April 25, 2024
SLOVIANSK, Ukraine (AP) — Scores of civilians are feared killed or injured after a Russian rocket strike hit a crowded shopping mall in Ukraine's central city of Kremenchuk, Ukrainian officials said Monday.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a Telegram post that the number of victims was “unimaginable,” citing reports that more than 1,000 civilians were inside at the time of the attack.
Minutes later, Kyryl Tymoshenko, the deputy head of the presidential office, said in a Telegram post that at least two people were dead and about 20 were hurt, of whom nine were in serious condition.
Zelenskyy stressed that the target presented “no threat to the Russian army” and had “no strategic value.” He accused of Russia of sabotaging “people’s attempts to live a normal life, which make the occupiers so angry.”
“Russia continues to take out its impotence on ordinary civilians. It is useless to hope for decency and humanity on its part,” Zelenskyy said.
Earlier on Monday, Kremenchuk’s mayor said people had been killed and injured in an attack on a “very crowded area” of no military importance, but gave no details of casualties.
“A rocket attack on Kremenchuk hit a very crowded area, which is 100% certain not to have any links to the armed forces. There are killed and injured people,” the city’s mayor, Vitaliy Maletskiy, wrote on Facebook, without giving the number of victims.
Ukrainian authorities said emergency teams were at the scene.
The Ukrainian regional governor, Dmitry Lunin, confirmed that more than a thousand civilians were inside the shopping center at the time of the attack. Writing on Telegram, Lunin said that the building remained engulfed by flames.
