World

Planned terrorist attack: Ukraine’s President Zelensky on Russian missile attack on the mall

June 28, 2022
Bharat Times English News

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Tuesday that the Russian missile attack that killed at least 16 people and injured 59 was “one of the most daring terrorist acts in European history” and said it was a well-planned attack. A Russian missile struck a crowded mall in the Ukrainian city of Kremenchuk in central Ukraine on Monday.

Emergency services chief Sergei Kruk said the main tasks after Monday’s strike at the shopping center were “rescue work, debris removal and extinguishing the fire”.

“As of now, we know of 16 dead and 59 injured, of whom 25 are hospitalised. Information is being updated,” Crook said on Telegram.

“All response groups are operating in intensive mode,” he said. “The work will go on round the clock.”

“I’d like to emphasize once again: don’t ignore air alerts!”

Earlier, Zelensky said that “more than a thousand civilians” were in the mall when missiles struck the city, which had a pre-war population of 220,000 people.

“The mall is on fire, rescuers are fighting the fire. It’s impossible to imagine the number of victims,” ​​Zelensky wrote on Facebook.

Read also | Zelensky says Ukraine will win back lost cities, admits war is hard to bear

A video shared by him shows the mall engulfed in flames, with dozens of rescuers and a fire truck outside.

Emergency services also published images showing firefighters and rescue workers trying to clear debris from the smoldering remains of the building.

Ukraine’s Defense Ministry said the strike was deliberately done to coincide with the mall’s busiest hours and caused maximum casualties.

Growing international outrage

The Ukrainian Air Force said Moll was hit by Kh-22 anti-ship missiles fired from Tu-22 bombers in the Kursk region of western Russia.

The city’s mayor, Vitaly Maletsky, wrote on Facebook: “The missile hit a very busy area on Kremenchuk, which had nothing to do with hostilities.”

Read also | Ukraine’s Svierodonetsk fell to Russia after one of the bloodiest fights of the war

Dmitry Lunin, the governor of the Poltava region where Kremenchuk is located, condemned the attack as a “war crime” and a “crime against humanity”, saying it was a “blasphemous act of terror against the civilian population”.

Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba called on Kyiv allies to supply more heavy weapons and impose new sanctions on Russia.

“Russia is an insult to humanity and there will be consequences,” he wrote on Twitter.

Presidential aide Mykhailo Podolyak accused Russia of being a “terrorist state”.

International outrage over the attack was also growing.

A statement from G7 leaders gathered for a summit in Germany condemned the missile attack as a “war crime”.

“The world is horrified today by Russia’s missile attack, which targeted a crowded shopping mall in Ukraine – the latest in a string of atrocities,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Twitter.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the attack displayed Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s “depth of brutality and barbarism”.

French President Emmanuel Macron wrote on Twitter in English: “Russia’s bombing of a shopping center in Kremenchuk is disgusting.”

“We share the pain of the families of the victims and the anger against such atrocities. The Russian people must see the truth.”

Below the tweet, video footage of a blazing shopping center, black smoke billowing out of it, was posted.

(with inputs from AFP)