Four killed and 60 injured in Russian strike on shopping centre, Ukraine says

Four killed and 60 injured in Russian strike on shopping centre, Ukraine says Ukrainian officials said four people were killed and 60 wounded when a Russian drone struck a shopping centre in Pavlohrad, a city in the Dnipropetrovsk region. Shops and vehicles were hit in the daylight attack, which Interior Minister Ivan Vyhivskyi described as occurring “when the streets were full of people.” Two other shopping malls—in Zaporizhzhia and Sumy—were targeted by Russian aerial strikes earlier this week, according to Ukrainian media. Russia reported a Ukrainian seaborne drone attack on Sochi overnight Wednesday, saying 28 people were wounded and blaming Ukrainian forces for three additional deaths. A full‑scale war has been underway between Russia and Ukraine since President Vladimir Putin launched the invasion more than four and a half years ago. A recent peacemaking effort by envoys sent by US President Donald Trump appeared to yield few concrete results after talks in Moscow with Putin and in Kyiv with President Volodymyr Zelensky. Images released by the State Emergency Service of Ukraine show firefighters directing water hoses at burning vehicles amid clouds of smoke on a street in Pavlohrad. Two of the injured are reported to be members of the service itself, and a child was also hurt. Zelensky offered his condolences to the families and loved ones of those killed in Thursday’s attack. “The Russians used drones to kill people who were simply standing near shopping centres,” Ukraine’s president said in his statement. Pavlohrad, a logistics hub near the regional centre of Dnipro, has come under heavy attack before, with two people killed in a warehouse strike there last month. Ukrainian officials said a Russian drone attack on a promenade in Sumy on Wednesday killed two people and wounded 20. On Thursday, Russian aerial bombing reportedly injured eight people in Sumy, including three children. In Zaporizhzhia, a shopping centre of the same name—which was partially annexed by Russia soon after the invasion—was almost completely destroyed on Monday, its owners reported. However, the mall was closed at the time and there were no immediate reports of casualties. One of the bloodiest attacks on a shopping centre occurred last month, when Ukrainian officials said Russian drones killed at least 16 people and injured 130 in the city of Kryvyi Rih. Shopping malls in Russian‑controlled parts of Ukraine have also come under attack, with a Ukrainian drone strike reported on Monday on a promenade in the port city of Mariupol, Donetsk region, and another strike on the city of Donetsk last month. On Wednesday night, a number of Ukrainian seaborne drones attacked the shoreline at Sochi, Russian officials say. Two of the 28 people reported injured are children. On Thursday, Russian officials reported that a Ukrainian drone attack on the municipality of Novy Oskol in Belgorod Region had killed one person and wounded six others. It was further announced that a Ukrainian attack on a car in Russian‑controlled Zaporizhzhia on Wednesday killed a 15‑year‑old girl, also injuring a six‑year‑old child and two women; and a separate attack on a civilian lorry in the same area killed a man.