Putin threatens Ukraine's most sensitive economic sectors as the Kryvyi Rih toll reaches 16
After the shopping centre strike, the Kryvyi Rih toll reached 16, with 9 people still missing. Putin said Kyiv had opened Pandora's box and that Moscow would hit Ukraine's most sensitive economic sectors.
Geopolitics··Morning
The shopping centre toll in Kryvyi Rih reached 16
Dnipropetrovsk regional head Oleksandr Hanzha said the death toll from the strike on the Kryvyi Rih shopping centre had reached 16 after another body was recovered from the rubble on Saturday morning, and that 9 people, two of them children, were still missing. Hanzha said on Telegram that 130 people were injured in Friday's two-wave attack, 29 of them in a serious condition; 23 children are among the wounded. President Volodymyr Zelensky had described Friday's attack as coming in two waves, with the second strike aimed at emergency workers. Footage verified by the BBC shows the second drone hitting the burning building.[1]
Ivan Fedorov said 1 person was killed in the Zaporizhzhia strike
Ivan Fedorov, who heads the Zaporizhzhia regional military administration, said 1 person was killed and 4 injured in the strike on the city. Local authorities said 1 person was killed early on Saturday in a warehouse fire in Kyiv's Darnytskyi district, and the Kyiv military administration reported injuries alongside that death. The Russian defence ministry said it had launched massive strikes on transport infrastructure and warehouses. Ukraine's military said on Friday it had struck an oil refinery and a military airfield deep inside Russia.[1]
On Russian state television, Putin threatened to target the most sensitive economic sectors
In comments to Russian state television published on Saturday, Putin said the Kyiv regime had set out to damage Russia's economy, had opened Pandora's box itself, and should expect a response targeting its most sensitive economic sectors. Ukraine has escalated strikes this summer on refineries and retailers' warehouses it says serve Russia's war effort, while Russia has hit Ukrainian economic infrastructure including grain exports through the Black Sea. Putin said the strikes on agricultural exports would not create a global food shortage because Russia could replace Ukrainian volumes, adding that Moscow faced shipment problems of its own but would resolve them. He repeated that Russia remains open to talks only on the basis of realities on the ground and called proposals passed through intermediaries exotic.[2]
