The G7 denounces a "war crime"... 18 killed in Russian bombing in Ukraine's Kremenchuk

A Russian missile strike on a shopping center in the city of Kremenchuk in central Ukraine, which the Group of Seven considered a "war crime", killed at least 18 people, while Moscow confirmed Tuesday that it had targeted an arms factory.

"The 18 dead ... my deepest condolences to the families and relatives. Rescue workers continue to work," Dmitriy Lunin, who heads the Poltava region administration, said on Tuesday morning.

The city of Kremenchuk is located 330 km southeast of Kyiv, more than 200 km from the front line.

Emergency services reported in an earlier toll during the night that 16 people had been killed and 59 wounded, including 25 in hospital.

For his part, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky stressed that this was "one of the largest and most flagrant terrorist acts in the history of Europe."

He said the attack hit "a peaceful town and an ordinary shopping center with women, children and ordinary civilians inside."

But the Russian army confirmed on Tuesday that it had bombed a weapons depot in Kremenchuk, which caused explosions that, he said, led to the outbreak of fire in an abandoned shopping mall.

The Russian military confirmed that "explosions of ammunition belonging to Western weapons caused a fire (...) in a shopping center that was out of service."

And Russian bombing of eastern Ukraine killed eight civilians earlier at a water distribution point, according to Kyiv, which called on the Group of Seven to end the war.

"Indiscriminate attacks against innocent civilians constitute a war crime," the leaders of the Group of Seven countries said Monday evening, during a summit in southern Germany, in a joint statement, stressing that the Group of Seven "strongly condemns the heinous attack" and stresses that Russian President Vladimir Putin must be "accountable."

On Monday, French President Emmanuel Macron described the bombing of a shopping center in central Ukraine by Russian forces as "absolute terror", calling on the Russian people to "see the truth" as it is.

For his part, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson condemned the strike, which, according to him, shows Putin's "brutality and barbarism" and only serves to "reinforce the determination" of the West to support Kyiv.

The Ukrainian Air Force confirmed that the commercial center was hit by KH-22 anti-ship missiles fired by Tu-22 long-range launchers from the Russian region of Kursk.

In New York, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said in his daily press conference that the Russian strike on the mall was "very unfortunate".

"We note once again that all parties are required, under international humanitarian law, to protect civilians and civilian infrastructure," he added.

An emergency meeting of the UN Security Council on the latest Russian bombing of civilian targets in Ukraine is scheduled for Tuesday, the AFP team from the Albanian presidency of the UN has learned.

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