Ukraine shopping mall caught fire after strike at ammunition depot, Russia says

By Elena Teslova

MOSCOW (AA) - The Russian Defense Ministry said on Tuesday that its strike at a weapons and ammunition warehouse in the city of Kremenchuk provoked the fire at a nearby, not-working shopping mall.

Speaking at a press briefing in Moscow, the ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said the fire broke out due to ammunition detonated at the destroyed hangar with Western weapons.

"On June 27, in the city of Kremenchuk of Poltava region, Russia's Aerospace Forces hit with high-precision air-based weapons hangars with weapons and ammunition, delivered from the US and European countries, in the area of the Kremenchuk plant of road machines.

"As a result of a high-precision strike, the Western-made weapons and ammunition concentrated on the warehouse territory for further shipments to the Ukrainian group in Donbas were hit.

"The detonation of the stored ammunition for the Western weapons provoked a fire in a non-functioning shopping center located next to the territory of the plant," the ministry said.

The Ukrainian officials earlier accused the Russian military of striking a shopping mall in Kremenchuk, claiming it killed at least 18 people and injured many others.

The Monday attack on Amstor shopping mall caused a huge fire and sent dark smoke billowing into the sky, footage shared on social media showed.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that more than 1,000 civilians were inside the mall at the time of the attack.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov refused to give his assessments about the incident, saying the Russian Defense Ministry made "an exhaustive statement."

"I have no comment, there was an exhaustive comment, explanations from the Ministry of Defense, the version (of the Ukrainian side) is completely rejected, absolutely exhaustive explanations (are given) of what happened, which object was struck," Dmitry Peskov said.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov echoed Peskov, saying, "the hangar was bombed, and as a result of the detonation of ammunition, a nearby empty shopping center caught fire."

Lavrov put the responsibility on the West, noting that if there were no Western arms deliveries to Ukraine, there would not be strikes.

More than 4,700 civilians have been killed in Ukraine since the war started on Feb. 24, while over 14 million people have been forced to flee their homes, according to the UN.