On the evening of November 8, Kremenchuk in Ukraine’s Poltava Oblast came under attack. Vitaliy Dyakyvnych, head of the Poltava Regional Military Administration, said there were two strikes: a high-rise residential building and the Pantagruel Hotel were damaged, and fires broke out after the strikes.
According to preliminary information, a 16-year-old teenager sustained serious injuries and was hospitalized. State Emergency Service units rescued 15 people. The extent of the destruction and the number of injured people are still being clarified, Dyakyvnych said.
Footage from a surveillance camera distributed on November 10 shows the moment of the strike and a flash above Kremenchuk’s residential neighborhoods.
The Russian media’s account
Russian outlets claim that a small cruise missile, the S-8000 Banderol, was fired at the hotel and that the building was completely burned out. Citing anonymous sources in the “local underground,” they write that military personnel, predominantly foreign mercenaries, were staying at the hotel. According to these claims, local residents had noticed army trucks and buses moving in a nearby warehouse area. There is no independent confirmation of this information, and no number of possible fatalities has been given.
Ukrainian side: a civilian facility
The Ukrainian side describes the damaged building as a civilian facility. According to the Ukrainian outlet StopCor, a children’s center called Kolibri operated in the same building for nine years, and its director said that no military personnel had been there. Ukrainian authorities have not published official data on fatalities.
Kremenchuk, a major industrial city on the Dnipro, has repeatedly been targeted by Russian strikes. The attack came during negotiations on Ukraine: trilateral consultations involving a Russian delegation are continuing in Abu Dhabi.
Photo: Focus.ua; video: surveillance camera
