At least 13 killed in missile strike on crowded Ukraine mall
A Russian missile strike on a crowded mall in the central Ukrainian city of Kremenchuk killed at least 13 people Monday, the regional governor said, updating an earlier toll.
"The Russian strike today on the shopping centre in Kremenchuk is one of the most brazen terrorist acts in European history," Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his evening broadcast posted on Telegram.
Dmytro Lunin, the governor of the Poltava region where Kremenchuk is located, said the death toll had risen from 10 to at least 13, with more than 40 people wounded.
Earlier, Zelensky had said "over a thousand civilians" were in the mall when the missiles struck the city, which had a pre-war population of 220,000 people.
"The mall is on fire, rescuers are fighting the fire. The number of victims is impossible to imagine," Zelensky wrote on Facebook.
A video shared by the Ukraine president showed the mall engulfed in flames with dozens of rescuers and a fire truck outside.
The Ukrainian defence ministry said the strike was deliberately timed to coincide with the mall's busiest hours and cause the maximum number of victims.
The Ukrainian air force said the mall was hit by Kh-22 anti-ship missiles fired from Tu-22 bombers from the region of Kursk in western Russia.
