Russian Ministry of Defense comments on Kremenchuk shopping center explosion

The official spokesman of the Russian Ministry of Defence

Lieutenant General Igor Konashenkov, said in his daily briefing on Tuesday morning that the shopping center that burned in the city of Kremenchuk was not operational.

Konashenkov stated that the aircraft hangars stored weapons from the United States of America and the European Union in preparation for their shipment to the Donbass front line, and as a result of the high-precision strike, the target was injured, causing the ammunition stored to explode and subsequently a fire at the shopping mall.

For its part, the Ukrainian authorities are disseminating unsubstantiated information about the deaths of people as a result of a rocket strike on the shopping mall.

• According to the First Deputy Permanent Representative of Russia to the United Nations

• Dmitry Polyansky, this case is similar to the provocation in Bucha. As Polyanski continued

• there are a number of contradictions in the situation, with Kyiv wanting to draw attention to Ukraine ahead of the NATO summit

while the Ukrainian authorities will again ask the West for more military assistance.

1. Ukraine's President, Vladimir Zelenskiy
2. had previously stated that fire had burned at the Amstor shopping centre in Kremenchuk
3. as a result of a rocket attack, where 1,000 people were allegedly in the building when the rocket landed

while the head of the regional military department in the Poltava region, Dmitry Lunin, said 13 people had been killed and dozens injured as a result of the fire.

However, according to Regnum, the information provided by Zelensky was not correct, as the Russian Ministry of Defence stated that the centre was not functioning, as evidenced by the near-empty parking lot, as well as attendance data.