Firefighters and soldiers searched for survivors in the rubble of a shopping center in central Ukraine on Tuesday after a Russian missile strike killed at least 16 people in an attack condemned by the United Nations and the West.
Relatives of the missing lined up at a hotel across the street where rescue workers had set up a base after Monday’s strike in the busy shopping center in Kremenchuk, southeast of Kiev.
More than 1,000 people were inside when two Russian missiles hit the mall, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said. At least 16 people have been killed and 59 injured, according to Ukrainian emergency services.
“This is not an accidental hit, this is a calculated Russian attack right on this shopping center,” Zelenskiy said in an evening video speech. He said the death toll could rise.
More than 40 people have been reported missing, the Ukrainian prosecutor’s office said.
A survivor being treated at Kremenchuk Public Hospital, Ludmyla Mykhailets (43) said she was shopping with her husband when the explosion threw her into the air.
“I flew with my head forward and splinters hit my body. The whole place collapsed,” she said.
“It was hell,” her husband added, as Mykola, 45, seeped blood through a bandage around his head.
Russia has not commented on the attack, but its deputy ambassador to the United Nations, Dmitry Polyanskiy, accused Ukraine of using the incident to gain sympathy ahead of a June 28-30 summit of NATO’s military alliance.
“You’ll have to wait and see what our Defense Department will say, but there are already too many notable differences,” Polyanskiy wrote on Twitter.
The United Nations Security Council will meet on Tuesday at Ukraine’s request after the attack. A spokesman for Stephane Dujarric said the rocket attack was “deplorable”.
Leaders of the main democracies of the Group of Seven (G7) called the attack on a summit in Germany “appalling”.
“Russian President Putin and those responsible will be held accountable,” they wrote in a joint statement tweeted by the German government spokesman.
BATTLE OF LYSYCHANSK
Elsewhere on the battlefield, Ukraine experienced another difficult day after losing the now-destroyed city of Sievierodonetsk after weeks of bombing and street fighting.
Russian artillery stormed Lysychansk, Sievierodonetsk’s sister city across the Siverskyi Donets River.
Lysychansk is the last major city left by Ukraine in the eastern province of Luhansk, a prime target for the Kremlin after Russian forces failed to take the capital Kiev early in the war.
A Russian rocket attack left eight people dead and 21 injured in Lysychansk on Monday, the area’s regional governor Serhiy Gaidai said. There was no immediate Russian comment.
The Ukrainian army said Russian forces were trying to seal off Lysychansk from the south.
Rodion Miroshnik, ambassador to Moscow of the Luhansk People’s Republic, said Russian troops and their allies from the Republic of Luhansk were advancing westward toward Lysychansk and that street fighting had broken out around the city’s stadium.
Fought in several villages around the city, and Russian and allied forces had 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 shelled the city of Kharkiv in northeastern Ukraine on Monday, hitting apartment buildings and an elementary school, the regional governor said. Read the full story
The shelling killed five people and injured 22. Children were also among the injured, 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 the Russian armed forces of war crimes.
The war has killed thousands, displaced millions and led to spikes in global food and energy prices.
At their summit in Germany, G7 leaders, including US President Joe Biden, said they would maintain sanctions against Russia for as long as necessary and increase pressure on the government of President Vladimir Putin and her ally Belarus.
The United States also said it was finalizing another weapons package for Ukraine that would include long-range air defense systems.
Zelenskiy asked for more weapons in a video address to G7 leaders, US and European officials said. I have asked for help to export grain from Ukraine and for more sanctions against Russia.
The G7 nations pledged to put further pressure on Russian finances — including a cap on the price of Russian oil that a US official said was “close” — and pledged up to $29.5 billion ($NZ46.8 billion). ) more for Ukraine.
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 financing.
Russia rejected the claims and told investors to go to Western financial agents for the money sent, but the bondholders did not receive it.