Kyiv (Ukraine) (AFP) – Russian drones slammed into a busy shopping centre in eastern Ukraine Friday, killing 15 people in an attack condemned as “cynical and despicable” by President Volodymyr Zelensky.

The attack on Kryvyi Rig, Zelensky’s hometown, comes as Russia has intensified its bombardments of Ukrainian cities in recent months.

Four more people, including three minors, were killed in another strike in the southern Mykolaiv region, Interior Minister Ivan Vygivsky said on Telegram.

Videos on social media of the Kryvyi Rig incident showed rescuers rushing to help the wounded on the street outside, as smoke poured out of the building.

A second drone smashed into the roof of the building around half an hour after the first – a repeat strike that Zelensky said in a post on X was “targeting the emergency responders”.

The Ukrainian emergency services the attack had killed 15 people, wounding 130 others, 23 of them children.

Zelensky in his X post condemned “an absolutely cynical and despicable strike… carried out by the Russians against an ordinary shopping centre”.

Kryvyi Rig, an industrial city roughly 60 kilometres (37 miles) from the front line, has come under repeated Russian attacks throughout the war.

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