A Russian bombardment on Monday killed at least 13 people in a shopping center in central Ukraine, according to local authorities, provoking strong condemnation from the G7 countries meeting in Germany, which denounced a “war crime”.
A Russian strike also killed eight civilians during the day at a water distribution point in the east, according to kyiv, which called on the G7 to end the war.
It is “one of the most shameless terrorist acts in European history”, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said of the bombing of a shopping center in Kremenchuk, a city 330 km southeast of kyiv , and more than 200 km from the front.
It hit “a peaceful town, an ordinary shopping mall, with women, children, ordinary civilians inside,” he said.
The latest report, given by the governor of the Poltava region, Dmytro Lounine, reports thirteen dead and more than 40 injured. “It’s too early to talk regarding the final death toll,” he said on Telegram.
“Indiscriminate attacks once morest innocent civilians constitute a war crime,” the G7 leaders said in the evening from their summit in southern Germany, in a statement that “solemnly condemns the heinous attack” and assures that Vladimir Putin will have to “be accountable”.
The world is “horrified” by this strike, “the latest in a series of atrocities”, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said shortly before.
French President Emmanuel Macron denounced “absolute horror”, and called on the Russian people to “see the truth” in the face
This “will only strengthen the determination” of Westerners to support Ukraine, said British Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
According to the Ukrainian Air Force, the mall was hit by Kh-22 anti-ship missiles fired from Tu-22 long-range bombers from Russia’s Kursk region.
In New York, the spokesperson for the UN, Stéphane Dujarric, recalled that the belligerents were bound by international law to “protect civilians and civilian infrastructure”, judging the new strike “totally deplorable”.
An emergency meeting of the UN Security Council on the latest Russian bombings once morest civilian targets in Ukraine will take place on Tuesday at 7:00 p.m. GMT, the Albanian presidency of the highest UN body said on Monday.
“Shot at a Crowd”
A few hours following the announcement of the bombardment of Kremenchuk, the Ukrainian authorities announced another deadly Russian strike once morest civilians in Lyssychansk, a strategic pocket of Ukrainian resistance in the Donbass basin (east).
In this twin town of Severodonetsk, recently taken by the Russians, at least eight Ukrainian civilians were killed and 21 others injured on Monday while “collecting water from a cistern”, announced the governor regional.
“The Russians fired on a crowd of people with multiple Hurricane rocket launchers,” said Sergei Gaïdaï, the governor of the Lugansk region.
Lyssytchansk is the last big city that remains to be conquered for the Russians in this province, one of the two which make up the Donbass with that of Donetsk.
The conquest of Donbass, already partly held by pro-Russian separatists since 2014, has been the Russians’ priority objective since they evacuated the area around kyiv at the end of March.
“Lyssytchansk and the neighboring villages are living their most difficult days. The Russians are destroying everything in their path”, lamented Serguiï Gaïdaï.
New Russian strikes on the large city of Kharkiv, in northeastern Ukraine, also killed five people Monday evening and injured 22, including five children, local authorities said.
“The enemy is deliberately terrorizing the civilian population,” accused regional governor Oleg Sinegoubov.
On Sunday, for the first time since June 5, the capital kyiv was hit by Russian missiles.
“As long as it takes”
Time is running out and the G7 must do everything to put an end to this murderous conflict before the end of the year and the arrival of winter, underlined Volodymyr Zelensky in this context.
In a speech by videoconference, before the announcement of the attacks on Kremenchuk and Lysytchansk, he told the leaders of the seven industrial powers gathered at Elmau castle, in the Bavarian Alps, that it was “not the time for negotiation ” with Moscow, according to comments reported by the French presidency.
In this speech behind closed doors, he insisted on the “need for full, complete, very operational support for Ukraine”, according to Paris.
The G7 countries (Germany, United States, France, Canada, Italy, Japan, United Kingdom) promised him in return to continue to support Ukraine “as long as necessary”.
At the same time, these heads of state and government, who have been meeting since Sunday, will continue to “increase the pressure on (Vladimir) Putin”, assured German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, host of this summit, in particular through a new salvo of sanctions targeting the Russian economy.
The Westerners, led by the United States, want to tighten the noose on Moscow by targeting the Russian defense industry in particular, said a senior White House official.
They also intend to develop a “mechanism to cap the price of Russian oil at the global level”, continued this senior official.
If the modalities of such a measure remain to be defined, the Westerners seem ready to accede to a request from Mr. Zelensky who asked them to “limit the prices of oil exported by the aggressor” to dry up one of its main sources of income.
The G7 will also “coordinate to use customs duties on Russian products to help Ukraine”, according to the same source.
On the first day of their exchanges on Sunday, some of the seven industrialized countries had already announced an embargo on newly mined gold in Russia.
Diplomatic marathon
Despite the heavy sanctions that have hit the Russian economy since the start of the offensive on Ukraine on February 24, the Kremlin assured Monday that there was “no reason” to mention a default in payment of Russia.
The Russian authorities, however, acknowledged that because of the sanctions, two installments had not reached creditors by the deadline on Sunday.
While kyiv continues to demand more arms deliveries, the United States is now considering supplying it with a sophisticated surface-to-air missile system of “medium and long ranges”.
France will send “significant quantities” of armored personnel carriers to Ukraine, announced Monday evening the French Minister of the Armed Forces, Sébastien Lecornu.
For Olaf Scholz, the bombings of Sunday and Monday came as a reminder once once more that “it was right to be united and to support Ukraine”.
The leaders of the G7 will end their summit on Tuesday, the day Vladimir Putin must make his first trip abroad since the start of the offensive in Ukraine, in Tajikistan, a former Soviet republic in Central Asia.
The diplomatic marathon of the allies will continue on Tuesday with the NATO summit in Madrid, an appointment in which Mr. Zelensky must also participate remotely.
