Ukraine war: ‘Physically, I will survive, but morally, I am shocked’, says Kremenchuk shopping center attack survivor | World News

When they started recovering human remains, it was clear that there was little hope of finding more survivors

“The temperature is too high,” one lifeguard told us.

The fire that consumed the shopping center in Kremenchuk, after the missile hit, was reduce it to ashes and ruins.

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There is too little left to find; it is now a grim recovery operation.

We know that not all casualties are intact and easily identifiable, making it difficult for rescuers to understand exactly how many people were killed in this attack.

But dozens of people have yet to be counted.

A local police station is collecting DNA from loved ones who have reported their loved one is missing.

Outside a nearby hospital, I met a family gathered in the shade. They are crying. Without prompting, a woman reached for her phone and showed us a photo. It was her 22-year-old daughter, Tetyana, with a very bright smile and long black hair. She went missing.

“We went to all the hospitals, they said she wasn’t there,” said the girl’s difficult mother Liudmyla.

“The bodies in the morgue have yet to be identified by DNA. Russia, animals…”

Tetyana works in a mobile phone shop in a shopping mall. “Maybe I called her at 2 p.m.,” Liudmyla said.

“We talked after the first whistle of the airstrike. After the second whistle, I could not reach her.”

Liudmyla went to the hospital when she heard that two young women had been transferred there. But after checking with the doctors, she soon realized that so was Tetyana; they have the wrong hair color.

There are 25 patients from Monday’s attack.

Ihor, wrapped in bandages, told me he had seen the missile hit its target.

“When they attacked, I was inside – the first and then the second (the strike),” he said.

“I started walking to an exit through the smoke. My leg was injured. I bumped into a girl on the right side and I pulled her out. She didn’t say anything. I was one of the first. first run away.”

Ihor shopped for computer accessories. Now, he is in a cramped hospital room with two other casualties, arms and legs bandaged.

This is how life can quickly and brutally change for Ukrainians in this needless war.

“I’m just morally shocked,” he said. “Physically, I will survive, but what I have seen with my eyes…”

Frustrated with emotion, he didn’t finish his sentence.

War crime investigators were on the scene and one told me there was no evidence to date that the site had any military connections.

Russia said the fire was caused by an attack on a legitimate military target – a Western arsenal.

We drove around the area and saw no other evidence of recent damage to any buildings or warehouses outside of the mall.

The mayor of Kremenchuk told me that those who witnessed the fighting in the east had fled to his city for safety and are now caught up in this bombing. It is a cruel irony.

Kremenchuk was an industrial city in central Ukraine of little strategic importance in this war.

“We don’t have Russians here but we still don’t feel safe,” one man told me.

“We go to bed. Or we go shopping. And we know this can happen at any time.”