KREMENCHUK, Ukraine, June 27 (Reuters) – A Russian missile attack on Monday hit a crowded shopping center in Ukraine’s central city of Kremenchuk, killing at least two people and wounding 20, officials said. Ukrainian officials.
The attack caused a large fire and sent dark smoke into the sky, according to images circulated by President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
A Reuters reporter saw the charred shell of a shopping complex with a sunken roof. Firefighters and soldiers were pulling out broken metal pieces while searching for survivors.
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“We don’t understand how many people could be left under the rubble,” the head of the regional rescue service said on television.
Zelenskiy said more than 1,000 people were in the mall at the time of the attack. He did not give details of the victims, but said, “It is impossible to even imagine the number of victims.”
“It is useless to wait for the decency and humanity of Russia,” Zelenskiy wrote in Telegram’s messaging app.
There was a rescue operation underway and nine of the injured were in serious condition, said Kyrylo Tymoshenko, deputy head of the presidential office.
“Rescuers from all around are heading to the scene to put out the fire and work to resolve the consequences,” Tymoshenko said.
Kremenchuk, an industrial city of 217,000 inhabitants before the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, is located on the Dnipro River in the Poltava region and is the site of the largest oil refinery in Ukraine. Read more
There was no immediate comment from Russia, which denies that it was deliberately aimed at civilians.
“We need more weapons to protect our people, we need missile defenses,” said Andriy Yermak, head of the president’s office.
Vadym Denysenko, an adviser to the Interior Ministry, said Russia could have had three reasons for the attack.
“The first, without a doubt, is to sow panic, the second is to … destroy our infrastructure, and the third is to … increase the stakes to get the civilized West to sit back at the table in talks.” has said. dit.
Russia, which captured the city of Sievierodonetsk in eastern Ukraine over the weekend after an assault for weeks, has stepped up missile attacks on targets across Ukraine in recent days.
The missiles crashed into an apartment block on Sunday and landed near a kindergarten in the Ukrainian capital, killing one person and injuring several others. Read more
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Additional report by Pavel Polityuk and Max Hunder, written by Tom Balmforth, Timothy Heritage Edition
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