Shoppers in the city of Kremenchuk in central Ukraine were enjoying the start of their week at the Amstor shopping mall on June 27, 2022. Suddenly, an air raid warning rang out and minutes later, as citizens piled into the street, two Kh-22 missiles slammed into the mall.

Panic erupted in the city. Emergency services rushed to the scene, attending to the 56 injured civilians. Nevertheless, 21 people were killed, marking one of Russia’s bloodiest attacks on Ukrainian citizens, all whilst G7 leaders had arrived in Germany to discuss Russia's aggression.

A year on from the attack, many residents are still shaken. The mall has been completely razed to the ground but the Amstor Retail Group plans to rebuild it on the same site in the near future. Next to it will be a memorial for the victims.

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Oleg, a security guard, continues to guard the derelict space. He was on duty the day of the explosions, with his life now divided between events before and after the attack. He finds it hard to believe that a year has already passed.

Whilst shoppers scrambled to evacuate during the alarm, Oleg was tasked with ensuring the shopkeepers closed down. But before he could leave, a missile hit just 15 metres away from him, the force throwing the young security guard against the wall.

“I was covered in glass. When I opened my eyes, I couldn’t see anything, even after turning the flash on my phone,” he said.

His vision eventually returned, but lying next to him was a shopkeeper he knew, crushed to death beneath the rubble. Staggering out of the burning building, Oleg immediately went to find his girlfriend who was working at a separate building nearby to see if she had been hurt. Fortunately she wasn’t, as the missile had only targeted the mall.

Immediately after the attack, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy condemned Russia as the “largest terrorist organisation in the world”. He gave a two-hour briefing on the situation at the G7 meeting and later called on the West to designate Russia as a state sponsor of terror.

“Today’s attack on the shopping mall in Kremenchuk is one of the most defiant terrorist attacks in European history. A peaceful shopping mall with women, children, ordinary citizens inside,” Zelenskiy said. “Only insane terrorists, who should have no place on earth, can strike missiles at such an object.”

Kyiv claimed that the attack had deliberately coincided with the busiest shopping time, with 1,000 people estimated to have been inside, and was a warning to the G7 countries that Moscow wasn’t going to back down. Russia initially denied its responsibility, but later admitted to firing the missiles claiming that they were targeting a nearby weapons depot which caused the shopping mall to catch on fire. Moscow also described Amstor as “non-functioning”, which was revealed to be false.

Two days later, the UK Ministry of Defence stated that there was a “likely possibility” that Russia had intended to hit nearby infrastructure but missed. “Russian planners highly likely remain willing to accept a high level of collateral damage when they perceive military necessity in striking a target,” the Ministry stated.

Kremenchuk will never forget the attack, but the city remains defiant. Despite the shock, Oleg went back to work the next day, guarding the premises as the military and journalists arrived to survey the damage over the following weeks. He feels a sense of duty in his work and will stay, despite the daily reminder of how close he came to death.

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