At least three dead in the attack on a shopping center with more than 1,000 people in Kremenchuk

At least three people were killed today when a missile hit a shopping center in the town of Kremenchukin the center of Ukraine, as reported by Kyrylo Tymoshenko, Deputy Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky.

“At the moment we know about 20 injured, 9 of them in serious condition. It has already been confirmed that 2 people died,” Tymoshenko wrote on Telegram.

Zelensky’s deputy bureau chief added that there are a rescue operation working on the spot.

The attack caused an “impossible to imagine” number of civilian casualtiesreported for his part the Ukrainian president himself, Volodimir Zelensky.

“The shopping center is on fire, firefighters are trying to extinguish the fire, the number of victims is impossible to imagine,” Zelensky added on Telegram.

The local mayor, Vitaliy Meletskiyadded for his part on Facebook that the mall was a “very crowded” place and assured that “there are dead and injured”, without specifying.

The Ukrainian president assured that the shopping center did not pose “danger” for the Russian Army nor did it have “any strategic value”.

“It is just an attempt by people to live a normal life, which makes the occupiers very angry. Russia continues to attribute its powerlessness to ordinary citizens. It is useless to expect adequacy and humanity from them,” Zelensky added.

Kremenchuk, an industrial city of 217,000 inhabitants prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, it is home to the largest oil refinery in Ukraine.