Kremenchuk: Firefighters on Tuesday searched the rubble of a Ukrainian shopping mall, where officials said 36 people were missing after a Russian missile attack, which killed at least 18, as a regional governor moved further east. Enemy attack” was reported. The attack in the central city of Kremenchuk and the alleged strike in the Dnipropetrovsk region were far from any borders. The mall attack drew a wave of global condemnation, with Emmanuel Macron of France calling it a “war crime”.
Ukraine said Moscow deliberately killed civilians in Kremenchuk. Russia said it attacked a nearby arms depot and falsely claimed the mall was empty. The governor of Dnipropetrovsk said rescue workers were searching for people buried under the rubble in the region’s main city of Dnipro.
Official Valentin Reznichenko said Russia fired six missiles, three of which were shot down. Railway infrastructure and an industrial enterprise were destroyed and a service company was burning. “Massive enemy attack on the Dnipropetrovsk region. Six missiles !!!” He wrote on the Telegram app. Reuters could not independently verify the governor’s account. The Russian Defense Ministry did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.
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At a summit in Germany, the leaders of the G7 industrial democracies announced plans for a price cap on Russian oil, designed to starve Russia’s resources for war without aggravating the global energy crisis.
This is followed by a NATO summit in Spain, in which the Western military alliance is expected to move hundreds of thousands of troops to a high state of alert and change its strategic structure to counter what Moscow has described as an adversary. Will go Also bound to anger Russia, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on Tuesday that Turkey has agreed to support Finland and Sweden joining NATO.
Turkey’s objections to membership bids, which if successful would be the biggest change in European security in decades, threatened to overshadow the summit striving for unity against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
bereaved relatives
Relatives of the missing in Kremenchuk were raised in a hotel across the street from the rubble of the shopping center, where rescue workers had set up a base. Adults and children, some shed tears, lit candles and paid tribute to the dead. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Russia of deliberately targeting civilians in “one of the fiercest terrorist attacks in European history”.
Russia’s defense ministry said its missiles struck a nearby weapons depot where Western weapons stockpiles exploded, spreading fire to a nearby mall.
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Kyiv said there were no military targets in the area. Andrey Yermak, chief of staff to the President of Ukraine, said on Twitter: “Russia aims to close its eyes forever to as many Ukrainians as possible, for the rest to stop protesting and slavery.”
Russia described the shopping center as unusable and empty. But this was denied by relatives of the dead and missing, and dozens of wounded survivors, such as 43-year-old Lyudmila Mykhailets, who was shopping with her husband when the explosion threw them into the air. “I hit my head first and splattered all over my body. The whole place was collapsing,” she said at a hospital where she was being treated.
G7 leaders said the attack was “disgusting”. He said in a statement that Russian President Vladimir Putin and those responsible would be held accountable.
Russia has denied intentional targeting of civilians in its “special military operation” that has destroyed Ukrainian cities, killed thousands and expelled millions from their homes.
Ukraine faced another tough day on the battlefield of the eastern Donbass region, following the loss of the now-ruined city of Svyarodonetsk last week. The Russian army is now trying to attack Lisichansk, across the Sversky Donets River from Sveriodonetsk, to capture Luhansk, one of the two eastern provinces Moscow aims to conquer from the separatist proxies.
oil price range
Western countries have imposed economic sanctions on Russia, but so far have failed to reduce Moscow’s main sources of income: oil and gas export revenues, which have actually increased as the threat of supply disruptions propelled global prices. has done.
At the end of its annual summit, the G7 announced a new approach – leaving Russian oil on the market, while imposing a cap on the price countries could pay for it. “We invite all like-minded countries to consider joining our work,” he said in a release.
The United States also imposed sanctions on more than 100 new targets and new imports of Russian gold, acting on commitments made by the G7.
With the summit’s action now shifted to NATO, White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said a new strategic concept was “a clear reflection of the threat posed by Russia and the way it has shattered peace in Europe.” will describe”.
It marks a departure from post-Soviet NATO policy that presented Moscow as a potential partner. Former Russian ambassador to NATO and now head of Russia’s space agency Dmitry Rogozin responded by releasing satellite images and coordinates of the summit site, the Pentagon, the White House and other western state buildings.
“The NATO summit begins in Madrid today, in which Western countries will declare Russia as their greatest enemy,” Rogozin wrote on social media. “Roscosmos publishes satellite photos of the summit site and ‘decision centers’ supporting Ukrainian nationalists.”
Russian missile strikes from the frontline to long range have increased in the past few days. In Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, where Russian troops were pushed back in a retaliatory strike in May, officials said nine people were killed in shelling targeting targets including apartment buildings and a school.