A Russian drone attack on a shopping mall in the south-central Ukrainian city of Kryviy Rih on August 21 killed at least 16 people and left more than 130 others injured, including 23 children, some of them in critical condition.
A day later, nine people were still unaccounted for. The fire engulfed over 9,000 square meters and took hours to extinguish.
Two Russian jet-powered drones struck the largest shopping mall in the city early afternoon on August 21. The attack came as many residents were out shopping at the end of the work week.
"There was smoke. Everyone was shouting," Yuliana, a mall employee, told RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service.
She said the attack caused parts of the ceiling to collapse in a parking garage where some shoppers and staff had sought shelter during an air-raid alert, and that a car was blocking the entrance, forcing people to climb over metal barriers.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiha said Russia deliberately struck the site twice, and that the second wave of drones came after emergency responders arrived at the scene.
"Such barbaric double-tap strikes are intended to maximize civilian casualties. They prove Russia's status as a terrorist state," he wrote calling for “criminals responsible for such atrocities” to be brought to account.
Air defense failed to detect the drones because they flew at an "exceptionally low altitude," according to Oleksandr Vilkul, head of the city's defense council.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, a native of Kryviy Rih, reiterated his call for air defense support -- new supplies of ballistic and other missile interceptors -- from international partners.
"Every day that Ukraine lacks air defense is a sacrifice that could have been avoided," he wrote on August 22.
European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said the bloc's defense and foreign ministers would discuss Ukraine's air defenses during their first meeting after the summer break in September.
The attack "shows the absolute and utter depravity of Moscow's war," Kallas wrote on X. "This is terror by design. Russia wants to make Ukrainian cities unliveable."
She also vowed to unveil "the most far-reaching Russia sanctions listings since the start of the war" to further increase pressure on Russia to end the war.
The attack comes after a series of other Russian air strikes on Ukrainian cities this week.
On August 20, Russia launched a large barrage of ballistic and cruise missiles as well as drones at Kyiv, killing at least 17 people in and around the capital.
On the night of August 21-22, Russia struck a railway infrastructure facility in the capital, Kyiv. One person died in the attack.
Zelenskyy said the Odesa, Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv, Donetsk, Sumy, Kherson, Chernihiv, and Mykolayiv regions also came under attack overnight, with damage reported to residential buildings, energy and railway infrastructure facilities, and civilian enterprises.
Moscow has gained little ground at the front line in Ukraine since the beginning of the year, and has intensified its strikes against the country, often hitting civilian infrastructure and causing civilian casualties.
Ukraine has sought to bolster its air defense capabilities with help from the United States and its European partners but is struggling with a lack of US-made Patriot missiles. Washington has sent mixed signals about a potential agreement to grant Kyiv a license to produce Patriots.
Meanwhile, over the past few months, Kyiv has actively targeted oil and military infrastructure inside Russia, with the country now facing its worst fuel crisis in years.
In its latest effort, the Ukrainian military on August 21 targeted a Russian oil facility in Perm, more than 1,600 kilometers from Russia's border with Ukraine, and a military air base in the Volgograd region. Early on August 22, it hit an oil refinery in Novokuybyshevsk in Russia's Samara region, 900 kilometers away.
"We continue, through our long-range sanctions, to bring the consequences of the war back to where it came from," Zelenskyy said following Kyiv's attacks.
