A devastating Russian double-tap drone strike on a Ukrainian mall in President Volodymyr Zelensky’s hometown has left at least 15 dead.
Footage of the aftermath showed smoke billowing from the commercial complex as emergency services rushed to evacuate the 130 injured, including 23 children.
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Ukrainian officials expect the death toll to rise after two waves of drones hit the largest mall in the city.
A double-tap strike refers to the practice of following an attack with a deliberately timed second strike in the same location several minutes later.
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They are generally used to ensure the total elimination of a target or inflict maximum casualties.
The second wave came roughly half an hour after the first, which officials say deliberately targeted the emergency workers on the scene.
Twenty-nine of the wounded remain in a critical condition. Among them is a 14-year-old girl who sustained a traumatic brain injury, along with four other children in a serious condition.
Other footage from the event showed the second drone slamming into the already burning complex, sending a fireball skyward while smoke from the initial impact still hung over the site.
Further videos captured from inside the mall revealed panicked shoppers scrambling to escape through smoke-filled corridors as fires spread through the retail units.
Neither Moscow nor the Russian military has commented on the attack.
President Zelensky, who was born in Kryvyi Rih, condemned the attack as a “Russian atrocity” which was “absolutely cynical and despicable”.
Describing the Russian attackers as “monsters,” he pledged Kyiv will “definitely respond”.
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“It is important that we have everything to protect life. The world must not remain silent about all this.
“There must be an end to this Russian war – and we need the world to help us make that happen.
“I thank everyone who is helping people right now – there in Kryvyi Rih, on the ground, and in our other cities and communities.
“Eternal memory to all those killed by Russian terror,” he said in a video address shared on X.
Russia launched further attacks today, striking the Mykolaiv and Kharkiv regions, killing a further six people, bringing the day’s total death toll across Ukraine to 21.
The carnage followed a devastating assault on Kyiv just 24 hours earlier, when a combined missile and drone barrage killed 17 people and injured more than 40.
Residential blocks and warehouses were hit across the capital, with a children’s hospital and a school also sustaining damage.
Russia has stepped up its aerial bombardment of Ukraine in recent months as the front lines have remained largely frozen in a grinding and deadly stalemate, placing growing pressure on Ukraine’s air defence systems.
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