Two Russian drones hit a shopping mall in Kryvyi Rih on Friday, 21 August 2026, and the second one arrived half an hour after the first. At least 15 people died. More than 130 were wounded, the Moscow Times reported, citing local authorities. CNN put the death toll at 16.
Kryvyi Rih is President Volodymyr Zelensky’s hometown, a central Ukrainian city that has been targeted several times in the four-year war.
Regional Governor Oleksandr Hanzha said on Telegram that 22 of the wounded were children. “There are 29 people in serious condition, including five children,” he said. He posted a photo of black smoke rising from a large industrial building.
Two waves
Zelensky said the timing was deliberate. “The attack drones struck in two waves: half an hour after the first strike and the resulting fire, there was a second strike targeting emergency responders,” he wrote on Telegram. He called the attack “absolutely cynical and despicable” and said “attacks like these are nothing less than terrorist acts.” He promised that Ukraine “will definitely respond.”
CNN geolocated footage showing a drone hitting the mall and sending a fireball into the sky while smoke from the earlier strike was still visible. Other videos from the scene show smoke filling the building as people hurried out. Oleksandr Vilkul, head of the city’s defense council, said stores inside caught fire.
Vilkul said at least 29 of the 130 wounded were in serious condition, among them a 14-year-old girl with a traumatic brain injury and four other children.
The air-raid siren, he said, sounded for 20 minutes before the first explosion. “But the shops were open, people were inside them, and very few went to take shelter.” On Saturday he told residents to avoid shopping centers without shelters, citing intelligence that more strikes on such places were possible.
The wider war
The mall strike came a day after a Russian attack on Kyiv and its surrounding region that killed at least 17 people, according to Ukraine. CNN reported further Russian strikes over the next 24 hours in Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, Sumy, Donetsk, Kharkiv and Odesa, with at least nine more people killed.
Ukraine is hitting back at targets inside Russia. Overnight its forces struck the Novokuybyshevsk oil refinery and an Ozon logistics hub in Samara Oblast. Russia’s defense ministry said it intercepted more than 450 Ukrainian drones, and Krasnodar Krai governor Veniamin Kondratyev said two children were killed there.
Moscow had not commented directly on the mall attack. In an interview published Saturday, Vladimir Putin told Russian journalist Pavel Zarubin that Ukraine’s leaders “themselves let the genie out of the bottle when they started targeting our civilian enterprises.” He added: “They publicly declared their aim: to destroy the Russian economy. Well then, now you’ll get a response.”
CNN linked the rising civilian toll to a critical shortage of US-made Patriot interceptors, the only system able to shoot down ballistic missiles. Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha again asked allies for more interceptors and new sanctions on Russia’s military-industrial complex. “Russia must be denied both the ability to produce these means of terror and the ability to use them,” he said.
Sources
- Russian 'Double-Tap' Strike on Shopping Mall in Ukraine Kills 15 and Wounds 130 – The Moscow Times
- Zelensky vows response after Russian strike on shopping mall kills 16 | CNN
