At least two people have been killed and 20 injured after a Russian missile hit a shopping center in the Ukrainian city of Kremenchuk, government officials said.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said there were 1,000 civilians in the building at the time of the attack.
“The mall is on fire, firefighters are trying to put out the fire, the number of victims is impossible to imagine,” the country’s leader said on Telegram.
The mall posed “no danger to the Russian military” and “no strategic value” to the Russians, Mr Zelensky added.
He said: “People just wanted to live normal lives, and that’s what makes the occupiers so angry.
“Out of helplessness, Russia continues to hit ordinary people. It is vain to expect it to be reasonable or humane.”
Kyrylo Tymoshenko, deputy head of the president’s office, said nine of the injured were in serious condition after the rocket attack.
An industrial city of 217,000 before the Russian invasion, Kremenchuk is the site of Ukraine’s largest oil refinery.