Russian missile strike hits crowded shopping mall in Ukraine

Kremenchuk (AP): Rescuers searched through charred rubble of a shopping mall on Tuesday looking for more victims of a Russian missile strike that killed at least 18 and wounded scores in what Ukraine’s president called “one of the most daring terrorist attacks in European history.”

President Volodymyr Zelensky said many of the more than 1,000 afternoon shoppers and workers inside the mall in the city of Kremenchuk managed to escape.

Giant plumes of black smoke, dust and orange flames billowed from the wreckage as emergency crews combed through broken metal and concrete for victims. Drones whirred above, clouds of dark smoke still emanating from the ruins several hours after the fire was extinguished.

Casualty figures rose as rescuers sifted through the smoldering rubble. The regional governor, Dmytro Lunin, said at least 18 people were killed and 59 others sought medical assistance, of whom 25 were hospitalised.

The region declared a day of mourning Tuesday for the victims of the attack. “We are working to dismantle the construction so that it is possible to get machinery in there since the metal elements are very heavy and big, and disassembling them by hand is impossible,” said Volodymyr Hychkan, an emergency services official.

At Ukraine’s request, the UN Security Council scheduled an emergency meeting in New York on Tuesday to discuss t h e attack. In the first Russian government comment on the missile strike, the country’s first deputy permanent representative to the United Nations, Dmitry Polyansky, alleged multiple inconsistencies that he didn’t specify, claiming on Twitter that the incident was a provocation by Ukraine