Russian strike kills three brothers, injures their mother and grandmother in Kramatorsk

Date: 13 February 2026
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The Donetsk Oblast Prosecutor’s Office reported that four people, including three brothers, have been killed and two of their relatives have been injured in a Russian strike on the city of Kramatorsk in the Donetsk Oblast on the evening of February 12.

A prosecutor from the Donetsk Regional Prosecutor's Office points toward a site of total destruction where houses have been reduced to piles of wooden beams and rubble. The official, wearing a dark blue vest labeled "WAR CRIMES prosecutor DONETSK REGION," documents the aftermath of the massive shelling on February 12, 2026 The aftermath of the Russian attack. Photo credit: Donetsk Oblast Prosecutor’s Office

“The aggressor state’s forces attacked Kramatorsk at 9:15 p.m. A residential area was struck. A direct hit on a house killed two 19-year-old brothers and their eight-year-old sibling. In addition, their 43-year-old mother and 65-year-old grandmother have been injured,” the statement reads. 

The woman suffered blast injuries and head trauma with concussion, bruising to the chest, spine, and arm, and contusions. They received medical treatment.

A wide shot reveals a neighborhood in the Donetsk region where several private homes have been completely leveled by heavy shelling on February 12, 2026. Only shattered foundations, splintered wood, and piles of bricks remain under a bleak, overcast sky. The aftermath of the Russian attack. Photo credit: Donetsk Oblast Prosecutor’s Office

Later, the Kramatorsk City Council reported that four people were killed as a result of the strike.

“Four people were killed – a boy aged around 8-9, two men aged around 30, and one man aged around 63. We are establishing the aftermath of this Russian terror,” said the city’s mayor, Oleksandr Honcharenko.

Previously, ZMINA reported that as a result of Russian military shelling over the course of February 11 in the Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk, and Donetsk regions, nine civilians were killed, and more than four dozen others sustained various injuries, specifically in the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions.

To provide background, within 24 hours of taking office, U.S. President Donald Trump has not secured an end to Russia’s war as he promised. Furthermore, numerous Ukrainian and international experts point out that the U.S., as a guarantor state under the Budapest Memorandum, is pressuring Kyiv into capitulation.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian human rights lawyer and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Oleksandra Matviichuk has criticized U.S. President Donald Trump over a rise in civilian war casualties in Ukraine since he took office in 2025.

Nobel Peace Prize laureate pointed out that the number of Ukrainian civilians killed or injured because of the war rose by 31% compared to the previous year. She asked why Trump’s year of negotiations was the deadliest for Ukraine’s civilian population since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion.

“Why did Putin not allow himself such brutal strikes on civilian infrastructure under Biden, whom Trump calls ‘weak,’ but totally destroys peaceful cities and disregards the ‘strong Trump’?” she asekd on her Facebook page

Ukrainian experts point out that countries including ChinaNorth KoreaHungarySlovakiaIran, and Brazil assist Moscow in killing Ukrainians in its war against Ukraine by funding the Russian budget through trade. 

Earlier, Bohdan Bernatskyy, a member of the Sanctions Policy Working Group of the Crimean Platform Expert Network, revealed at the Third Parliamentary Summit in Latvia that over 1,300 Russian military companies and 2 million industrial workers continue to operate, many without international restrictions.

On February 12, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy enacted the decision of the National Security and Defense Council regarding the application of sanctions against 91 marine vessels that are part of Russia’s shadow fleet. Moscow used these vessels to transport oil and petroleum products from Russian ports, specifically in Novorossiysk, Ust-Luga, and Primorsk, to third countries. This occurred in circumvention of sanctions by the European Union, the G7, and other states.

The sanctioned vessels sailed under the flags of about 20 countries. Among them, only one was Russian, while the rest were flags of Panama, Liberia, Cameroon, Barbados, the Marshall Islands, Hong Kong, Sierra Leone, Tonga, Palau, Guinea, the Comoros, the Bahamas, Indonesia, Malawi, Guinea-Bissau, Djibouti, Guyana, and Eswatini.

Ukraine will transfer the relevant information to these states and will also work with partners to further synchronize sanctions within their jurisdictions.

Twenty-seven vessels from this list are already under sanctions from partners: the United States, Great Britain, Switzerland, and the European Union.

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