Group of Seven leaders have branded the Russian air strike that hit a crowded shopping mall in the city of Kremenchuk in central Ukraine as a war crime. G7 leaders have promised to support Ukraine “for as long as it takes” while the US said it was close to finalising a weapons package for Kyiv.
06:43am: G7 denounces Russian strike on mall as ‘war crime’ The Group of Seven leaders have branded the Russian air strike which hit a crowded shopping mall in the city of Kremenchuk in central Ukraine as a war crime.
“Indiscriminate attacks on innocent civilians constitute a war crime,” they said in a statement condemning Monday’s “abominable attack”, which killed at least 16 people.
The leaders also vowed that Russian President Vladimir Putin and those responsible would be held accountable.
02:07am: Russian opposition politician detained Prominent Russian opposition politician Ilya Yashin was detained in Moscow on Monday, a lawyer for opposition figures and a Russian journalist said on their social media accounts.
Irina Babloyan, a journalist and a host at the now defunct Ekho Moskvy radio station, said Yashin was detained while the two were walking together.
“I was walking with my friend, Ilya Yashin, in the park … The police came and took Ilya away,” Babloyan said on the Telegram messaging app.
Lawyer Vadim Prokhorov, who has represented many Russian opposition figures, also said Yashin was in police custody for the alleged administrative violation of disobeying a police officer
01:40am: Putin promises Bolsonaro to maintain supply of fertilizersRussian President Vladimir Putin on Monday promised his Brazilian counterpart Jair Bolsonaro that Russia “is committed” to maintaining its delivery of much-needed fertilizers to the South American agricultural giant.
Speaking in Brasilia, Bolsonaro said the two leaders had discussed by telephone “food security” and “energy insecurity,” without giving more details.
In its own statement on the conversation, the Kremlin said Putin “stressed that Russia is committed to carry out its obligations to guarantee the uninterrupted delivery of Russian fertilizers to Brazilian farmers.”
The statement added that Putin asked for “the restoration of the architecture of free commerce of food products and fertilizers that have collapsed due to Western sanctions” against Russia over its invasion of Ukraine.
01:14am: Russian strike death toll rises to 16 The Russian missile strike on a crowded mall in the central Ukrainian city of Kremenchuk killed at least 16 people, the head of emergency services said early Tuesday, sparking international outrage.
“As of now, we know of 16 dead and 59 wounded, 25 of them hospitalised. The information is being updated,” Kruk said on Telegram.
11:47pm: Macron condemns Russian strike, calls it ‘abomination’French President Emmanuel Macron on Monday denounced Russia’s deadly strike on a shopping centre in Kremenchuk, Ukraine, as an “abomination”, amid growing international outrage at the attack.
“Russia’s bombing of a shopping centre in Kremenchuk is an abomination,” he tweeted. “We share the pain of the victims’ families, and the anger in the face of such an atrocity. The Russian people have to see the truth.”
10:16pm: Zelensky calls missile strike on Kremenchuk a ‘brazen terrorist act’Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky denounced Monday’s missile strike on a shopping centre in the city of Kremenchuk as a “brazen terrorist act”, as the death toll rose to 13.
Zelensky was speaking after reports of two other strikes in the east of the country Monday that killed at least 12 civilians in all, as officials there accused Moscow of deliberately targeting civilians.
“The Russian strike today on the shopping centre in Kremenchuk is one of the most brazen terrorist acts in European history,” Zelensky said in his evening broadcast posted on Telegram.
“A peaceful town, an ordinary shopping centre – women, children, ordinary civilians inside.”
Earlier, Ukraine’s defence ministry said the Kremenchuk strike had been deliberately timed to coincide with the mall’s busiest hours and cause the maximum number of victims.
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Rescuers work at the site of a shopping mall hit by a Russian missile strike in the central Ukrainian city of Kremenchuk on June 27, 2022. © Press service of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine / Handout via Reuters
9:31pm: Rocket strike kills civilians in Lysychansk, regional governor saysA Russian strike killed at least eight civilians in the eastern Ukrainian city of Lysychansk on Monday, said the governor of Luhansk region, Serhiy Gaidai.
It followed deadly strikes earlier in the day on a shopping centre in the central city of Kremenchuk and in the eastern city of Kharkiv.
“Today in Lysychansk, the Russians fired on a crowd of people with Uragan multiple rocket-launchers, as civilians were collecting water from a cistern,” Gaidai posted on Telegram.
“Eight residents are dead, 21 have been taken to hospital,” he said.
7:46pm: UN secretary-general’s office slams ‘deplorable’ missile strike on KremenchukUN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ office condemned as “totally deplorable” Russia’s deadly attack Monday on a crowded mall in central Ukraine.
Kremenchuk, the town where the missile strike occurred, had so far been spared direct hits in the conflict, Guterres’ spokesman Stéphane Dujarric said at a daily press briefing.
“Any attack that hits a shopping mall is totally deplorable,” Dujarric said.
“We once again stress that the parties are obliged under international humanitarian law to protect civilians and civilian infrastructure,” he added.
7:16pm: EU states should prepare for ‘serious disruptions’ to Russian gas suppliesA “serious disruption” to the European Union’s gas supplies from Russia is likely, the bloc’s energy chief said on Monday, as she urged countries to update contingency plans to cope with supply shocks and switch to other fuels wherever possible to conserve gas.
“Since the beginning of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine we have known that a very serious disruption is possible, and now it seems likely. We have done much important work to be prepared for this. But now is the time to step it up,” EU Energy Commissioner Kadri Simson said after a meeting of energy ministers from EU countries.
Under new legislation, 18 EU member states with underground gas storage facilities are required to fill 80 percent of storage capacity by November 1, the European Commission said in a statement Monday.
Russia has already cut or reduced supplies to 12 of the bloc’s 27 member states.
6:51pm: Death toll rises in missile strike on mall in KremenchukA Russian missile strike killed at least 10 people and wounded more than 40 at a mall in the central Ukrainian city of Kremenchuk on Monday, a regional governor said.
“Ten dead and more than 40 people have been injured. This is currently the situation in Kremenchuk as a result of the missile strike,” said Dmytro Lunin, head of the administration of Poltava.
6:37pm: Shelling on city of Kharkiv kills several people, regional governor saysRussian shelling of the city of Kharkiv in northeast Ukraine killed four people and wounded 19 on Monday, the regional governor said.
“Doctors are providing all the necessary assistance. Information on the number of victims is being updated,” Oleh Synehubov, governor of the Kharkiv region, said on the Telegram messaging app.
There was no immediate comment from Russia, which denies targeting civilians in its war in Ukraine.
6:25pm: Russian hacker group claims responsibility for cyber attacks on LithuaniaState and private websites in Lithuania were targeted on Monday by Russian hackers who claimed the attack was retaliation for Vilnius’s decision to cease the transit of some EU-sanctioned goods to Russia’s Kaliningrad exclave.
Lithuania’s tax authority said in a statement it had halted all activities due to an unusually large number of attempts to connect to its systems, although all data was safe.
“The main targets are state institutions, transport institutions, media websites,” Deputy Defence Minister Margiris Abukevicius said, in another sign of deteriorating relations between EU and NATO member Lithuania and neighbouring Russia.
Russian hacker group Killnet claimed responsibility for what is known as a distributed denial of service (DDoS).
“The attack will continue until Lithuania lifts the blockade,” a Killnet spokesperson said. “We have demolished 1,652 web resources. And that’s just so far.”
Kaliningrad is sandwiched between Poland and Lithuania and supplied by rail via Lithuanian territory.
6:01pm: Odesa region sees missile strike, displaced Ukrainians in transitThe Odesa region saw a missile strike on Sunday night that injured eight people, including a child, following a weekend in which dozens of missiles from Russian forces hit targets in Ukraine, FRANCE 24’s Luke Shrago reports.
There aren’t as many displaced Ukrainians in the city of Odesa as there were a month and a half ago, Shrago reports, but city authorities say 85,000 people are in transit in the greater Odesa region, most of them coming from Russian-occupied Kherson and the city of Mykolaiv.
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© France 24
4:47pm: Russian missiles hit crowded mall in central Ukraine, Zelensky saysA Russian missile strike hit a crowded shopping centre in the central Ukrainian city of Kremenchuk on Monday, President Volodymyr Zelensky said.
More than 1,000 people were in the shopping centre at the time of the attack, Zelensky wrote on Telegram. He gave no details of casualties but said: “It is impossible to even imagine the number of victims.
Minutes later, Zelensky’s deputy chief of staff, Kyrylo Tymoshenko, said on Telegram that there were around 20 wounded so far, with nine in “serious condition”.
“Two people died. The rescue operation continues,” Tymoshenko added.
Kremenchuk, an industrial city of 217,000 before Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine, is the site of Ukraine’s biggest oil refinery.
🚨🇺🇦 Terrible news from Kremenchuk. Ukrainian authorities report +1000 civilians into the building when the missile hit. https://t.co/cLZeDQ9XYt
— Emmanuelle Chaze (@EmmanuelleChaze) June 27, 2022
4:28pm: Moldova wants to ‘stay part of the free world’, president says during Ukraine visitMoldovan President Maia Sandu said during a visit to Ukraine on Monday that her country was “fragile and vulnerable” and needed help to remain “part of the free world”.
Four days after EU leaders decided to accept Ukraine and Moldova as membership candidates, Sandu visited three towns where Ukraine suspects Russian forces of committing atrocities following their February 24 invasion.
“This shouldn’t happen. And, you know, it is heartbreaking to see what we see here and to hear the stories,” Sandu said in Bucha outside Kyiv, calling for anyone found guilty of atrocities to be punished.
Sandu said Moldova, a former Soviet republic of 2.6 million people that borders Ukraine, wanted to determine its own future.
“Moldova is a fragile and vulnerable country,” she said. “Ukraine and Moldova need help. We want this war to stop, this Russian aggression against Ukraine to be stopped as soon as possible. We want to stay part of the free world.”
