“Everything has burned”
Ukrainians report attack on shopping center
6/29/2022, 5:23 p.m
At least 20 people die in a Russian rocket attack on a shopping center in Kremenchuk, Ukraine. Since then, some Ukrainians who have had to follow the drama have been in shock. They tell of explosions and contradict the Russian justification for the shelling.
Not much remains of the shopping center in Kremenchuk, Ukraine: charred rubble, smoke-blackened walls and a few green plastic letters that once indicated the shopping mall’s name: “Amstor”. After the Russian rocket attack on the central Ukrainian city that killed at least 20 people, many residents are shocked and stunned – also in view of the claims from Moscow.
Dozens of people were injured in Monday’s attack, and many are still missing. However, the Russian army said on Tuesday that the attack was aimed at a nearby weapons and ammunition depot. The shopping center was closed at the time and caught fire from exploding ammunition.
However, several local residents reported that nothing was known of weapons caches in the area. Polina Pushintseva was in the kitchen of her apartment on the fourth floor, across the street from the shopping center, when suddenly the windows burst. “It was such a shock,” she says. “Everything was on fire, really everything. Like tinder. I heard people screaming, it was terrible.”
She knew people who worked in the shopping center, says Pushintseva. She looks at the cuts on her arm. “I can’t find the words to describe it.” Regarding the Russian explanation, Pushintseva says: “That’s absurd,” adding: “I wonder how someone who lives here can believe such things that are fictitious.”
Factory for construction machinery partially destroyed
A ten-minute walk from the mall is a factory that manufactures construction machinery. According to reports from local AFP journalists, one of the buildings there has been destroyed and the rest undamaged. Military equipment is not to be seen there.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has accused Russia of targeting civilian infrastructure. Shortly after the Russian attack, he circulated video of the burning building and said “more than a thousand people” were in the mall.
He later called on the United Nations to assess the destruction on the ground and to designate Russia as a “state sponsor of terrorism.” Selenskyj was connected via video to a meeting of the UN Security Council scheduled at short notice on Tuesday.
“Absolutely no military infrastructure”
In Kremenchuk, people lay flowers and children’s toys next to the rubble the day after the attack. The clean-up work has to be suspended for more than an hour because of an air raid. Four large cranes are to lift heavy metal parts and clear debris. Fire engines, ambulances and army trucks are parked in the mall parking lot.
Antonia Shumilova watches the scene from her beauty salon across the street. The glass of her front door is broken. The sirens wailed shortly before the attack, she reports. Ten minutes later there were two explosions “one second apart”.
She and a customer sought shelter and waited before going out into the street, Shumilova says. “After a quarter of an hour everything had already burned down and there were a lot of people. It’s terrible,” she says. Regarding the Russian claims, Shumoliva says that in the neighborhood around the “Amstor” there is “absolutely no military infrastructure, nothing at all.”
Fire brigade commander Ivan Melekhovets says in a fire of this magnitude “you have no chance of surviving”. It is still being searched for 50 to 60 missing people, he adds. “The worst thing is seeing the bodies – adults, children.”