Eight People Killed When Russia Attacks Shopping Malls In Kyiv, Army Says No Strategic Military Object

Firefighters try to extinguish a fire in a shopping center hit by the Russian attack. (Wikimedia Commons/dsns.gov.ua/State Emergency Service of Ukraine)

JAKARTA - An attack hit a shopping center in Kyiv, Ukraine on Sunday night, killing at least eight people, destroying nearby buildings and leaving piles of smoky rubble and the wreckage of burning cars scattered over several hundred meters.

As dawn broke on Monday, firefighters extinguished a small fire around a smoldering carcass from a building in a parking lot, a shopping center in the city's Podil district, and searched for possible survivors.

The force of the explosion obliterated a structure in a shopping center parking lot and gutted an adjacent 10-story building, shattering windows in a residential tower block in the vicinity.

Six bodies lay on the pavement as emergency services combed through the rubble, where artillery fire was heard in the distance. Meanwhile, Ukraine's attorney general said at least eight people had died.

Separately, Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Major General Igor Konashenkov said the area near the shopping center was used to store rocket ammunition and to reload some rocket launchers.

"High-precision long-range weapons on the night of March 21 destroyed a Ukrainian dual rocket launcher battery and an ammunition depot in a non-functioning shopping mall," he told reporters, quoted by Reuters on March 22.

Officers are trying to find survivors in a shopping center hit by the Russian attack. (Wikimedia Commons/dsns.gov.ua/State Emergency Service of Ukraine)

Russian troops have pounded some of the outskirts of the Ukrainian capital, but so far the defense forces have managed to prevent Kyiv from a full-scale offensive that has devastated eastern cities such as Mariupol and Kharkiv.

However, dozens of civilians have been killed in Kyiv since Russia launched its invasion on February 24, many residential buildings hit by missile strikes or debris from missiles shot down by Ukrainian anti-aircraft fire.

"The Russians opened fire on our shopping center. The mall and residential buildings around it have suffered heavy damage," Mykola Medinskiy, an army chaplain told Reuters.

He added that there were no strategic military objects in the area. Reuters was not immediately able to verify the comments. Russia denies targeting civilians.

"It's difficult for me to speak because my son works here. He just worked yesterday. And then this happened last night," said witness Valentina Timofeevna in tears.

After a weekend of relative calm in Kyiv, the sound of heavy bombardment could be heard north of the city, where most of the fiercest fighting has taken place.

However, most Russian troops remain more than 25 km (15 miles) from central Kyiv, British military intelligence said Monday.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine that began on February 24 has left thousands of people dead in fighting and about 10 million displaced, including nearly 3.5 million who fled abroad, mostly to European neighbors such as Poland.

Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin described the move as a special military operation, to disarm Ukraine and stop the genocide of Russian-speaking people by Ukraine. Kyiv and the West say this is a false pretext for an unwarranted war to conquer a country.