Russia has targeted innocent families buying food, with daytime rocket attacks that Ukraine says are further evidence of the killing of civilians and state-sanctioned terrorism.
Breaking reports also emerged on Tuesday morning that civilians — including a teenage boy — had been shot dead while collecting water in Lysychansk, the city Russia has set its sights on since its claim to Sievierodonetsk.
The head of Kharkiv’s regional state administration, Oleg Synegubov, has also confirmed that another five civilians are dead in Kharkiv.
Photos of the scene showed a victim in a pool of blood next to a park bench. A walking stick lies next to his body, and his hand is pulled through the strap of his shopping bag.
The elderly victim’s wife was comforted at the scene while emergency services counted the dead. Photo: Getty
“The invaders stormed the yards, streets – just civilian infrastructure, where only civilians live,” Mr. Synegubov announced on social media.
More than 1,000 people were inside the mall in the central city of Kremenchuk when the rockets hit.
Ukraine’s Air Force Command said the building was hit by two long-range X-22 missiles fired by Tu-22M3 bombers flying from Shaykovka airport in Russia’s Kaluga region.
Ukrainian officials said there were no military targets nearby.
So far, 13 have been confirmed dead, and another 40 injured.
Emergency services on the ground have extinguished a massive fire and are now trying to locate people feared may be trapped beneath the collapsed building.
James Longman, the correspondent for the American broadcaster ABC, said, “the recovery will not be of bodies”.
“It’s from body parts. This is horrific,” Longman said from the scene.
“I just saw a torso with one arm attached to a piece of canvas. The dazed look of the salvage teams.….”
Rescue teams reportedly found body parts under the rubble. Photo: Ukrainian State Emergency Service
Ukrainian officials have labeled the killings as war crimes amounting to terrorism.
“The Russian state has become the largest terrorist organization in the world,” President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Tuesday morning.
“Everyone in the world should know that buying or transporting Russian oil, maintaining ties with Russian banks, paying taxes and excise duties to the Russian state gives money to terrorists.”
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Dmytro Lunin, governor of the central Poltava region, said Russia was involved in an “act of terror against civilians”.
The Speaker of the Ukrainian Parliament (Verkhovna Rada), Ruslan Stefanchuk, also called the attack “a new act of terrorism”.
“Russia itself should be recognized as a sponsor of terrorism at the NATIO summit in Madrid tomorrow,” Stefanchuk said.
Anton Geraschenko, the adviser to the Ukrainian Interior Minister, made a video of the destroyed shopping center.
“It was never a military object,” Geraschenko said.
“It was the day. Many people bought food locally – women, the elderly, children, and men.
“It’s already clear it was one of Putin’s war crimes.”
An industrial town of 217,000 inhabitants before the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, Kremenchuk is located on the Dnipro River in the Poltava region. It is the site of Ukraine’s largest oil refinery.
But Ukraine insisted that the mall was not located near legitimate targets and that Russia deliberately hit civilians.
