Russia’s Wagner mercenaries target in hotel attack, governor says
Members of Russia’s mercenary Wagner Group have reportedly been killed following an attack by Ukraine’s armed forces on a hotel where many were based in a town in the Russian-occupied Luhansk region, according to the region’s Ukrainian governor, Qazet.az reports.
Luhansk’s exiled Governor Serhiy Haidai said in an interview with Ukrainian television on Sunday that Ukraine had launched a strike on a hotel in the city of Kadiivka, west of the region’s main centre of Luhansk. Photos posted on Telegram channels showed a building largely reduced to rubble.
“They had a little pop there, just where Wagner headquarters was located,” Haidai said.
“A huge number of those who were there died,” he said.
Russia’s defence ministry was not immediately available for comment and Reuters news agency could not independently verify the information.
A section of Ukrainian media quoted local officials as saying the hotel had been closed for some time, while Russian state news agency TASS said on its Telegram channel that a hotel in Stakhanov – the Russian name for Kadiivka – was destroyed by a Ukrainian HIMARS missile attack and rescue workers were clearing rubble, according to a local official.