DistantNews
Support us
🇺🇦 Ukraine /Conflict & Security

Six strikes in one day destroy Epitsentr shopping centre in Mykolaiv

From Ukrainska Pravda · () Ukrainian

Translated from Ukrainian and summarized by DistantNews. Read the original for the full story.

At a glance

News Named sources Context piece
  • Russian drone strikes destroyed an Epitsentr home improvement centre in Mykolaiv after the site was hit six times on Sept. 4.
  • The company said the final strike hit a furniture warehouse, allowing fire to spread across 42,000 square metres as firefighters were unable to approach.
  • The destruction left 520 employees without work and added to the chain’s losses from damaged and destroyed facilities during the war.

Six strikes in a single day turned Epitsentr’s Mykolaiv home improvement centre into a ruin, leaving 520 people without jobs. The attack continued throughout Sept. 4 on the shopping centre along Kherson Road.

After the first four strikes, employees and Ukraine’s State Emergency Service had nearly put out the fire. Only smouldering areas remained. Then the sixth strike hit the centre’s furniture warehouse.

Two more drones were circling over Mykolaiv, preventing people and firefighters from approaching the blaze for about half an hour. During that time, the fire spread across 42,000 square metres. Wind pushed the flames further into the building, while its walls began to collapse.

“If it hadn't been for the final strike, we would have saved the shopping centre,” said Oleksandr Dmytryshyn, the centre’s director. The company said some of the 520 employees had previously moved to Mykolaiv from Epitsentr facilities destroyed or damaged in Kherson, Zaporizhzhia and Odesa.

Epitsentr reported in early August that the full-scale war had destroyed 10 of its shopping centres and damaged another 13. The chain estimated its losses at more than $1 billion. It has shrunk from 80 shopping centres at the end of 2021 to 70. In July, drones destroyed the chain’s previous centre in Sumy.

If it hadn't been for the final strike, we would have saved the shopping centre.

· Oleksandr DmytryshynThe director of the Mykolaiv shopping centre described how the final strike prevented employees and firefighters from containing the fire.
About this summary

Originally published by Ukrainska Pravda in Ukrainian. Translated, summarized, and contextualized automatically by DistantNews, with a note on how the source frames the story. Not individually reviewed before publishing. How this works.

More Stories

From Our Blog