Attack on Kharkiv Palace: German journalists came under fire in Kharkiv

During the December 30 Russian attack on the Kharkiv Palace Hotel, a group of German journalists from the public TV channel ZDF was staying there. ZDF writes about this on Sunday, December 31.

Journalists said that a total of five television employees were staying at the hotel. The Ukrainian translator was injured, the others were not injured.

“There is an incredibly loud knock, the building is shaking – I am on the fifth floor of the Kharkiv Palace Hotel. When I open the door of my room, I don’t see a large open lobby, as usual, but darkness and black smoke,” – describes the first minutes after the explosion, journalist Alika Young.

She said that a huge hole had formed when leaving the building. A Russian rocket hit the hotel directly — the lobby was littered with debris, and the windows were blown out.

“By a miracle, we all survived: three of us on the fifth floor, a colleague in the lobby and a colleague who was on the 11th floor at the time of the impact,” the journalists say.

ZDF condemned the shelling of the hotel, calling it another Russian attack on the free press, and assured that the channel would continue to cover the Russian war against Ukraine.

On the evening of December 30, Russian invaders attacked the center of Kharkiv. Rockets hit the prestigious Kharkiv Palace hotel and an apartment building.

The head of the police of the Kharkiv region, Volodymyr Tymoshko, said that the aggressor country attacked the hotel with Iskander-M missiles.

In total, on December 30, Russia fired at least six rockets at Kharkiv, 28 civilians were injured, 12 of them are in hospital, the head of the Kharkiv Regional Military Administration Oleg Synegubov said on December 31.