A Russian double-tap drone attack on a crowded shopping mall in Kryvyi Rih killed at least 16 people and wounded more than 130, with rescuers still searching for survivors.
Russian forces struck a crowded shopping mall in the central Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih with a double-tap drone attack Friday evening, killing at least 16 people and wounding more than 130, according to regional officials. The second drone hit as emergency crews rushed to help victims of the first, in a tactic that has drawn outrage throughout the war. Rescuers pulled another body from the rubble overnight, pushing the death toll to 16, with four people still unaccounted for.
The strike came as Ukraine pressed its own campaign of long-range attacks deep inside Russia, setting up another bloody weekend in a conflict that began with Moscow's full-scale invasion in February 2022. Officials said the search and rescue operation could continue for another two days given the sheer scale of the devastation.
The attack unfolded in two waves. The first drone slammed into the busy shopping center in the evening, and the second hit moments later as first responders converged on the scene -- a pattern known as a double-tap strike designed to kill rescuers. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called it a "cynical and despicable" attack, noting that the second drone specifically targeted emergency workers.
Kryvyi Rih military chief Oleksandr Vilkul said the drones flew at "extremely low altitudes" and described the attackers as "animals." Dozens of the wounded had already undergone surgery, and 52 injured people -- including 14 children -- remained hospitalized on Saturday.
Rescue teams from seven other Ukrainian regions were rushed in Friday night to help search for survivors. A fire covering roughly 9,000 square meters was extinguished, but the sheer amount of rubble has slowed the effort. A day of mourning was declared across the Dnipropetrovsk region, where Kryvyi Rih is located.
Officials have not explained why Ukraine's air defenses -- which the military says intercept about 90 percent of Russian drones -- failed to stop Friday's strikes. The interception rate for ballistic missiles is far lower, around 40 percent, and Kyiv has repeatedly warned it is running low on U.S.-made Patriot missiles, the most effective weapon against them.
Fighting continued through the night. Ukrainian strikes killed at least four people in Russia, including two children in a drone attack on a port town in the southern Krasnodar region, while two people were killed and 13 injured in the Belgorod region, according to Russian officials. Moscow's defense ministry said it downed 457 Ukrainian drones overnight.
Ukraine's military said it struck an oil refinery in Russia's Samara region, sparking a fire, and the online retailer Ozon said one of its warehouses there was hit for the first time. Kyiv has intensified attacks on Russian energy facilities and logistics hubs in recent months, describing them as legitimate targets that help finance Moscow's war machine. Russia, meanwhile, controls roughly a fifth of Ukrainian territory in the country's southeast after more than four years of fighting.
Zelensky said missile and drone strikes hit across Ukraine through the evening and night, damaging residential buildings and civilian infrastructure. One person was killed by ballistic missile strikes on railway infrastructure in Kyiv, three were injured in a drone strike on a city minibus in Zaporizhzhia, and two more died in a separate attack in the Kyiv region.
With search teams still digging through the mall wreckage and both sides trading increasingly deep strikes, the war shows no sign of cooling. The double-tap attack in Kryvyi Rih -- Zelensky's hometown -- is among the deadliest single strikes on civilians in months, and it all but guarantees another round of escalation in Ukraine's campaign against Russian energy and logistics targets.
For now, the focus remains on the rubble. Four people are still missing, and officials warn the death toll could climb as rescue teams work through what remains of the shopping center.
A Russian double-tap drone attack on a crowded shopping mall in Kryvyi Rih killed at least 16 people and wounded more than 130, with rescuers still searching for survivors.
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