The moment when a Putin rocket hit a shopping center in Kiev: the massacre left at least eight dead

A security camera captured the moment when a rocket hit a Kiev shopping mall on Sunday night, in an attack that left at least eight dead.

There is almost nothing left of the new shopping center “Retroville”, located in the north-west of Kiev and bombed by Russian forces. At 22.45 (local time), a bombardment shook this suburb of the Ukrainian capital, destroying both the building and the nearest surroundings.

“I was quietly at home, my apartment was shaken by the explosion, I thought the building was going to fall,” recalls Vladimir, 76, a resident of the area. The Russians “were probably aiming at a thermal (electric) power station a few hundred meters away,” he said, pointing to a large white chimney on the horizon.

Opened at the beginning of 2020, just before the covid-19 pandemic, “Retroville” was a temple of consumption, with its 250 stores, its western brands, its cinemas and its 3,000 parking spaces. The entire southern part of the immense shopping complex, which was the pride of the inhabitants of the neighborhood, was devastated.

Under an awning on which large advertising posters hung, six corpses lay on the ground with their bare feet sticking out of the black plastic with which they have been covered. The bodies are all men with military equipment, and two are half-naked, suggesting that soldiers were probably sleeping there at the time of the bombing.

According to locals, tonight's bombing was the biggest in Kiev since the start of the Russian offensive on February 24.

Dima Stepanienko, 30, recounts that she fell “at the foot of the bed” with the explosion. “I'm afraid so,” he says, lowering his gaze, answering the question of whether the war will have reached Kiev.

In the vicinity of the mall, almost no windows were spared from the explosion and broken glass covers the esplanades of the 20-storey buildings.

The southern car park of the “Retroville” now looks like a battlefield: pulverized vehicles, twisted scrap and debris that hinder passage.

From the sports club “Sportlife” and its pool there is literally a pile of steel and pools of dirty water, with molten pieces of insulating polyester. The environment gives off a burning smell.

Among the rubble, a group of firefighters and soldiers search for more victims, at the foot of a ten-storey building charred and still smoking of which only the concrete structure remains. “They are the offices of the mall, fortunately, there was no one,” explains a neighbor.

(With information from AFP)

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