Russian Drone Strikes Kill 14 at Shopping Center in Ukraine's Kryvyi Rih
A second drone hit the same mall about half an hour after the first, in what President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called a deliberate attack on rescue workers.
Two Russian drones struck a shopping center in the Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih on Friday, killing 14 people and wounding more than 120 others, according to regional officials. The second drone hit the building roughly 30 minutes after the first, a pattern President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine said was designed to catch emergency crews responding to the initial blast.
Zelenskyy called the strike "absolutely cynical and despicable" in a post on X, adding that attacks of this kind amount to "terrorist acts." Kryvyi Rih is Zelenskyy's hometown, an industrial city about 60 kilometers from the front line that has come under repeated Russian fire during the war, according to Channel NewsAsia.
Oleksandr Ganzha, head of the Dnipropetrovsk regional military administration, said the strikes set off fires inside the shopping center and put the death toll at 14, with 121 people wounded. France 24 reported that children were among the injured, and that regional officials described 29 people in serious condition, including five children.
Four more people, three of them minors, were killed in a separate strike in the southern Mykolaiv region, Ukrainian Interior Minister Ivan Vygivsky said on Telegram, according to Channel NewsAsia. The attacks came a day after a Russian ballistic missile strike on the capital, Kyiv, killed 17 people, France 24 and ABC Australia both reported.
Death Toll Climbing Across Ukraine
The United Nations said civilian deaths in Ukraine this year have reached their highest level since the war's opening months, according to Channel NewsAsia. Zelenskyy spoke by phone Friday with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to brief him on the strikes and the resulting civilian casualties, Zelenskyy said on X.
"The world must respond to them accordingly, with real pressure on the aggressor," Zelenskyy said. "For peace to be possible, Russia must face real accountability."
Ukraine has also intensified its own long-range drone strikes on Russian territory, hitting oil facilities and logistics sites in an effort to squeeze Moscow's ability to keep fighting, France 24 reported. A Ukrainian drone attack hit an oil refinery in Perm, more than 1,600 kilometers from the Ukrainian border, and a military airfield in Russia's Volgograd region, Zelenskyy said. Separately, a Ukrainian drone strike in Russia's Belgorod region killed one person and wounded four others, local officials said.
Allies Set to Meet Monday
Ukraine's allies, known as the Coalition of the Willing, are scheduled to meet Monday in Kyiv to reaffirm support for the country around its independence day, according to Channel NewsAsia. The session will be co-chaired by French President Emmanuel Macron by video link, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and British Prime Minister Andy Burnham, with roughly 10 leaders including European Council President Antonio Costa expected to attend.
Russia has demanded broad territorial and political concessions from Ukraine as a condition for ending the war, which Zelenskyy has rejected as effective capitulation. Diplomatic efforts to reach a settlement have not moved the two sides closer to a deal, according to Channel NewsAsia.
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