Firefighters and soldiers searched for survivors in the rubble of a shopping center 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.
Relatives of the missing stood in line at a hotel across the street where rescue workers set up a base after Monday’s strike at the busy shopping center in Kremenchuk, southeast of Kiev.
More than 1,000 people were inside when two Russian missiles struck the mall, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said. At least 16 people were killed and 59 injured, Ukraine’s emergency services said.
“It’s not an accidental hit, it’s a calculated Russian strike right at this mall,” Zelenskiy said in an evening video speech. He said the death toll could rise.
More than 40 people have been reported missing, Ukraine’s prosecutor general’s office said.
Ludmyla Mykhailets, 43, a survivor who received treatment at Kremenchuk’s public hospital, said she was shopping with her husband when the blast threw her into the air.
“I flew head first and splinters hit my body. The whole place collapsed,” she said.
“It was hell,” adds the blood of her husband, Mykola, 45, who was wrapped around his head by a bandage.
Russia has not commented on the strike, but its deputy ambassador to the United Nations, Dmitry Polyanskiy, has accused Ukraine of using the incident to gain sympathy ahead of a 28-30 June NATO summit. military alliance.
“One has to wait for what our Ministry of Defense will say, but there are already too many inconsistent contradictions,” Polyanskiy wrote on Twitter.
The United Nations Security Council is meeting on Tuesday at the request of Ukraine following the attack. A spokesperson for Stephane Dujarric said the missile attack was “regrettable”.
Leaders of the Group of Seven (G7) major democracies said at a summit in Germany that the attack was “horrific”.
“Russian President Putin and those responsible will be held accountable,” they wrote in a joint statement tweeted by the German government spokesman.
STRUGGLE FOR LYSYCHANSK
Elsewhere on the battlefield, Ukraine has gone through another difficult day following the loss of the now devastated city of Sievierodonetsk after weeks of bombing and street fighting.
Russian artillery struck Lysychansk, Sievierodonetsk’s twin city across the Siverskyi Donets River.
Lysychansk is the last major city still held by Ukraine in the eastern Luhansk province, a main target for the Kremlin after Russian troops failed to capture the capital Kiev early in the war.
A Russian missile attack on Monday killed eight and wounded 21 others in Lysychansk, the region’s regional governor Serhiy Gaidai said. There were no immediate Russian comments.
Ukraine’s military has said Russia’s forces are trying to cut off Lysychansk from the south.
Rodion Miroshnik, ambassador to Moscow of the Luhansk People’s Republic, said Russian troops and their Luhansk Republic allies were advancing westward into Lysychansk and street fighting broke out around the city’s stadium.
Fighting was raging in several towns around the city, and Russian and allied troops entered the Lysychansk oil refinery where Ukrainian troops were concentrated, Miroshnik said on his Telegram channel.
Reuters could not confirm Russian reports that Moscow’s troops had already entered the city.
Russia also bombed the city of Kharkiv in northeastern Ukraine on Monday, hitting apartment buildings and a primary school, the regional governor said. Read full story
The shooting killed five people and wounded 22. There were children among those wounded, the governor said.
‘AS LONG AS IT TAKES’
Moscow denies targeting civilians in what it calls a “special military operation” in Ukraine, but Kiev and the West have accused Russian forces of war crimes.
The war killed thousands, displaced millions and caused increases in global food and energy prices.
During their summit in Germany, G7 leaders, including US President Joe Biden, said they would hold sanctions against Russia for as long as necessary and intensify pressure on President Vladimir Putin’s government and his ally Belarus.
The United States has also said it is finalizing another arms package for Ukraine that will include long-range air defense systems.
Zelenskiy called for more weapons in a video address to G7 leaders, US and European officials said. I asked for help to export grain from Ukraine and for more sanctions against Russia.
The G7 countries have promised to further squeeze Russia’s finances – including a restriction on the price of Russian oil that a US official said is “close” – and has raised up to $ US29.5 billion ($ NZ46.8 billion ) more for Ukraine promised.
The White House said Russia had defaulted on its foreign debt for the first time in more than a century as sanctions effectively cut the country off from global finances.
Russia rejected the claims and told investors to go to Western financial agents for the cash sent, but mortgage holders did not receive.