16 Killed, 130 Injured in Kryvyi Rih Mall Attack

Sixteen people were killed and 130 injured in the busy mall in Kryvyi Rih on Friday, local officials said — Nine people are reportedly still missing, including two children.

Zelensky Condemns ‘Despicable’ Attack

President Volodymyr Zelensky said the ‘cynical and despicable’ attack was carried out in two waves, with the second strike targeting emergency workers at the scene, though Dramatic footage verified by the BBC showed the second drone hitting the already burning mall in Zelensky’s hometown. Russia’s military has not commented.

Regional military head Oleksandr Hanzha said the death toll from Friday’s attack reached 16 after another body was retrieved from the rubble overnight. Twenty-three children were among those injured in the shopping centre in the Dnipropetrovsk region, he added, 14 of whom were among dozens of survivors still in hospital as of Saturday morning.

‘Twenty-three [people] are in serious and extremely serious conditions, including three children – two boys aged 10 and 16 and an 11-year-old girl,’ said Oleksandr Vilkul, head of the city’s defence council. ‘All have undergone surgery, doctors are providing them with all the necessary assistance.’

Rescue Efforts and Continued Strikes

Rescue teams from seven other Ukrainian regions were urgently deployed to help search for survivors. As rescue efforts continued early on Saturday, Zelensky said there had been ‘missile and drone strikes throughout the evening and night’ across Ukraine, with residential buildings and civilian infrastructure damaged.

He said one person was killed and another injured after ballistic missile strikes damaged railway infrastructure in the capital Kyiv, while three people were injured by a ‘harsh’ drone strike on a city minibus in the southern city of Zaporizhzhia. Regional officials earlier said at least one person had been killed by a Russian drone strike.

Meanwhile, Russia’s defence ministry said it downed a total of 457 Ukrainian drones overnight; Two children were killed and two adults injured in a strike on a port town in Russia’s Krasnodar region, according to Governor Veniamin Kondratyev. Local officials in Belgorod said a strike had killed two and injured 13.

Ukraine’s military said it had struck an oil refinery in Russia’s Samara region overnight, causing a fire to break out — Russian online retailer Ozon said one of its warehouses in the region had also been hit. Four people – including three children – were killed in separate Russian attacks in Ukraine’s southern Mykolaiv region on Friday, and another two in the north-eastern Kharkiv region, local officials said.

And on Thursday 17 people were killed and more than 40 injured in a major Russian missile and drone attack on Ukraine’s capital Kyiv; Earlier on Friday, Ukraine’s military said it carried out strikes on an oil refinery and a military airfield deep inside Russia.

Ukraine has in recent months intensified attacks on Russian energy facilities, as well as on warehouses of the country’s largest online retailer Wildberries; Kyiv describes them as legitimate targets because they help finance Russia’s war. Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and currently Moscow controls about a fifth of Ukrainian territory in the south-east.