Alona Mazurenko – Wednesday, 29 June, 2022, 23:47
Russian President Vladimir Putin has stated that the Russian missile attack hitting the Amstor shopping centre, where more than 20 civilians were killed and dozens injured and missing, does not amount to a terrorist attack. He claimed that the Russian army does not fire on civilian targets, and their “high-precision weapons” reach their targets.
Source: Kremlin-aligned Russian news agency RIA Novosti; Russian news agency Interfax
Quote: “There has been no terrorist attack. I know, and we have said it many times, we have shown it, – using drones, it is clear when they [Ukrainians – ed.] place weapons, MLRS, artillery, heavy equipment in general in residential areas, or somewhere else. Our [troops] do not fire ‘across country’ just like that.
This is usually done after reconnaissance verifies the targets. I am sure that it is exactly the same in this case. Well, they [Ukrainians -ed.] hide military equipment, especially Western units, in all sorts of hangars, markets, factories, shops, places where equipment is repaired and put in working order.
The Russian army does not strike at any civilian targets. There is no need. We have every opportunity to determine what is where and, with modern high-precision long-range weapons, to reach those targets.”
Previously: Dmytro Lunin, head of the Poltava Oblast Military Administration, posted pictures of the Amstor shopping centre in Kremenchuk destroyed by a missile strike, while Danylo Hetmantsev, a member of parliament, reported that the shopping centre had seen considerable revenues on the day of the attack, as confirmed by cash register receipts.
Background:
On 27 June, the Russians launched a missile strike on the Amstor shopping centre in Kremenchuk. A second missile damaged the building of “Kredmash” PRJSC (a machine engineering plant), which only produced spare parts for civilian cars.
At least 20 people were killed and 59 were injured in a Russian missile strike at the Amstor shopping centre.
Yurii Ihnat, a spokesman for Ukrainian Air Force Command, said that the attack on Kremenchuk was carried out using an X-22 missile fired from a Tu-22M3 bomber from the Kursk area.
Russian representatives initially claimed the missile had struck “hangars with weapons and ammunition from the United States and European countries.”
Later the Russian Federation representatives claimed that the shopping centre was “not operating,” “staged”, and that the video record of the first minutes after the shelling and the screams of blooded civilians was “fake.”
It is not the first time that Russia has tried to disown and deny their “announced” strikes after civilian targets have been hit. This was particularly the case with the missile attack on the train station in Kramatorsk.
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy later shared a video that clearly shows the Russian missile hitting the shopping centre.
The Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine has already identified the Russian pilots who launched rockets at the shopping centre in Kremenchuk. Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova is convinced that the missile strike on the Amstor shopping centre should be considered to be a crime against humanity falling under the jurisdiction of the UN International Criminal Court.
