At least 14 dead, 43 injured in strike on Ukrainian shopping mall: Officials
At least 14 people were killed and another 43 injured in a strike on a shopping mall in Ukraine on Friday, the Ukrainian Prosecutor General's Office said.
The death toll continued to rise after Ukrainian officials reported earlier Friday that a Russian plane-launched missile struck a shopping mall in the town of Kostiantynivka in Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region.
"Russia will be held accountable for this terror, and we will do our best to ensure that the world continues to stand with Ukraine in supporting our defense and saving the lives of our people," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a statement on X.
Zelenskyy said people were under the rubble and a rescue operation was underway, while sharing footage of the destroyed shopping center, which he said included an "ordinary supermarket and a post office."
The Russian Ministry of Defense did not specifically mention the shopping mall strike in its report Friday on weekly strikes in Ukraine. Since Saturday, the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation "carried out 19 group strikes with precision weapons and attack unmanned aerial vehicles," with targets including "airfield infrastructure, air defense equipment, assembly shops and storage sites of attack UAVs," it said.
The strike comes as Russian authorities on Friday declared the situation in the country's western Kursk region a "federal" emergency, four days after Ukrainian troops launched an unprecedented incursion across the border.
Russia's Ministry of Civil Defense, Emergencies and Disaster Relief announced the declaration following Friday's meeting of the executive committee on emergency prevention and response and fire safety.
"The discussion agenda includes the situation on the territory of the Kursk region due to the attack by the Armed Forces of Ukraine," the ministry said in a statement. "The federal response level has been established in the region. This decision was made by the Government Commission at an extraordinary meeting."
Ukrainian forces launched what appeared to be a large-scale offensive operation, involving at least two Ukrainian brigades, on Tuesday. The attack appears to be one of the most significant military developments in the war in months.
As of Thursday, 66 people were injured as a result of shelling in the Kursk region, the ministry reported.
