Ukrainian authorities suspect Russian strike on shopping center as sirens blast

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Ukrainian authorities suspect Russian strike on shopping center as sirens blast

Cherry pickers and cranes picked up large beams as workers toiled through mangled metal and debris inside the charred ruins of the shopping center. At one point, workers had to pause their search and move out as an air raid siren went off.

The Ukrainian Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova said the attack would be investigated as a possible war crime, as the sound of heavy machinery behind her was heard by the Ukrainian Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova.

The destruction was vast, as suggested by footage of the immediate aftermath that showed plumes of black smoke rising above a building consumed in flames.

Zelenskyy said later in the day that many of the around 1,000 people in the mall managed to get out of the mall in time thanks to a warning siren, suggesting that some of the worst predictions for the death toll might be avoided. He said the losses could be significant.

Ludmyla Mykhailets, 43, told a local hospital that she was shopping at an electronics store with her husband, Mykola, when the blast threw her into the air.

I flew head first and splinters hit my body. She told the news agency she had broken her arm and split her head open and that she didn't know if she was conscious or unconscious.

The region's governor, Dmytro Lunin, said it was the most tragic day for the Poltava area in more than four months of the war, as he declared a regionwide day of mourning for the victims. Zelenskyy denounced a calculated Russian strike. The Russian Defense Ministry confirmed the strike but said it hit a legitimate military target in Kremenchuk on Monday and said it was a depot that contained weapons and ammunition supplied by the U.S. and its European partners. The ministry said Tuesday that the detonation of the ammunition caused a fire in an empty and disused shopping mall nearby despite accounts from survivors and the presence of worried families fearing their loved ones may be among the dead.

Dmitry Polyansky, Russia's deputy ambassador to the United Nations, said the attack was a provocation that Kyiv could be using to keep attention on Ukraine ahead of the NATO summit in Madrid this week.

The United Nations Security Council is expected to hold an emergency meeting in New York on Tuesday to discuss the attack on Ukraine's request, according to The Associated Press.