Ukraine has released new footage of shoppers diving for cover the moment a Russian missile hit a busy mall.
Video captured by CCTV cameras shows terrified customers running for their lives moments after the attack at the Amstor mall in Kremenchuk, central Ukraine on Monday.
The strike killed at least 18 in the shopping centre alone. A further 59 were injured, while a further 20 people remain missing.
A missile can be seen flying towards the building in footage from outside the shopping centre. Seconds later, a huge explosion takes place, throwing debris high into the air.
Before the strike, shoppers can be seen calmly browsing busy stores and walking around the exterior of the mall.
The footage, released by Ukraine’s security service, calls into question Russia’s claims the mall was “non-functioning” and was being used to store ammunition.
“The security service has established the circumstances of the launch of missiles at the shopping centre in Kremenchuk,” the agency said in a tweet.
“The secret service has collected numerous pieces of evidence that the occupiers knowingly committed a war crime.”
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky has accused Russia of deliberately targeting civilians during the strike.
“The Russian missile hit this object, purposefully. They wanted to kill as many people as possible in a peaceful city, in a regular shopping mall,” he said following the attack.
However, the UK’s ministry of defence said in an intelligence update on Wednesday there was a “realistic possibility” the strike was accidental and the missile had been intended for a “nearby infrastructure target”.
The statement added: “Russia’s shortage of more modern precision strike weapons and the professional shortcomings of their targeting planners will highly likely result in further civilian casualties.”
Moscow’s defence ministry had said on Tuesday the blaze at the mall was caused by the “detonation of stored ammunition for western weapons”, but provided no evidence to back up its claim.
