Zelensky vows response after Russian strike on shopping mall kills 16

By Kosta Gak, Issy Ronald, CNN

(CNN) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has vowed to respond to a brutal Russian “double-tap” strike on a shopping center in Kryvyi Rih, central Ukraine, that killed at least 16 people killed.

Rescuers have been combing through rubble from Friday’s attack on Kryvyi Rih, Zelensky’s hometown, which has been targeted multiple times during the four-year-war.

Russia has been intensifying its aerial campaign, with Ukraine facing a critical shortages US-made Patriot air defense interceptors, the only system capable of shooting down ballistic missiles. But the deadly attack on the mall saw Russia deploy drones in what Zelensky called a “cowardly” attack.

“The attack drones struck in two waves: half an hour after the first strike and the resulting fire, there was a second strike targeting emergency responders,” Zelensky posted on Telegram.

He warned that Ukraine “will definitely respond” to the attack.

Footage geolocated by CNN shows a drone hitting a shopping center in Kryvyi Rih, causing a fireball to erupt into the sky as it explodes, all while smoke from an apparent earlier strike is still visible.

Several people are missing and can’t be reached, Oleksandr Vilkul, the head of the city’s defense council, said.

Smoke filled the inside of the shopping center as people hurriedly tried to leave, videos filmed at the scene show. Stores inside the shopping center caught fire, Vilkul added.

The toll could rise further. Among the 130 wounded, at least 29 of the injured are in serious condition, Vilkul said, including a 14-year-old girl with a traumatic brain injury and four other children.

Russia continued its attacks across Ukraine over the past 24 hours, with strikes reported in Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, Sumy, Donetsk, Kharkiv and Odesa. At least nine people have been killed and a further 49 injured.

Ukrainian forces struck two targets in Russia’s Samara Oblast region overnight – the Novokuybyshevsk oil refinery and an Ozon logistics hub, which is a competitor to Russian e-commerce giant Wildberries, a frequent target in recent weeks as Kyiv brings the war to Russian soil.

Russia’s defense ministry said it intercepted more than 450 Ukrainian drones, while Veniamin Kondratyev, governor of the Krasnodar Krai region, said two children were killed.

Both sides have stepped up their air campaigns as the front lines remain largely static, locked in a slow-moving, deadly stalemate.

Russia is yet to comment on the attack on the shopping mall while Ukraine sees strikes on facilities like Ozon as a legitimate war of undermining Moscow’s war driven economy.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha again urged allies to provide more missile interceptors and impose additional sanctions on Russia’s military-industrial complex.

“Russia must be denied both the ability to produce these means of terror and the ability to use them,” he said.

The strike on the mall happened a day after Russia carried out a large attack on Kyiv and the surrounding region, killing at least 17 people, according to Ukraine.

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CNN’s Michael Rios, Victoria Butenko and Daria Tarasova-Markina contributed to this report.