A Russian drone strike hit a shopping centre in Kryvyi Rih on Friday, killing at least 15 people and injuring more than 130, including 23 children, in what officials described as a deliberate two-wave attack on the central Ukrainian city. President Volodymyr Zelensky said the second drone targeted emergency workers arriving at the scene of the first blast. People remain trapped in the rubble. Officials fear the death toll will rise.
The attack unfolded in daylight across two waves. Zelensky called it “absolutely cynical and despicable.” The first drone struck the city’s largest shopping complex, sparking a fire. Thirty minutes later, a second drone slammed into the already burning building, according to footage verified by the BBC. The video shows the second impact hitting the shopping centre in the Dnipropetrovsk region as emergency crews worked below. Videos on social media showed rescuers rushing to help the wounded on the street outside, as smoke billowed from the building.
Dnipropetrovsk regional head Oleksandr Hanzha confirmed 15 fatalities by Friday evening, including two people who died later in hospital. He said 130 people were injured, 29 of them in serious condition. Rescue teams from four other Ukrainian regions were urgently deployed to help search for survivors. Kryvyi Rih Mayor Oleksandr Vilkul said the Russian drones were flying at “extremely low altitudes” and described the attackers as “animals.” He said missing people were not responding to calls. Vilkul had reported 14 deaths and 121 injuries on Telegram earlier in the evening. The toll climbed as the night went on.
A tactic designed to catch responders
The tactic of hitting a target twice, with a delay calculated to catch responders, has been used repeatedly throughout the war. Zelensky said the second strike was a deliberate attempt to target emergency services. “Attacks like these are nothing less than terrorist acts,” he said on Telegram. He urged the world to hold Russia to account. “The world must respond to them accordingly – with real pressure on the aggressor,” he wrote. “For peace to be possible, Russia must face real accountability.” Russia’s military has not commented.
Al Jazeera’s Audrey Macalpine, reporting from Kyiv, said the attack on the mall had sparked outrage, with some calling it a blatant act of terror. She said it was unclear whether the mall was the intended target, as drones can be intercepted and fall haphazardly, but that video footage suggested the attack was deliberate. Russia has intensified its bombardments of Ukrainian cities in recent months. Ukraine has also stepped up its own attacks on Russia, targeting oil facilities and logistics infrastructure to try to undermine Moscow’s ability to wage war. Kryvyi Rih, an industrial city roughly 60km from the front line, has come under repeated Russian attacks throughout the war.
Strikes across Ukraine
The Kryvyi Rih attack came amid a wave of Russian strikes across Ukraine. In the southern Mykolaiv region, four people including three children were killed in separate Russian attacks, according to Interior Minister Ivan Vyhivskyi. Two more were killed in the north-eastern Kharkiv region. In Zaporizhzhia, three people were injured when a drone exploded near a taxi. A day earlier, 17 people were killed and more than 40 injured in a major Russian missile and drone attack on Kyiv, where blocks of flats, warehouses, a children’s hospital, and a school were damaged.
Earlier on Friday, Ukraine’s military said it carried out strikes on an oil refinery and a military airfield deep inside Russia. Kyiv has intensified attacks on Russian energy facilities in recent months, as well as on warehouses linked to Wildberries, Russia’s largest online retailer. Ukrainian officials describe these as legitimate targets because they help finance Russia’s war. Macalpine noted that Ukraine’s strikes on Wildberries warehouses have drawn Moscow’s ire. The UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine reported that at least 437 civilians were killed and 2,610 injured in Russian attacks in July, the highest monthly civilian death toll since May 2022.
Countries allied with Ukraine, the 34-member coalition of the willing, are scheduled to meet on Monday, Ukrainian independence day, to reaffirm support for Kyiv. The meeting comes as both sides escalate attacks on each other’s infrastructure. Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Moscow currently controls about a fifth of Ukrainian territory in the south-east.