2024 Lysychansk missile strike

February 2024 Lysychansk missile strike
February 2024 Lysychansk missile strike
Location	Lysychansk, Ukraine
Date	3 February 2024
Attack type	Airstrike
Deaths	28+ (claimed by Russia)
Perpetrators	Ukraine (claimed by Russia)

On 3 February 2024, a Ukrainian missile struck a cafe in the Russian occupied city of Lysychansk as part of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Russian sources claimed 28 civilians, including three high-ranking collaborators, were killed in the cafe, while Ukraine has not yet commented on the attack.^[1]

Attack

Background

Lysychansk was the site of a pitched battle in June 2022 which, after over a week, saw the city captured by elements of the Russian Armed Forces and the Luhansk people's militia, and a collaborationist government was established and placed under the control of the Luhansk People's Republic (LPR), a separatist puppet state that claims control over all of Ukraine's Luhansk Oblast.

Strike

Russian state media had difficulty identifying the store which was targeted, first calling it a bakery, and then a restaurant, before the location was identified as the Adriatica café by milblogers.^[2] Eduard Sakhnenko, the Russian-installed mayor of Lysychansk reported that the attack was a missile strike and that there where at least 28 civilian casualties, three of which where local politicians including a member of the LPR's executive branch.^[3]

Victims

The missile strike targeted the Adriatica café during the birthday celebrations of Ivan Zhushma, a local collaborator and a member of the legislature of the LPR. Russian state news agency RIA Novosti stated that the attack killed several high-ranking LPR officials including:^[1]

Alexey Poteleschenko - Luhansk People's Republic's Emergency Situations Minister^[1]
Artem Trostyansky - Member of the People's Council of the Luhansk People's Republic^[1]
Ivan Zhushma - Member of the People's Council of the Luhansk People's Republic^[1]