Two Russian missiles slammed into a crowded shopping centre in the central Ukrainian city of Kremenchuk on Monday, killing at least 16 people and wounding 59, officials said. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said more than 1,000 people were in the mall at the time of the attack, which witnesses said caused a huge fire and sent dark smoke billowing into the sky.
At least 16 people were killed and 59 injured, Ukraine's emergency services said. Firefighters and soldiers were pulling out mangled pieces of metal as they searched for survivors. The mall was engulfed in a wall of flame which turned to thick clouds of smoke as firefighters worked to contain the blaze. Aerial photos showed the structure reduced to twisted metal, with workers combing through growing piles of rubble.
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"It is impossible to even imagine the number of victims ... It's useless to hope for decency and humanity from Russia," Zelenskiy wrote on the Telegram messaging app.
Kremenchuk, an industrial city of 2,17,000 before Russia's February 24 invasion of Ukraine, lies on the Dnipro River in the region of Poltava and is the site of Ukraine's biggest oil refinery.
Dmytro Lunin, governor of the central Poltava region, wrote on Telegram that it was too soon to talk of a final death toll as rescuers continued to trawl through the rubble. "It's an act of terrorism against civilians," he said separately, suggesting there was no military target nearby that Russia could have been aiming at.
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Ukraine's air force command said the mall was hit by two long-range X-22 missiles fired from Tu-22M3 bombers that flew from Shaykovka airfield in Russia's Kaluga region. Russia's deputy ambassador to the United Nations, Dmitry Polyanskiy, wrote on Twitter, without citing evidence, that the attack was a "Ukrainian provocation."
Russia, which has captured the eastern Ukrainian city of Sievierodonetsk after a weeks-long assault, has stepped up missile strikes across Ukraine in recent days.
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