Russian rocket strikes Ukraine mall, officials say civilians killed

Ukrainian officials say scores of civilians are feared killed or injured after a Russian rocket strike hit a crowded shopping mall in the central city of Kremenchuk.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a Telegram post Monday 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 were dead and about 20 people 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.”

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.

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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.

The attack came as Russia was mounting an all-out assault on the last Ukrainian stronghold in the eastern Luhansk region, “pouring fire” on the city of Lysychansk from the ground and air, according to the local governor. Western leaders pledged steadfast and continued support for Kyiv.

NATO will also agree to deliver further military support to Ukraine – including secure communication and anti-drone systems – when they convene in Spain for a summit, according to the military alliance’s Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg.

Luhansk Gov. Serhiy Haidai said Russian forces were pummeling Lysychansk after capturing the neighboring city of Sievierodonetsk in recent days. It’s part of a stepped-up Russian offensive to wrest the broader Donbas region from Ukrainian government control in what Western experts say has become the new main goal of President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine, now in its fifth month.

“They’re pouring fire on the city both from the air and from the ground. After the takeover of Sievierodonetsk, the enemy army has concentrated all its forces on capturing (our) last stronghold in the Luhansk region: Lysychansk,” Haidai told The Associated Press.

The Russians were trying to blockade the city from the south, “destroying everything that their artillery and multiple rocket launchers can reach,” Haidai said. In recent weeks, Russian troops have captured several villages and towns southeast of Lysychansk, and were trying to halt access to the city from the south.

Meanwhile to the west, the mayor of the city of Sloviansk — potentially the next major battleground — said Russian forces fired cluster munitions on the city after dawn, including one that hit a residential neighborhood.

This is a developing story