After Russian missile destroys mall, wife of missing man waits and hopes

Sabina Hrytsai asked why the mall was not closed when air raid sirens sounded about 10 minutes before the attack.

KREMENCHUK, Ukraine — Unable to reach her husband by phone after a Russian missile struck the Amstor shopping centre last week, Sabina Hrytsai tried social media.

“I am looking for my dear beloved husband,” she wrote on Facebook, describing what 27-year-old Evgeny was wearing when he left for his shift at the mall.

“Dear, I believe you are alive,” she added.

But after so many days of waiting, her hope was fading. The hospitals said they didn’t have him. The police could not find him either. Nor could the employees at the home electronics retailer where he worked as a sales consultant.

“I just want him to be alive,” Hrytsai said in an interview in Kremenchuk, the city southwest of Kyiv where they both grew up and celebrated their first anniversary on June 11.

Twenty-one are now confirmed dead following Monday’s cruise missile strike, the State Emergency Service of Ukraine said on Saturday. Another 66 were injured.

Work is still underway to identify more than two dozen human remains recovered at the scene of what has become one of the deadliest attacks of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Russia has admitted to targeting the mall but called it a military target and denied there were civilian casualties. Both claims have been dismissed as falsehoods. A vehicle factory 500 metres away was also hit.