JAKARTA - At least 36 people have been declared missing by authorities after a Russian missile attack on a crowded shopping mall killed around 18 people on Tuesday.
The attack in the central city of Kremenchuk is far from any frontline, sparking a wave of global condemnation, with French President Emmanuel Macron among leaders calling it a "war crime".
Ukraine says Moscow has killed civilians on purpose. However, Russia said it had attacked a nearby weapons depot and falsely claimed that the mall was empty.
Relatives of the missing people in Kremenchuk lined up at a hotel across the street from the ruins of a shopping center, where rescue workers had set up a base.
Tired firefighters sat by the roadside after a night of battling the blaze and searching for survivors, mostly to no avail.
Oleksandr, splashing his face from a water bottle, said his team had been working all night.
"We took out five bodies. We didn't find anyone alive," he said.
Earlier, President Volodymyr Zelensky said more than 1,000 people were in the shopping center at the time of the attack, which witnesses said caused a huge fire and sent black smoke billowing into the sky.
"It is impossible to even imagine the number of victims. It is useless to expect decency and humanity from Russia," President Zelensky wrote on the messaging app Telegram.
Meanwhile, Russia's Defense Ministry said its missiles hit an armory holding Western weapons, which exploded, causing a blaze that spread to a nearby mall. Kyiv said there were no military targets in the area.
Russia described the shopping center as unused and empty. But this has been denied by relatives of the dead and missing, as well as dozens of injured survivors such as Ludmyla Mykhailets, 43, who was shopping there with her husband when the explosion threw her in the air.
"I flew headfirst and debris hit my body. The whole place collapsed," he said at the hospital where he was being treated.
VOIR éGALEMENT:
Moscow also denies deliberately targeting civilians in "special military operations" that have devastated Ukrainian cities, killed thousands, and driven millions from their homes.
The attack on Kremenchuk came after days of increased Russian missile strikes from long range from the front line, including the first in the capital Kyiv for weeks.
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