KREMENCHUK, Ukraine — Unable to reach her husband by phone after a Russian missile hit the Amstor shopping center last week, Sabina Hrytsai tried social media.
“I am looking for my dear and beloved husband,” she wrote on Facebook, describing what Evgeny, 27, was wearing when he left for his shift at the mall.
“My dear, I think you are alive,” he added.
But after so many days of waiting, his hope was fading. The hospitals said they didn’t have it. The police couldn’t find him either. Neither did the employees of the home electronics retailer where he worked as a sales consultant.
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Outrage and concern at the scene of Russian missile attack on a shopping mall in Ukraine
“I just want him to be alive,” Hrytsai said in an interview in Kremenchuk, the city southwest of Kyiv where the two grew up and celebrated their first anniversary on June 11.
Twenty-one people have been confirmed dead following Monday’s cruise missile attack, Ukraine’s State Emergency Service 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 in the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Russia admitted to attacking the mall, but described it as a military target and denied any civilian casualties. Both claims have been dismissed as falsehoods. A vehicle factory 500 meters away was also hit.
Sabina Hrytsai’s husband, Evgeny, has been missing since Monday’s attack at a shopping mall in Kremenchuk, Ukraine, on July 1, 2022.
Stewart Bell/Global News
An air raid alert began about 10 minutes before the missiles exploded just before 4 p.m.
But Hrytsai told Global News that a few days before the attack, her husband said the mall had adopted a new policy on how to respond to sirens.
Instead of closing when they rang, the mall would remain open and employees would make their own decisions about whether to shelter in place, he said.
“It shouldn’t be like this,” Hrytsai said. “We have a war in the country, so the rules must be followed. If you have a siren, things like shopping malls should be closed.”
Evgeny was always diligent about seeking shelter and every time the sirens sounded, the newlyweds called each other to make sure they were safe, he said.
Newlyweds Sabina Hrytsai, left, and Evgeny, missing since Monday’s Russian missile attack on a shopping mall in Kremenchuk, Ukraine.
“And why he didn’t leave the mall on the 27th, I don’t know. Maybe because she had a client,” she said. “He was all the time worried that he would make less money.”
Another mall employee who survived the attack said from his hospital bed that he had seen a social media post warning that the mall would remain open during air raid sirens.
Kremenchuk Mayor Vitalii Maletskyi said an investigation found that on June 23, a message from the mall management reported that “from that day on, they would not close during an air raid.” News from Poltava reported.
Emergency workers search the Amstor shopping mall after the Russian missile attack, on June 28, 2022.
Stewart Bell/Global News
Walking his two dogs in a schoolyard park, Hrytsai said the pets missed Evgeny and waited for his return.
“They are our children,” he said. “Because we didn’t have time to have children of our own.”
“He was a very kind person, very open,” he said. “He always provided me with everything. He would tell me all the time ‘I don’t want you to work in a job you don’t like’”.
“That’s why I worked there precisely in this place, because before the war it was one of the places in the city that had a good salary.”
After the Russian invasion on February 24, he worried about losing his job, he said. Monday was supposed to be Evgeny’s day off, but he was called away, he added.
The couple argued before he left for work because she didn’t want him to go. She wanted him to quit and find a new job that treated him better, but he wanted to find a new job first.
“I didn’t even say goodbye to him, I was so upset,” she said.
Newlyweds Sabina Hrytsai, left, and Evgeny, who has been missing since Russia’s Monday attack on the Amstor shopping mall.
He was in his house when he heard the explosions. She called Evgeny but he didn’t answer. He guessed that he was in an underground shelter.
When he didn’t call her back, she thought he was still upset about their argument, and then she saw a photo of the fire at the Amstor shopping center.
He ran there but couldn’t find him, so he went to the Kremenchuk hospital. “But they told me we don’t have her husband anywhere,” she said.
“So until today, I’m waiting.”
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