Ukrainian writer Victoria Amelina died in hospital from injuries sustained during a Russian missile attack on a pizzeria in Kramatorsk, Donetsk Oblast, on June 27. Doctors fought for the woman’s life for five days.
“It is with great pain that we inform you that the heart of the writer Victoria Amelina stopped beating on July 1 at the Mechnykov Hospital in Dnipro. Her life ended due to a non-life-threatening injury caused by a missile attack by the Russian occupiers on a restaurant in Kramatorsk on June 27, 2023,” the Ukrainian PEN club reported.
Amelina was in the pizzeria with a delegation of journalists and writers from Colombia. After the missile strike, Victoria was hospitalized in serious condition due to a head injury.
Victoria was born in Lviv. During her school years, she moved to Canada with her father. However, later she returned to Ukraine. The writer graduated from Lviv Polytechnic National University with honors and worked in international IT companies. In 2014, the author published her debut novel.
The Ukrainian writer documented war crimes committed by Russia in Ukraine since February 24, 2022. In particular, she found the diary of the writer Volodymyr Vakulenko, whom the Russians killed in Kharkiv Oblast.
Victoria Amelina is the Joseph Conrad Literary Award laureate and founded the first literary festival in New York in Donetsk Oblast. The writer also worked on an English-language book about women documenting Russia’s war crimes – War and Justice Diary: Looking at Women Looking at War, which should soon be published abroad, the Ukrainian PEN club writes.
The author became the 13th victim of a Russian missile attack on Kramatorsk. The woman left a small son. The Ukrainian World Congress expresses its sincere condolences to Victoria’s relatives and friends.
Cover: Victoria Amelina/Facebook
