Deaths mount as Ukraine calls Russian mall strike a "terrorist attack"

Kremenchuk, Ukraine — Ukrainian emergency services personnel were still searching through the rubble on Tuesday of a shopping mall hit by a Russian missile strike, hoping to find any survivors as the death toll climbed to 18.

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy labelled the Monday strike on the mall in the central city of Kremenchuk a "terrorist attack," and the country's prosecutor general said it was a "crime against humanity.".

While Russia has claimed the mall was closed at the time of the strike, Zelenksyy said around 1,000 people were inside it when the missile hit.  The president said it was a targeted strike by Russia against innocent civilians. .

At the local hospital, a wounded Mykola Mykhailets, said he'd seen "lots of wounded people, burned people, some covered in blood." .

The front line in the war, in the Donbas, is just over 100 miles to the east of the smoldering ruins of the shopping center, and Ukrainians know it's a matter of when, not if, Russian rockets will strike again.