KIEV, Ukraine – Ukraine’s president made a fervent appeal to the United Nations on Tuesday for world leaders to punish Russia amid rising attacks on civilian targets in recent days. President Volodymyr Zelensky spoke to the UN Security Council, of which Russia is a permanent member, a day after a Russian missile strike killed at least 18 people at a shopping mall in central Ukraine. “The bomber struck shortly after noon in front of a rally in Kremenchuk,” Zelensky said. A Russian Defense Ministry spokesman said on Tuesday that the missiles struck Western-donated weapons and ammunition depots, setting the mall on fire. According to the Ukrainian authorities, the Russian forces fired at least one Kh-22 missile that hit the Amstor shopping center, setting it on fire. “More than 50 people were injured, dozens more are missing … bodies were found,” Zelensky said. “We must act urgently to do everything we can to stop Russia from killing.” He urged the Security Council to remove its permanent seat from Russia, declare Moscow a state sponsor of terrorism and establish a tribunal to investigate its alleged war crimes in Ukraine. On Tuesday, French President Emmanuel Macron called the attack on the mall a “war crime” and said Russia “cannot and must not win” the war in Ukraine. Witnesses in Kremenchuk described scenes of “terror” and “hell” after the rocket-propelled grenade exploded. Tanya, a 50-year-old saleswoman at the Amstor mall – who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation in Ukraine – said people at the mall had only a few minutes to to react to air raid sirens warning that a Russian attack could be imminent. Tanya said she received a call on her phone picking up merchandise to close the store when a blast ripped her from her chair. “A few seconds later and everything went dark – there was only the light on my computer,” he said. “I felt around me and there was glass everywhere.” “People were shouting, ‘Roof, roof!’ “Because I think at some point it had already fallen and there were lakes with water on the ground,” he said. “We had to get out before the pillars collapsed.” Tania said she did not know how many people were in the building. However, he said the strike came at a time when people often stopped at the grocery store in the mall as they were returning from work. Shortly after he got out, the fire engulfed the area where he was, he said. A two-minute CCTV video from a park near the Kremenchuk shopping mall released on Tuesday shows a view of the strike – with debris dumped in a pond and terrified adults and children running for shelter or flying into the water. The explosion is clear. Anna Vasenko, a Kremenchuk police spokeswoman, was among the first people to arrive at the mall after the blast, about a mile from her office. The scene, he said, was “beyond words”. “There was black smoke that made us drown – it was all black smoke, everything was on fire,” he said. “It was horror – blood, tears – it was just hell.” “Here was a hell that just 15 minutes ago was full of life.” Thebault reported from Washington. Mary Ilyushina in Riga, Latvia and Karina Tsui in Washington also contributed to this report. correction An earlier version of this article reported that at least one Russian rocket had been fired from the Caspian region of Russia, according to Ukrainian officials. At least one rocket was said to have been fired from the Kursk region of Russia. The story has been corrected.
