Until an attack Tuesday almost claimed the lives of three high-profile Colombians, President Gustavo Petro has remained neutral on the Russian invasion of the Eastern European nation. The devastating rocket attack on the RIA Pizzeria in the city of Kramatorsk, some 250 km east of Kyiv, killed 11 people, including four children. The Colombian writer Héctor Abad Faciolince, journalist Catalina Gómez Ángel, and former peace commissioner Sergio Jaramillo were dining at the packed restaurant when two Iskander missiles struck a shopping center and the pizzeria.
Faciolince, the 64-year-old Medellín-born novelist and author of the 2006 biographical work Oblivion (“El olvido que seremos”), was accompanied at the time of the attack on Tuesday evening by the Ukrainian writer Victoria Amelina. Amelina of the writer’s association PEN was severely injured in the attack and remains in critical condition.
The RIA pizzeria was a popular dining venue for journalists covering the war in the Donetsk Oblast. According to the Kyiv Independent, Amelina is “one of Ukraine’s most celebrated young literary figures who became a war crimes reporter in the first months of the full-scale invasion. Her decision coincided with the abduction and subsequent murder of her colleague Volodymyr Vakulenko by Russian forces.”
The three Colombians were sitting in the outdoor terrace of the RIA pizzeria when the S-300 missile hit the building at 7:28 pm. Faciolince, Jaramillo and Gómez were treated for shrapnel wounds at the Kramatorsk hospital. “Everything went up in the air and I saw things in slow motion,” remarked Jaramillo to El Tiempo. Jaramillo served as Chief Peace Commissioner during the peace process with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrilla. The University of Toronto educated philosopher, and former Vice Minister of Human Rights and International Affairs at the Ministry of Defense, was in Ukraine to promote the Latin American solidarity campaign #AguantaUcrania.
The bombing of civilian infrastructure, in which at least 60 were injured, including an 11-month baby, sparked condemnation from Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky. “Each manifestation of terror proves – over and over again – that Russia deserves only one thing as a result of everything it has done: defeat and a tribunal,” stated Zelensky during an address to the nation.
“Russia has attacked three defenseless Colombians” stated President Petro on Twitter with news of the attack. The leftist leader went on to accuse Russia of “violating the protocols of war.” Petro’s remarks were met with a response from the Embassy of the Russian Federation in Bogotá. “It is with great regret that we learn of the events in Kramatorsk. In our opinion, the city near the front, converted into an operational and logistic-military hub, is not an appropriate place to taste Ukrainian cuisine,” reads the official statement. “We are happy that for the slightly injured citizens that a reckless trip has not turned into an irreparable tragedy.”
The Embassy then went on to warn that “the friendly Colombian people should refrain from visiting territories and places of warfare.”
After more than 16 months of the invasion of Ukraine by Russia’s Armed Forces and Wagner paramilitaries, Colombia’s Gustavo Petro made his first public condemnation of Russian actions in the sovereign nation, and announced that he will send a diplomatic note of protest to the Kremlin.
