Russia calls Kremenchuk mall attack another 'false flag operation' by Ukraine

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova dismissed the strike on a shopping centre in Kremenchuk as another "false flag operation" by Ukraine.

Zakharova said on Wednesday that Russian military targeted the Kredmash plant right next to the shopping centre "which was the place storing the weapons and munitions delivered by the US and the EU countries to be sent to a UAF force in Donbas."

Zakharova also hit back at German foreign minister Annalena Baerbock who accused Russia of weaponizing the food crisis with the blockade of Ukrainian grain shipments, suggesting that Baerbok is "doing everything to bury in oblivion the fact that it was her country that has historically used hunger as a weapon."

She went on to accuse the West of not really caring about world hunger, reminding that "Russia is prepared to export tens of millions of tons of its own grain - if western bans are lifted from its shipment."