Search ongoing for 20 missing after Russian strike on Ukraine shopping centre

Workers clear debris at the Kremenchuk shopping centre following the rocket attack (Efrem Lukatsky/AP)

Russian forces battled to surround the Ukrainian military’s last stronghold in a long-contested eastern province as shock reverberated from a Russian airstrike on a shopping centre that killed at least 18 people in the central city of Kremenchuk on Tuesday.

Moscow’s battle to wrest the entire Donbas region from Ukraine saw Russian forces pushing towards two Luhansk province villages south of the city of Lysychansk, while Ukrainian troops fought to prevent their encirclement.