Aug 25 (Reuters) - Ryan Evans, a member of the Reuters

team covering the war in Ukraine, was killed and two Reuters

journalists were injured in a strike on a hotel in the eastern

Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk, the news agency said on Sunday.

Evans, who was working as a safety adviser for the agency,

was killed after a missile struck the Hotel Sapphire where he

was staying as part of a six-person team on Saturday, Reuters

said in a statement.

Two of the agency's journalists were being treated in

hospital; one of them was seriously injured, it said.

"We are urgently seeking more information about the attack,

including by working with the authorities in Kramatorsk, and we

are supporting our colleagues and their families," Reuters said.

Evans, a former British soldier, had been working with

Reuters since 2022 and advised its journalists on safety around

the world including in Ukraine, Israel and at the Paris

Olympics. He was 38.

"We send our deepest condolences and thoughts to Ryan's

family and loved ones. Ryan has helped so many of our

journalists cover events around the world; we will miss him

terribly," Reuters said.

The three other members of the Reuters team who were in

the hotel at the time of the strike were accounted for and safe,

the agency said.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said the hotel was hit by a

Russian Iskander missile, a ballistic missile that can strike at

distances up to 500 km (310 miles).

"An ordinary city hotel was destroyed by the Russian

Iskander," he said in his evening address on Sunday, adding the

strike was "absolutely purposeful, thought out ... my

condolences to family and friends".

The Russian Defence Ministry did not respond to a request

for comment.

Reuters was not able to independently verify if the missile

that hit the hotel was fired by Russia or if it was a deliberate

strike on that building.

The Donetsk province's regional prosecutor's office said in

a Telegram post earlier that the body of a British citizen had

been found in the rubble of a hotel building in Kramatorsk.

The hotel was "destroyed" at 10:35 p.m. local time (1935

GMT) on Saturday "probably with an Iskander-M missile", it said.

The prosecutor's office has opened a pre-trial investigation

into the strike, it said.