Un Russian bombardment killed at least eighteen people in a shopping center in Ukraine, according to local authorities on Tuesday June 28, provoking strong condemnation from the G7 countries meeting in Germany, who denounced a “war crime”. “18 dead… My sincere condolences to the families and loved ones. The rescuers continue to work,” the acting head of the Poltava regional administration Dmitry Lunin said on Tuesday morning about the bombardment in Kremenchuk, a city 330 km southeast of kyiv, and more than 200 km from the front.
During the night, a previous report from the emergency services reported 16 dead and 59 injured, 25 of whom are hospitalized. It is “one of the most shameless acts of terrorism in European history”, declared Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. It hit “a peaceful town, an ordinary shopping mall, with women, children, ordinary civilians inside,” he said. A Russian strike also killed eight civilians during the day at a water distribution point in the east, according to kyiv, which called on the G7 to end the war.
“The number of victims is impossible to imagine,” added Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Facebook. He accompanied his message with a video showing the shopping center on fire, emitting large clouds of smoke, with fire engines and a dozen people on site. “Indiscriminate attacks against innocent civilians constitute a war crime,” the G7 leaders said in the evening from their summit in southern Germany, in a statement that “solemnly condemns the heinous attack” in Kremenchuk and assures that Vladimir Putin will have to “be accountable”.
READ ALSOWar in Ukraine: “Can we get used to the shooting? »
A “crime against humanity”
The missile fire on Kremenchuk hit a busy place that has no connection with the hostilities, for his part indicated on Facebook Vitali Maletsky, the mayor of this city which had 220,000 inhabitants before the war. Regional Governor Dmytro Lounin denounced a “war crime” and a “crime against humanity”, as well as an “undisguised and cynical act of terror against the civilian population”.
Boris Johnson condemned this Russian strike on Monday, which he said shows Vladimir Putin’s “cruelty and barbarism” and only “strengthens the determination” of the West to support kyiv. “This appalling attack has shown once again the depths of cruelty and barbarism to which the Russian leader is ready to fall,” the British prime minister said in a statement.
READ ALSOWar in Ukraine: “These are burning lives”
Emmanuel Macron in turn denounced “absolute horror” and called on the Russian people to “see the truth” in the face, in a tweet accompanied by a video of the building invaded by flames. “We share the pain of the families of the victims. And anger at such ignominy, ”added the French president, in a message broadcast in Russian and Ukrainian.
The bombing of a shopping mall in Kremenchuk by Russia is absolute horror. We share the pain of the families of the victims. And anger at such ignominy. The Russian people must see the truth: pic.twitter.com/7drortbGSE
—Emmanuel Macron (@EmmanuelMacron) June 27, 2022
Ukraine has called for an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council on the latest Russian bombings against civilian targets in Ukraine, to be held at 7 p.m. GMT on Tuesday, it was reported. learned Monday from the Albanian presidency of the highest UN body.
Lysychansk under the fire of bombs
A few hours after the announcement of the bombardment of Kremenchuk, the Ukrainian authorities announced another deadly Russian strike against civilians in Lyssychansk, a strategic pocket of Ukrainian resistance in the Donbass basin (east). In this twin town of Sievierodonetsk, recently taken by the Russians, at least eight Ukrainian civilians were killed and more than twenty others, including two children, were injured while “collecting water from a cistern,” said the regional governor of the Lugansk region, Sergey Gaidai.
READ ALSOBruno Tertrais – Could NATO go to war against Russia?
“The Russians fired into a crowd of people with multiple Hurricane rocket launchers,” he said. Lysytchansk is the last major city left to conquer for the Russians in this province. “Our defenders hold the line, but the Russians reduce the city to ruins with artillery, aviation… The infrastructure is completely destroyed”, detailed Serguiï Gaïdaï.
READ ALSOWar in Ukraine: “Can we get used to the shooting? »
The conquest of Donbass, already partly held by pro-Russian separatists since 2014, has been the priority objective of the Russians since they evacuated the area around kyiv at the end of March. New Russian strikes on the large city of Kharkiv, in northeastern Ukraine, also killed 5 people on Monday evening and injured 22, including 5 children, local authorities said.