After the Kremlin stated the facility was “non-functioning,” Ukraine revealed harrowing new video showing people inside a retail center when it was hit by a Russian missile on Monday.
The recently released video shows people scurrying and diving for cover as the rocket blasted into the building. It was shot by CCTV cameras around the Amstor mall in Kremenchuk, central Ukraine.
The moment the rocket impacted, sending merchandise flying off the shelves and the shopkeeper rushing for safety, was seen on two cameras inside the same store.
Debris dropping on the ground outside the mall was captured on two more external cameras for the facility. Two onlookers narrowly avoided flying debris and smoke billowing from the building as it was hit, as captured by a different outside camera.
Before the rocket struck the building and caused a big explosion, it was caught on camera by another camera that was looking out over a parking lot.
The new video, which was made public by Ukraine’s security agency, refutes the assertion made by Igor Konashenkov, a spokesman for the Russian defense ministry, that the mall was “non-functioning.”
At least 18 people were killed in the strike with another 21 still missing as-of Wednesday, with rescuers warning they are unlikely to have survived an inferno which gutted the mall and caused the roof to collapse.
Identifying victims is proving difficult, with some bodies burned beyond recognition.
Other video from the facility, which was made public this week, appears to show a guided AS-4 Kitchen missile, which was initially intended to destroy US aircraft carriers, smashing into the mall on Monday just before 4 p.m. local time.
More video, captured by cameras in a neighboring park, saw the second missile striking the Kredmash facility, which is located behind the mall. The missile destroyed four warehouses and rained down rubble on onlookers.
In what is being referred to as a war crime, Ukraine accuses Russia of attacking the center on Monday in Kremenchuk, which is located 205 miles southeast of Kyiv.
Russia disputes the charge and has previously asserted that the missile barrage was directed at an armaments stockpile and that the facility was not open at the time.
Funerals were set to be held on Thursday for some of the 18 people confirmed killed by Monday’s Russian missile strike.
After the attack on the shopping centre, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Russia of becoming a ‘terrorist’ state. On Wednesday, he reproached NATO for not embracing or equipping his embattled country more fully.
‘The open-door policy of NATO shouldn’t resemble old turnstiles on Kyiv’s subway, which stay open but close when you approach them until you pay,’ Mr Zelensky told NATO leaders meeting in Madrid, speaking by video link.
‘Hasn’t Ukraine paid enough? Hasn’t our contribution to defending Europe and the entire civilisation been sufficient?’
He asked for more modern artillery systems and other weapons and warned the NATO leaders they either had to provide Ukraine with the help it needed to defeat Russia or ‘face a delayed war between Russia and yourself.’
Russian President Vladimir Putin denied Moscow’s forces were responsible for a strike on the crowded shopping centre.
‘Our army does not attack any civilian infrastructure site. We have every capability of knowing what is situated where,’ Putin told a news conference in the Turkmenistan capital of Ashgabat.
‘Nobody among us shoots just like that, randomly. It is normally done based on intelligence data on targets’ and with ‘high-precision weapons’.
‘I am convinced that this time, everything was done in this exact manner,’ Putin said.
Since Putin ordered his forces into Ukraine, Moscow has insisted it has not targeted civilians, despite vast amounts of evidence on the contrary.
Russian forces have bombed civilian sites indiscriminately, and there have been several instances where Ukrainians have been shot, tortured and raped.
War crime investigation into Russia’s military actions are on-going.
On Tuesday, the Russian military first claimed it struck a weapons depot in central Ukraine the previous day and the resulting explosions hit a closed shopping mall.
The strike hit ‘a depot with weapons and ammunition from the USA and European countries in the vicinity of the Kremenchuk automobile factory’, the Russian military said in a statement.
‘The explosions of ammunition for Western weapons sparked a fire in the nearby shopping mall, which was not operational at the time.’
The Kremlin backed the Russian military’s statement, saying the defence ministry’s explanations were ‘exhaustive.’
‘I have nothing to add,’ said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.
Despite one lawmaker first accusing Ukraine of attacking its own citizens, Russia’s defense ministry acknowledged being behind the assault and said the plant was being used as a storage facility for western weapons that were being sent to the Donbas.
It claimed the second missile actually struck a train station and denied hitting the mall.
However, Ukraine claims that Russia targeted the mall on purpose as part of a “terrorist strike” meant to terrorize citizens and that the plant, which among other things makes parts for civilian cars, was not storing any weapons.
Compared to Russia, footage from the facility more closely matches Kyiv’s claim.
One of President Zelensky’s senior advisors, Mykhailo Podolyak, who published portions of the video online, said that the attack was intentional and intended to terrify the populace and inflict a large number of deaths.
The bombing of the busy retail center was described by Pope Francis on Wednesday as the most recent in a series of “barbarous acts” on Ukraine.
‘Every day, I carry in my heart dear and martyred Ukraine, which continues to be flagellated by barbarous attacks like the one that hit the shopping centre in Kremenchuk,’ Francis told crowds in St. Peter’s Square on the feast of St. Peter and Paul.
‘I pray that this mad war can soon end and I renew my appeal to persevere without tiring in praying for peace.
‘May the Lord open the those paths to dialogue which men either do not want or not able to find. May they not neglect to help the Ukrainian population, which is suffering so much,’ he said.