War crime investigators inspect the charred remains of a shopping mall ravaged by a Russian missile attack on Tuesday Ukraine Condolences to the victims in what the Ukrainian Prosecutor General called a “crime against humanity”.
A day after the attack, which killed at least 18 people, the city of Kremenchuk in central Ukraine declared a day of mourning, and firefighters removed the rubble.
Residents had left flowers in black vases on a wall near the mall. A small yellow and blue national flag was hoisted from a vase, and a row of stuffed toy animals sat beside them.
Weary firefighters sat on a grave alongside another wall of the shopping center. Others lay on the grassy embankment, smoking and scrolling on their phones.
“We pulled out five bodies. We didn’t find anyone alive,” said a firefighter, who gave his name only to Alexander.
Members of a team of international legal experts gathered near the mall and informed Ukrainians wearing uniforms to identify them as “war crime police”.
“It’s a question about crimes against humanity,” Ukraine’s Prosecutor General Irina Venediktova told Reuters in Kremenchuk.
She said a missile struck a factory near a shopping center, but it was shut down and could not be considered a military target.
Wayne Jordash, a British lawyer working with an international initiative to aid in the investigation of Ukraine’s war crimes, said the first indication was that the factory that was hit had “nothing to do with the military”.
Speaking to Kremenchuk, Jordash said, “At first, it looks like a war crime. It looks like it’s a deliberate attack on a civilian object.”
Russia said the incident was caused by an attack on a legitimate military target. Its defense ministry, quoting the RIA state news agency, said Russian forces had fired missiles at a Western weapons storage depot in Kremenchuk, and a nearby mall was set on fire by the detonation of ammunition stored there.
Russia denies intentional targeting of civilians in Ukraine in its “special military operation” that has destroyed cities, killed thousands, and expelled millions from their homes.
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