At least 16 people have been killed and 130 others injured, including at least 23 children, following a Russian drone strike on a shopping mall in the Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih, authorities have said.
Rescue workers continued searching through the wreckage of the shopping centre on Friday as emergency teams worked to locate survivors and recover victims. Authorities warned that the death toll could rise as rescue operations continue.
Ukrainian officials said powerful Russian Shahed-type drones struck the shopping centre while it was crowded with civilians.
Ukraine’s Human Rights Commissioner, Dmytro Lubinets, condemned the attack, saying civilians had been going about their daily activities when the drones struck.
“People came to the shopping centre for their ordinary business: to shop, to work, or to spend time with loved ones. For Russia, this makes no difference,” Lubinets wrote on social media.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy described the incident as a so-called “double-tap” strike, in which a second attack is launched after emergency responders have arrived at the scene of an initial strike.
Zelenskyy, who was born in Kryvyi Rih, described the attack as “absolutely cynical and vile” and vowed that Ukraine would respond.
The latest attack comes amid an intensification of aerial warfare between Russia and Ukraine, with both sides increasingly targeting economic and strategic infrastructure.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Saturday that Ukraine had “opened Pandora’s box” by carrying out strikes against Russian economic targets and warned that Moscow would retaliate against what he described as Ukraine’s “most sensitive economic sectors”.
“The Kyiv regime set out to damage our economy. What did it do? It opened this Pandora’s box itself. Well then, expect a response targeting your most sensitive economic sectors,” Putin told Rossiya-1 television journalist Pavel Zarunin.
Putin also said Ukrainian attacks had affected Russia’s ability to transport goods but maintained that they would not lead to shortages of food on global markets.
“We do face challenges regarding the shipment of our goods, but we will resolve these issues. Consequently, there will be no shortage on the global market,” he said.
Ukraine has intensified its campaign of drone strikes against Russian economic infrastructure, including oil refineries and warehouses operated by online retailers, arguing that such facilities are important to Moscow’s war effort.
Russia, in turn, has increased attacks on Ukrainian economic infrastructure, including facilities linked to the country’s grain exports through the Black Sea.
The escalation has contributed to a sharp rise in civilian casualties in Ukraine this year as Russia has intensified its aerial bombardment.
Ukraine has faced growing difficulties in defending its cities against Russian ballistic missiles, amid shortages of some American-made air-defence interceptors. Moscow has also increasingly deployed jet-powered drones, which Ukrainian officials say are more difficult to intercept.
The latest attack in Kryvyi Rih has further underscored the continuing threat faced by civilians as the war enters another phase of intensified aerial strikes.
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