World
Drone Strike on Ukrainian Shopping Mall Kills Five, Injures Dozens Amid Escalating Attacks
By Today News Hours Editorial Desk
Ukrainian authorities report that a Russian drone strike on a shopping mall in Pavlohrad, located in the Dnipropetrovsk region, killed five people and injured 67 others, including eight children. Interior Minister Ivan Vyhivskyi said the daytime attack struck shops and vehicles while streets were crowded with people.
The State Emergency Service of Ukraine released images showing firefighters battling burning vehicles amid heavy smoke on a Pavlohrad street. Regional governor Oleksandr Hanzha confirmed the casualty figures in a Telegram post.
President Volodymyr Zelensky expressed condolences to the families of those killed, stating that Russian forces used drones to target civilians standing near shopping centers. Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha described the strike as a deliberate tactic of coercion, accusing Russia of attempting to exhaust and pressure Ukraine into making concessions through continued attacks on civilians.
Pavlohrad, a logistics hub near Dnipro, has been targeted before, including a strike last month on warehouses that killed two people.
The Pavlohrad attack follows similar strikes on shopping malls in other Ukrainian cities this week. In Sumy, a Russian drone attack on Wednesday killed two people and injured 20, while a separate bombing on Thursday injured eight people, including three children. In Zaporizhzhia, a mall was largely destroyed in a Monday strike, though it was unoccupied at the time and no casualties were reported.
Last month, one of the deadliest attacks on a shopping center occurred in Kryvyi Rih, where Russian drones reportedly killed at least 16 people and injured 130.
Malls in Russian-controlled areas of Ukraine have also been targeted. A Ukrainian drone reportedly struck a mall in Mariupol, Donetsk region, on Monday, following a similar attack in Donetsk city last month.
Russia also reported an overnight Ukrainian drone attack on the resort city of Sochi, injuring 28 people, including two children. Additionally, Russian officials said a Ukrainian strike on Novy Oskol in Belgorod region killed one person and injured six.
In Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia, officials reported that a Ukrainian attack on a car killed a 15-year-old girl and injured a six-year-old child and two women, while a separate strike on a civilian truck in the same region killed a man.
The war between Russia and Ukraine, now in its fifth year following President Vladimir Putin's invasion, continues despite recent diplomatic efforts. Envoys sent by US President Donald Trump held talks over the weekend with Putin in Moscow and with Zelensky in Kyiv, though the discussions appear to have produced little concrete progress.