At least eight people have died after Russia bombed a shopping centre in Ukraine's capital city. Firefighters were working through the night to rescue Ukrainians trapped underneath the rubble of the complex.
Retroville shopping mall, in Kyiv's Podilskyi district, was hit at just before 10.48pm last night.Ukraine's Prosecutor General's Office said at least eight people had been killed in the strike, the Kyiv Independent reports.
The bodies of six people have been laid in front of the destroyed building, according to news agency AFP. The explosion was caught on camera with CCTV footage showing a huge fireball rising from the mall, reports the Mirror.
Read more:
Further south, Ukraine has refused to give up the besieged city of Mariupol, saying there will be "no talk of any surrender". The encircled southern city of Mariupol on the Sea of Azov has seen some of the worst horrors of the war, under Russian attack for more than three weeks.
Strikes hit an art school sheltering some 400 people only hours before Russia’s offer to open two corridors out of the city in return for the capitulation of its defenders, according to Ukrainian officials. And officials rejected the Russian proposal for safe passage out of Mariupol even before Russia’s deadline of 5am Moscow time (0200 GMT) for a response came and went.
“There can be no talk of any surrender, laying down of arms,” Ukrainian deputy prime minister Irina Vereshchuk told the news outlet Ukrainian Pravda. “We have already informed the Russian side about this.”
Mariupol mayor Piotr Andryushchenko also quickly dismissed the offer, saying in a Facebook post he did not need to wait until the morning deadline to respond and cursing at the Russians, according to the news agency Interfax Ukraine.
Russian Colonel General Mikhail Mizintsev had offered two corridors – one heading east towards Russia and the other west to other parts of Ukraine. He did not say what Russia planned if the offer was rejected.
In the UK, Downing Street has publicly blamed Vladimir Putin’s Russia for being behind hoax calls targeting British ministers. Defence Secretary Ben Wallace and Home Secretary Priti Patel said they had been targeted by calls from imposters last week while No 10 revealed an unsuccessful attempt was also made to contact Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries.
Meanwhile, some 10,200 visas have been issued under the Ukraine family scheme as of 4pm on Sunday, the Home Office said. A total of 31,500 applications have been submitted so far, according to provisional data published on the department’s website.
