Shelling hit a Kyiv shopping centre, killing at least eight people, wrecking nearby buildings and leaving smoking piles of rubble and the twisted wreckage of burned-out cars spread over several hundred metres.
Firefighters and emergency workers amid the rubble of the Retroville shopping mall, Kyiv, a day after it was shelled by Russian forces. Photo: AFP
As day broke on Monday, firefighters were putting out small blazes around the smouldering carcass of a building in the shopping centre car park in the Podil district of the city and looking for possible survivors.
The force of the explosion late on Sunday obliterated one structure in the shopping centre car park and gutted an adjacent 10-storey building, shattering windows in the surrounding residential tower blocks.
Six bodies were lain out on the pavement as emergency services combed through the wreckage to the sound of distant artillery fire. Ukraine's Prosecutor General said at least eight people had been killed.
Russian Defence Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said areas near the shopping centre were used to store rocket munitions and for reloading multiple rocket launchers.
"High-precision long-range weapons on the night of March 21 destroyed a battery of Ukrainian multiple rocket launchers and a store of ammunition in a non-functioning shopping centre," he told reporters.
Russian forces have pounded some suburbs of the Ukrainian capital, but defenders have so far managed to prevent Kyiv from coming under the kind of full-scale assault that has devastated eastern cities such as Mariupol and Kharkiv.
However dozens of civilians have been killed in Kyiv since Russia launched its invasion on 24 February, many in residential buildings hit by missile strikes or debris from missiles shot down by Ukrainian anti-aircraft fire.
"Russia fired at our shopping centre. The mall and the residential buildings around it have suffered terrible damage," Mykola Medinskiy, an army chaplain, told Reuters, adding there were no strategic military objects in the area.
Reuters was not immediately able to verify that comment. Russia denies targeting civilians.
"It is hard for me to speak because my child worked here. She was at work just yesterday. And then this thing happened last night," said tearful onlooker Valentina Timofeevna.
The bulk of Russian forces remain more than 25km from the centre of Kyiv, British military intelligence said on Monday.
Thousands of people have been killed in the fighting and about 10 million displaced, including nearly 3.5m who have fled abroad, mostly to neighbouring European countries such as Poland.
Ukraine says Russian troops used stun grenades on protest rally
Ukraine's armed forces said Russian troops used stun grenades and gunfire to disperse a rally of pro-Ukrainian protesters in the occupied southern city of Kherson on Monday.
Russia did not immediately comment on the incident. Moscow denies targeting civilians.
Video footage showed several hundred protesters in Kherson's Freedom Square running to escape as projectiles land around them. Loud bangs can be heard and there are clouds of whitish smoke. Gunfire can also be heard.
"Russian security forces ran up, started throwing stun grenades into the crowd and shooting," the Ukrainian armed forces' press service said in a statement.
It said at least one person was wounded but that it was unclear how they received their injuries.
Reuters was unable to verify independently what weapons were fired.
The city of Kherson, a regional capital of about 250,000 people, was the first big urban centre to fall into the hands of Russian troops after they invaded Ukraine.
Since then, groups of residents have staged regular rallies in the centre of Kherson, protesting against the occupation and showing their support for the government in Kyiv by waving Ukrainian flags.
Earlier this month, the Ukrainian authorities said members of Russia's National Guard had detained more than 400 people in Kherson region for protesting against the occupation. It accused Russia of trying to create a police state there.
Russia calls the war a "special military operation" to disarm Ukraine and protect it from "Nazis". The West describes this as a false pretext for an unprovoked war of aggression to subdue a country President Vladimir Putin describes as illegitimate.
- Reuters