Is it true that the shopping center in Kremenchug was closed several months before the missile attack?

On June 27, 2022, Russian troops launched a cruise missile attack on the Ukrainian city of Kremenchug, destroying the Amstor shopping center. In response, the Russian Ministry of Defense stated that this “empty” shopping center had not functioned for a long time. We checked if this is true.

June 28, the day after the missile strike, Russian Ministry of Defense spoke with the official version of what happened: “The detonation of stored ammunition for Western weapons caused a fire in a non-functioning shopping center located next to the plant.” On the same day, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told reportersthat the shopping center was allegedly empty. This version was picked up by dozens of Russian Media and Telegram-channels, simultaneously accusing Ukraine of fabricating fake stories about dead civilians.

This article does not talk about where the Russian shells hit and what caused the fire. We are just trying to figure out whether the shopping center was open on the day of the shelling.

The fact that the Amstor shopping center has not been open since March 2022 is the first time wrote Russian Telegram channel “War on Fake” - five hours after the shelling. Moreover, even at the beginning of the post, the authors only make an assumption: “It doesn’t look like the shopping center was working at all. <…> Apparently, equipment repaired at Dormash was stored in the shopping center.” And a few paragraphs later, the same information is presented as a proven fact: “The Amstor shopping center has not worked since March, it was used as a warehouse for equipment that was repaired at the Dormash plant and taken away through the Kremenchug station.”

The “War on Fake” channel used four arguments as evidence:

1. On video, posted President of Ukraine Vladimir Zelensky, the parking lot in front of the shopping center is almost empty;
2. There are many military personnel present in the parking lot, but virtually no women;
3. There are no photos of visitors on Instagram using the Amstor geotag for the last three months (since March);
4. Reviews on websites and Google maps also stopped being left in March.

The inconsistency of each of the above arguments can be easily refuted using logic, as well as photo and video materials from social networks.

1. The parking lot in front of the shopping center is almost empty

On video, which was used by the “War on Fake” channel, only a few cars are actually visible in the parking lot. However, this does not mean that the shopping center was closed. Firstly, on photo from Google Maps you can find photos of a working shopping center with different parking loads. For example, in these two pictures (behind April And June 2020) the area in front of the shopping center looks even more deserted than on June 27, 2022.

Secondly, the video was filmed some time after the explosion, when firefighters and rescuers had already arrived and started working. Most of the visitors had probably left the smoky parking lot by this point. On video Immediately after the explosion, visitors are seen getting into their cars and driving away. Therefore, there is nothing suspicious in the fact that the parking lot of a shopping center engulfed in fire was empty at some point during an air raid raid.

2. There are many military personnel present in the parking lot, but practically no women

In the video, we were able to count six men in military uniform, but this does not prove that the shopping center has long been turned into a military facility. Do not forget that in Ukraine valid martial law, and the city of Kremenchug has been for more than a month exposed bombings. In such conditions, the presence of several military personnel on the streets of the city is not surprising, as is the fact that they arrived at the site of the missile strike to help rescuers and victims.

There were still women at the scene of the incident, as can be seen by looking video “Where are the women running from the shopping center?” blogger Anatoly Shariy. More women possible see in the intensive care unit, where they were brought with wounds and burns.

3. There are no photos of visitors on Instagram using the Amstor geotag for the last three months (since March)

We managed to find not only the latest Instagram-posts with the geotag “Amstor”, but also a lot of photos from “Amstor” published on other social networks by both visitors and stores of the shopping center.

• User Marinadoohova posted video, filmed June 25. The footage shows that Amstor is open, people are entering it, and there are dozens of cars in the parking lot.
• Clothing store Town Kremenchuk May 19 published video of the new arrival of clothes and invited me to his boutique in Amstor.
• Throughout May and June, the Silpo supermarket is open almost every week published a list of promotional products that were “awaiting customers on the shelves” of the store. And June 10 invited come for cupcakes for Trinity Day.
• Users posted checks And price tags from Amstor, printed on June 27 a few hours before the raid.

4. Reviews on websites and Google maps also stopped leaving in March

The most recent reviews about the work of Moscow GUM on Google Maps were also made in March 2022. But this does not mean that GUM is closed and used as a warehouse for military equipment. By information fact-checking Telegram channel “War on War on Fake”, with the start of the war in Ukraine, Google stopped publishing reviews about locations in Ukraine, Russia and Belarus.

In addition, we found many publications employees And visitors center, who were in the building at the time of the explosion. For example, Telegram channel “Help Desk” published the story of Natalya Yudina, a pharmacy employee, who described the moment of the explosion and the ensuing chaos: “Every alarm, when my colleagues did not want to go out, I said: “Imagine, one day we will go out, and this will save our lives.” During the first alarm on June 27, Natalya left the building, and during the second she continued to diagnose the client. At the end of the story, Natalya wrote: “All that was left of my work was a robe, everything else burned.”

The Current Time channel also took interview several victims, and Bild correspondents filmed plot from the hospital where the wounded were taken.

Soon after the explosion, images began to appear on the Internet. requests help find people missing during the fire. Coffee company Zerna published a photo of her 19-year-old employee and asked her to help her parents with funds for treatment. Comfy Store named June 27 was a “dark day” in the history of Ukraine and the “Comfy family”: among the employees working in the store that day, one died, five were injured, and nine have not yet been found (for example, the husband of Sabina Gritsai Evgenia). According to official data, more than 20 people were killed, 59 were injured and more than 40 were missing.

June 28, Mayor of Kremenchug Vitaly Maletsky wrotethat a few days before the explosion, the administration of the Amstor shopping center decided not to close the complex during an air raid, as evidenced by message administration to the shopping center employees. About this security violation wrote many Russian media: “Since June 23, the shopping center in Kremenchug has not been closed during air raid raids.” How do these headings fit with statements the same media that the shopping center had been closed for a long time and was not functioning on the day of the shelling is incomprehensible. Apparently, this detail confuses them no more than the mass of available refutations of the fake news about the “empty” shopping center.

Fake

What do our verdicts mean?

Cover image: Viacheslav Pradko/AP

Read on the topic:

1. bellingcat. Russia’s Kremenchuk Claims Versus the Evidence
2. Meduza. What actually happened in Kremenchuk
3. BBC. BBC fact check: missile strike on Kremenchug shopping center
4. "Mediazone". People near the hot rubble
5. Is it true that the Ukrainians falsified a report about the shelling of a maternity hospital in Mariupol?
6. Is it true that a video of Ukrainian soldiers laying out corpses in Bucha has leaked online?