“The current Russian strike on a shopping center in Kremenchuk is one of the most shameful terrorist acts in European history,” he said.
At least 13 people were killed and more than 40 were injured Monday in a Russian rocket attack on a “busy” shopping mall in central Ukraine’s Kremenchuk district, a “shameful act of terrorism”, according to President Volodymyr Zhelensky.
“Today’s Russian attack on a shopping center in Kremenchuk is one of the most shameful acts of terrorism in European history. published in the Telegram.
According to him, a thousand people were inside the building but “many managed to get out”.
“Only completely insane terrorists could strike such an installation with rockets and they should have no place on Earth,” Zelensky continued, referring to a “calculated strike.”
According to the president, rescue operations are still ongoing and “human casualties could be high”, as a fire broke out in an area of ​​10,000 square meters after the explosion.
“It is too early to talk about the final death toll,” Poltava district governor Dmitry Lunin said in a statement.
This city in the center of Ukraine had about 220,000 inhabitants before the war and had so far escaped the bombing.
Zelensky had previously posted a video showing the mall on fire, with smoke coming out of it and forming dense clouds, with firefighters and rescuers operating at the scene.
According to the Ukrainian Air Force, the mall was hit by Kh-22 anti-ship missiles fired by long-range Tu-22 bombers from the Russian region of Kursk.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba has called on Kiev supporters to supply him with more heavy weapons and impose additional sanctions on Russia.
Mikhail Pontolyak, an adviser to the Ukrainian president, tweeted that the country was a “terrorist state” and the Defense Ministry spoke of a deliberate strike at a time when the mall was “very crowded” in order to “provoke” as many victims as possible “.
The US ambassador to Ukraine, Bridget Brink, assured, as quoted by her Facebook services, that “people will ask the Kremlin to be held accountable for its atrocities in Ukraine.”
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