Shelling kills eight in Kyiv district, officials say

Russian shelling killed eight people in a Kyiv shopping district on Sunday, as well as damaged buildings and cars within a hundred-meter radius, according to Reuters.

“According to the information we have at the moment, several homes and one of the shopping centres [were hit],” said Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko.

“Russia fired at our shopping centre. The mall and the residential buildings around it have suffered terrible damage,” army chaplain Mykola Medinskiy told Reuters.

Firefighters were dispatched to respond to the shelling and to search for survivors.

Ukraine’s capital has been largely spared from the relentless shelling and larger-scale wreckage in Mariupol and Kharkiv, cities closer to the Russian border.

A group of independent journalists also reported bombings of transport infrastructure and a gas station in the Kyiv region on Saturday night, though there were no related deaths or injuries in those attacks. 

Medinskiy said that there were no “strategic military objects” near the deadly shelling in Kyiv Sunday.

Russia has denied targeting civilians in its assault against Ukraine, even as the United States and other countries point to increasing evidence of war crimes due to mounting civilian atrocities. 

According to data reported Sunday by the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, some 902 Ukrainian civilians have been killed — including 75 children — among a total of 2,361 civilian casualties since the war began on Feb. 24. 

The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees also reported Sunday that 10 million Ukrainians have been forced to flee from their homes amid the invasion. More than 3 million Ukrainians have fled to other countries.