Kyiv: A Russian drone assault on a crowded shopping centre in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rig killed 16 people and injured 130 others on Friday, AFP reported.
President Volodymyr Zelensky denounced the strike as “cynical and despicable”, saying the attack had targeted civilians in his hometown amid a sharp increase in Russian bombardments of Ukrainian cities.
Interior Minister Ivan Vygivsky said four people, including three minors, were also killed in a separate attack in the southern Mykolaiv region.
Footage circulated on social media showed emergency workers attending to victims outside the shopping centre, while thick smoke rose from the damaged building.
Officials said a second drone hit the roof nearly 30 minutes after the initial strike. Zelensky said the follow-up attack appeared to have been aimed at rescuers who had arrived to assist the victims.
Ukrainian emergency services initially put the death toll at 15 and said 130 people had been wounded, including 23 children. The number of fatalities later increased to 16, Oleksandr Ganzha, head of the Dnipropetrovsk regional military administration, said in a Telegram post.
Kryvyi Rig, a major industrial centre situated about 60 kilometres from the front line, has repeatedly come under Russian attack since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Kyiv Urges Tougher Response
In a post on X, Zelensky described the assault as “an absolutely cynical and despicable strike…carried out by the Russians against an ordinary shopping centre”.
He called on Ukraine’s international partners to impose meaningful pressure on Russia. “The world must respond to them accordingly — with real pressure on the aggressor. For peace to be possible, Russia must face real accountability,” he said.
The Ukrainian president also spoke with United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Friday and briefed him on recent Russian attacks and the civilian casualties, according to a post by Zelensky on X.
The UN has warned that Ukraine’s civilian death toll in 2026 has reached its highest point since the early phase of the war.
As Kyiv marks its Independence Day on Monday, leaders from Ukraine’s partner nations will gather in the capital to demonstrate continued international support. The meeting of the Coalition of the Willing will be chaired jointly by German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and British Prime Minister Andy Burnham, while French President Emmanuel Macron will participate virtually.
An EU official said roughly 10 leaders are expected at the talks, including European Council President Antonio Costa.
European Union Condemns Attack
The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, condemned the attack, calling it “terror by design”. She also warned that the bloc would pursue “the most far-reaching Russia sanctions listings since the start of the war”.
“Russia’s attack against a shopping centre in (Kryvyi Rig) shows the absolute and utter depravity of Moscow’s war,” Kallas wrote on X, adding that Moscow “wants to make Ukrainian cities unliveable”.
War Intensifies
Kyiv has repeatedly appealed to its allies for greater military assistance as Russia continues to launch waves of drones and missiles against Ukrainian towns and cities. Ukrainian forces have faced particular difficulty in stopping Russian ballistic missile attacks.
At the same time, Ukraine has expanded its retaliatory strikes against targets inside Russia. Kyiv says the campaign is partly intended to increase pressure on Moscow and push it back towards negotiations aimed at ending Europe’s deadliest conflict since World War II.
So far, diplomatic initiatives have failed to bring the two sides closer to a settlement. Russia continues to demand extensive territorial and political concessions from Ukraine.
Zelensky has rejected those conditions, arguing that accepting them would effectively mean surrender and could leave Ukraine exposed to another Russian offensive in the future.
