Russian Drone Strike Kills Four at Ukrainian Shopping Mall as War Crimes Case Opens

A Russian drone struck the Gulliver shopping centre in Pavlohrad, in Ukraine's Dnipropetrovsk region, at around 4:25 p.m. local time on Thursday, September 10. Ukraine's Office of the Prosecutor General says the attack damaged market stalls, a store, and vehicles in an area packed with shoppers.

The State Emergency Service put the toll at four dead and 62 injured by 6:16 p.m. local time, according to the Kyiv Post. The BBC reported a slightly lower figure of 60 wounded. Casualties vary as hospitals process the injured. Two of the wounded were emergency responders hurt while fighting the fire, and United24Media reported three children among the injured.

Ukrainian Interior Minister Ivan Vyhivskyi said the strike hit "in the middle of the day, when there were many people on the streets." President Volodymyr Zelensky called it part of a pattern: "The Russians used drones to kill people who were simply standing near shopping centres."

Oleksandr Hanzha, head of the Dnipropetrovsk Regional Military Administration, said all the wounded were under medical supervision and confirmed a separate, third Russian strike on the city of Dnipro the same day that set grocery warehouses on fire.

What exact weapon hit Pavlohrad remains disputed. Ukrainian outlet UkrMedia News identified it as a Shahed-type drone, while the Kyiv Independent said the weapon type was unconfirmed. Neither claim is settled in the sources reviewed here.

Ukraine's Prosecutor General has opened proceedings under Article 438 of the criminal code, Ukraine's war-crimes statute, over the Pavlohrad strike.

A pattern of mall strikes

Pavlohrad is the third shopping center hit this week. A Russian drone attack on a mall in Sumy on Wednesday, September 9, killed two people and wounded 20, according to Ukrinform and the BBC; United24Media put that toll at three dead and 21 injured. Aerial bombing in Sumy on Thursday reportedly injured eight more people, including three children.

In Zaporizhzhia, a mall was almost completely destroyed by Russian air strikes on Monday, September 7, its owners said. It was closed at the time and no casualties were reported. Last month, a Russian drone strike on a shopping centre in Kryvyi Rih killed at least 16 people and injured 130, one of the deadliest single strikes on a civilian retail site of the war.

Ukraine strikes back at Russian energy and naval targets

Ukraine answered with its own long-range campaign. Drones traveled roughly 3,300 kilometers to hit an industrial facility in Novy Urengoy, in Russia's Yamalo-Nenets region, which the Interfax news agency says produces about 80% of Russia's natural gas. Fire Point, the Ukrainian drone and missile manufacturer, confirmed the strike on social media without elaborating. Independent Russian outlet Meduza said it was Ukraine's first attack on that city.

Zelensky said Ukrainian forces also struck Novorossiysk, a Black Sea port in Russia's Krasnodar region, hitting a naval base, an oil-loading terminal, and warships carrying cruise missiles.

Russia reported its own casualties. A Ukrainian seaborne drone attack on the resort city of Sochi overnight Wednesday wounded 28 people, Russian officials said. A separate Ukrainian drone strike on Novy Oskol in Belgorod region reportedly killed one person and wounded six.

Peace push stalls, Gaza violence continues

Envoys sent by President Trump held talks with Vladimir Putin in Moscow and with Zelensky in Kyiv over the weekend. The effort "appears to have yielded few concrete results," the BBC reported, with no ceasefire or troop pullback announced on either side.

Separately, in Gaza, Al Jazeera reported that an Israeli strike killed four members of a Palestinian family, including girls aged 8 and 12, as they slept in their home in Beit Lahia in northern Gaza. Al Jazeera says Israeli forces have killed more than 1,300 Palestinians since a ceasefire took effect in October 2025. No Israeli military statement on the Beit Lahia strike or the broader casualty figure appears in the reporting reviewed here, and that toll should be read as Al Jazeera's own accounting rather than an independently verified total.

For Pavlohrad, the immediate next step is the war-crimes probe under Article 438. What it can realistically produce against an ongoing Russian drone campaign that has now hit three Ukrainian shopping malls in a single week remains unclear.