Russian double drone strike on Kryvyi Rih shopping mall kills 16, injures 130

Russian drones struck a busy shopping centre in the central Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih on Friday, killing 16 people and injuring 130 others, including 23 children.

Local officials said the largest mall in the city was hit twice. The second strike came about 30 minutes after the first, while rescuers and emergency workers were already at the site. President Volodymyr Zelensky, whose hometown is Kryvyi Rih, called the attack cynical and despicable and said it deliberately targeted responders.

Regional military administration head Oleksandr Hanzha reported that nine people remained missing, including two children, as of Saturday. Twenty-nine of the injured were in serious or extremely serious condition. Firefighters extinguished the blaze overnight, but search operations continued in the wreckage.

EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas described the strike as terror by design and said she would put forward the most far-reaching Russia sanctions listings yet when ministers meet next month.

Ukraine and Russia continued to exchange strikes overnight. Ukrainian attacks were reported to have killed at least four people in Russia. The Kryvyi Rih attack forms part of a pattern of strikes on civilian infrastructure that has marked the latest phase of the war.