On 4 April 2025, Russian forces launched a ballistic missile attack on a residential area in Kryvyi Rih. The missile, equipped with a cluster warhead, landed near a children’s playground, causing heavy civilian casualties. Twenty people were killed, nine of them children. Video footage from the restaurant, which was also damaged in the strike, clearly shows that no military personnel were present at the time of the attack.
Following yet another Russian missile strike on civilians in Kryvyi Rih on 4 April, Russian propaganda began spreading false information claiming that the target was actually a restaurant hosting a meeting of Ukrainian military commanders and Western trainers.
“The Ukrainian armed forces have lost up to 85 servicemen and foreign officers. In addition, about 20 vehicles were destroyed,” pro-Kremlin sources claimed, citing the Russian defence ministry. They also stated that the strike was carried out with a high-explosive missile.
On April 4, 2025, at approximately 6:50 p.m. Kyiv time, the Russian army struck a residential neighborhood in Kryvyi Rih with a ballistic missile, killing 20 people, including nine children. More than 70 people were injured.
The General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces clarified that “Russian forces hit Kryvyi Rih with an Iskander-M ballistic missile with a cluster warhead, which is designed to hit a larger area and a larger number of people”. This means, firstly, that the missile was not a high-explosive type, as the Russians claimed, and, secondly, that the main impact was on a residential area and a children’s playground, causing the high number of child casualties.
Ukrainian air force spokesman Yuriy Ihnat also refuted Russian claims. He dismissed another recurring narrative of Russian propaganda – that the missile could have been an air defence missile.
“Our air defence missiles either intercept enemy targets or self-destruct in the air if they fail to hit a target,” Ihnat said.
As the missile strike targeted a residential area of the city, many buildings were damaged – nearly 20 apartment blocks, private houses, garages, dozens of vehicles, schools, a restaurant and an industrial plant were hit.
The French TV channel France 24 obtained video footage from the restaurant taken at the moment of impact. The footage contradicts the Russian narrative – there were no military personnel inside, and it’s clear that the restaurant was not completely destroyed, although it was damaged. Posts on RoseMarine’s official social media page confirm that it was the same restaurant: the same staff uniforms, the same sofas inside, and the restaurant’s signature terrace are all visible in the photos.
Commenting on the release of the video, Ukrainian General Staff spokesman Major Dmytro Lykhoviy said: “Russia lied about ’85 NATO officers’ in the Kryvyi Rih restaurant where the ‘Iskander-M’ allegedly made a ‘precision’ strike. They lied about the missile being high-explosive rather than cluster-launched. They lied about the restaurant being destroyed, claiming that this was why Ukraine did not show it, and that the children and civilian adults were merely ‘collateral damage’.”
Current Time and Radio Liberty’s “Systema” investigative project confirmed that on 4 April, the RoseMarine restaurant hosted a forum for beauty industry workers and a birthday party. No military personnel were present. The event had already been announced on 24 February on the association’s Telegram channel (accessible via a private link) and on the city’s public channels.
A delegation from the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine also visited the site of the strike, documenting the aftermath and identifying the names and identities of the deceased, including children.
“It’s an unimaginable horror — nine children killed, most while playing in a park, as a military weapon exploded into shrapnel above them,” said UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk.
“The use of an explosive weapon with wide area effects by the Russian Federation in a densely populated area —and without any apparent military presence — demonstrates a reckless disregard for civilian life,” the UN said.
Türk also noted that even if the Russian authorities had information indicating the presence of military personnel, the nature and circumstances of the attack constituted an indiscriminate strike, which is prohibited under international humanitarian law.
The Russian government’s claims of a “precision missile strike” were also debunked by several OSINT analysts, who determined that the missile fell approximately 20 metres from the children’s playground and 70-80 metres from the RoseMarine restaurant, killing 20 people, including 9 children.
StopFake has previously reported on other tragedies where the Russian army has attempted to portray attacks on civilians as directed at “military targets”. Examples include Fake: A Year Ago, Russia Hit a Café in Kramatorsk, ‘Eliminating a Group of American Mercenaries’, Fake: During Russia’s Massive Missile Attack, ‘No Strikes Were Aimed at Kyiv,’ Says Russian Ministry of Defense and Fake: Russia Hit ‘Military Warehouses’ in Odesa with a Missile Strike.
