Russia-Ukraine Flash Report for 6-27-22 08:45 PDT - Kremenchuk Missile Strike

On Monday, one, possibly two cruise missiles hit the 11,750 square meter (126,000 square foot) Amstor shopping mall in Kremenchuk, Ukraine. Kremenchuk is about 250 kilometers southeast of Kyiv, on the Dnipro River. The city is not located anywhere near current lines of conflict.

Local reports indicate there were up to 1,000 civilians in the mall at the time of the missile strike. We have a video up on Twitter. There is no information on casualties at this time, but the number is expected to be high.

Ukrainian President Molodomyr Zelenskyy condemned the attack, hours after speaking at the G7 Summit by video conference. "It is impossible to imagine the number of victims."

ASSESSMENT: There is a factory complex approximately 500 meters northeast of the Amstor shopping mall. This was the likely target.

Russia has exhausted most of its high-precision cruise missiles and has become increasingly reliant on air-launched Kh-22 air-to-sea missiles. Additionally, due to concern over Ukrainian air defenses, most of these missiles are being fired from outside of Ukrainian air space.

The Kh-22 was introduced in 1962 and went through several upgrades. The missile was specifically designed to destroy NATO aircraft carriers. Russia is reported to have a significant inventory of what would now be, outdated and functionally irrelevant missiles.

Because the Kh-22 was designed as a land-to-sea missile, its inertial guidance and targeting systems are not very effective on land targets. Simply put, for its electronics, a mall and a factory "look" the same.

We do not have specific information that this was a Kh-22 strike, but the explosive force, the lack of videos of approaching cruise missiles, and the high inaccuracy strongly suggest that was the weapon used.

The ISW wrote on June 26 that the missile attacks across Ukraine, which are now at the highest operational tempo since the opening 48 hours of the war, are a show of force to leaders at the G7 Summit in Madrid. We vigorously disagree. The Kremlin made it very clear that if HIMARS or other medium and long-range missiles were deployed in Ukraine, they would respond by targeting Ukrainian cities with missile attacks.

Under the Geneva Convention, civilians and civilian areas are to receive the utmost protection from attacks. Even if we assume the target was the industrial complex 500 meters to the northeast, the nature of this attack to occur during daytime hours was meant to maximize casualties. This could be constituted as a war crime.