Firefighters and soldiers searched for survivors in the rubble of a shopping mall in Central Ukraine on Tuesday after a Russian missile attack killed at least 16 people in an attack condemned by the United Nations and the West.
A family of missing people lined up at a hotel across the street where rescue workers set up a base after a strike on Monday in the bustling shopping district of Clementuk, southeast of Kieu.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said more than 1,000 people were inside when two Russian missiles collided with the mall. At least 16 people were killed and 59 were injured, according to Ukrainian paramedics.
“This is not a coincidence hit. This is exactly the calculated Russian strike to this shopping center,” Zelenskiy said in an evening video address. He said the death toll could increase.
More than 40 people were reported missing, according to the Ukrainian public prosecutor’s office.
Ludmyla Mykhailets, 43, a survivor being treated at a public hospital in Kremenchuk, said she was shopping with her husband when she was thrown into the air by the blast.
“I first blew my head and the debris hit my body. The whole place had collapsed,” she said.
“It was hell,” he added, adding that the blood of her husband, Mikola (45), had penetrated through a bandage wrapped around his head.
Russia has not commented on the strike, but UN ambassador Dmitry Polyansky accused Ukraine of using the incident to sympathize with it prior to the NATO military alliance summit from June 28 to 30. Did.
“We should wait for our Department of Defense to say, but there are already many significant contradictions,” Polyanskiy wrote on Twitter.
The UN Security Council will meet on Tuesday at the request of Ukraine after the attack. Spokesman Stephen Dujaric said the missile strike was “sad.”
At the German summit, leaders of the Group of Seven (G7) major democracies said the attack was “disgusting.”
“Russian President Vladimir Putin and his chief will be held accountable,” they wrote in a joint statement tweeted by a German government spokesman.
Battle of Lysychansik
Elsewhere on the battlefield, Ukraine endured another difficult day after losing the now abandoned city of Severodonetsk after weeks of artillery and street combat.
Russian artillery bombarded Lysychans’k, the twin city of Siverskyi Donetsk, across the Siverskyi Donets.
Lysychans’k is the last metropolis that Ukraine still holds in eastern Luhansk Oblast and is the main target of the Kremlin after the Russian troops were unable to occupy the capital Kyiv in the early days of the war.
A Russian missile attack killed eight people and injured 21 in Lysychans’k on Monday, said regional governor Serhiy Gaidai. There were no immediate Russian comments.
Ukrainian troops said Russian troops were trying to block Lysychans’k from the south.
Rodion Miloshnik, Moscow ambassador to the People’s Republic of Luhansk, said Russian troops and their allies in the Republic of Luhansk were heading west towards Lysychansik, and street battles broke out around the city’s stadium.
Mr Miloshnick said on the Telegram channel that fighting had taken place in several villages in the city, with Russian and allied troops entering the Lysychans’k oil refinery, where Ukrainian troops are concentrated.
Reuters could not confirm Russia’s report that Moscow troops had already entered the city.
Russia also bombarded the city of Kharkiv in northeastern Ukraine on Monday, attacking apartment buildings and elementary schools, the governor said.Read the full text
The bombardment killed five people and injured 22. The governor said some of the injured had children.
“As long as it takes”
Moscow has denied targeting civilians called “special military operations” in Ukraine, but Kieu and the West have accused Russian troops of war crimes.
The war killed thousands, fled millions, and caused soaring prices for food and energy around the world.
At a summit meeting in Germany, G7 leaders, including US President Joe Biden, said they would continue to sanction Russia as long as necessary, increasing pressure on President Vladimir Putin’s government and its allies, Belarus.
The United States also said it would complete another weapons package for Ukraine, including a long-range air defense system.
Zelensky demanded more weapons at the video address to G7 leaders, US and European officials said. I requested support for exporting grain from Ukraine and further sanctions on Russia.
G7 countries have promised to put further pressure on Russia’s finances-including a cap on Russia’s oil prices that US officials have said “close”-and an additional $ 29.5 billion ($ 46.8 billion) for Ukraine. I promised.
The White House said Russia had defaulted on its external debt for the first time in more than a century as sanctions effectively separated Russia from global finance.
Russia rejected the claim and told investors to go to western financial institutions for the cash sent, but bondholders did not receive it.