work and her elegant prose described, with forensic precision, the devastating impact of these human rights violations on the lives of Ukrainians.”
Amelina was born on January 1, 1986 in Lviv. In 2014, she published her first novel, The November Syndrome, or Homo Compatiens, which was shortlisted for the Ukrainian Valeriy Shevchuk Prize.
She went on to write two award-winning children’s books, Somebody of Waterheart, and another novel, Storie-e-es of Eka the Excavator. In 2017, her novel Dom’s Dream Kingdom received national and international awards, including the UNESCO City of Literature Prize and the European Union Prize for Literature.
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Since the beginning of the invasion, Amelina has devoted herself to documenting Russian war crimes in eastern Ukraine, according to PEN America. In Kapytolivka near Izyum she discovered the diary of Volodymyr Vakulenko, a Ukrainian writer who was killed by the Russians.
Shortly before her death, she also began writing her first English non-fiction work. In War and Justice Diary: Watching Women Watch War, Amelina tells stories of Ukrainian women gathering evidence of Russian war crimes. According to PEN Ukraine, it is expected to be published soon.
