A spokesman for Russia’s Defense Ministry, Igor Konashenkov, described the attack in the central Ukrainian city of Kremenchuk in a briefing on Tuesday, calling it one of the Russian military’s most successful strikes against Ukrainian “military installations”. He said the “high-precision strike” was not carried out at a mall but at a weapons depot and that he had successfully destroyed “Western-made weapons and ammunition” intended for Ukrainian troops in Donbas. Surprisingly, he blamed the fire at the weapons depot for the damage to the Amstor mall, which he claimed was “non-functional”. He made no mention of the 20 civilians killed. An additional 59 people were injured in the strike. The Russian version of events is sure to infuriate the Ukrainian authorities, who in a briefing at the bombed-out mall on Tuesday called the BS for the Kremlin account, showing reporters the toys and consumer goods that were destroyed in what Ukrainian Interior Minister Denis Monastirsky described it as a “targeted blow to a political establishment.” Ukrainian media also published photos of what were described as fragments of a Russian rocket found at the scene. In addition to the 20 deaths confirmed by the Ukrainian presidential office on Tuesday, many more people remain missing. Kyrylo Tymoshenko, the deputy head of the presidential administration, put the number at 40, while Monastyrsky said at least 21 were still missing. The head of the Poltava region, Dmitry Lunin, said 36 people were still missing. By Tuesday afternoon, Ukrainian authorities had said they had found no survivors in the wreckage after hours of searching. “We hoped that in the first hours there might still be survivors. “But because of the fire that broke out literally 10-15 minutes after the strike, we can say with certainty that there are no survivors,” Monastyrsky said in a statement. Hours earlier, he told reporters that rescuers would continue to search for signs of life, adding that most of the victims had not yet been identified as their bodies were “badly burned”. Some of the Russian pilots involved in the attack have already been identified by the Ukrainian intelligence service, Monastyrsky said, noting that “there is nothing here that threatens to [Russian] Army.” Ukraine’s attorney general has vowed to take the matter to The Hague as the UN Security Council prepares to convene for an emergency meeting on Tuesday. Family members and friends of the shoppers who went missing after the strike are still waiting near the spot to talk about their fate. “We texted him, we called him, but nothing,” a man, Kiril Zhebolovsky, told Reuters about his anxious wait to find out what happened to his friend who worked at an electronics store in the mall. Monday’s attack came as Russian forces stepped up their attacks during the G7 summit in Germany. Vadim Denishenko, an adviser to Ukraine’s interior minister, said Kremenchuk’s strike should not only be seen as a warning from Putin to Western nations, but also as a clear message to the Russian elite that he has no plans to back down in Ukraine. “There is a very intense phase [of the war] “At the moment, and in the near future, Putin will do everything in his power to intensify such strikes,” Denischenko told local media on Tuesday. His warning came as authorities in Mykolaiv announced the consequences of a further Russian aggression overnight. According to Governor Vitaliy Kim, a child was killed after being attacked by Russian forces in the city of Ochakiv.
