Air raid alerts covered a third of shopping malls' working hours in Ukraine

In September 2026, air raid alerts accounted for 30.8% of shopping mall working hours in Ukraine. This is the highest indicator during the observation period, reported Ukrainian Council of Shopping Centers.

The situation worsened significantly over the month: in August, the share of alerts during mall working hours was 22%, and in September 2025, it was 14.1%. Thus, the indicator has more than doubled over the year.

According to UCSC, in September, the number of air raid alerts, their total duration, the number of alerts during shopping mall opening hours, and their duration during this period all increased simultaneously.

The most difficult situation remained in the frontline regions. In Donetsk Oblast, alerts accounted for 92.2% of mall working hours, in Zaporizhzhia - 76.1%, in Chernihiv - 69.1%, in Kharkiv - 58%. Sumy Oblast also entered the top five regions with the highest indicators.

The situation in Kyiv has also deteriorated noticeably. If in August alerts covered 11.6% of the capital's shopping malls' working time, then in September the indicator rose to 32.7%.

Since September 8, Ukraine began applying the division of air raid alerts by threat level. In September, the yellow level accounted for 60.9% of the duration of identified alerts, and the red level - 39.1%. Under the yellow level, shopping malls may continue operations under certain conditions, but according to UCSC, many large international chains close their stores at any threat level.

On average across Ukraine, in September, forced downtime of shopping malls due to air raid alerts was equivalent to 9.6 working days. Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, this indicator has already reached 176.5 working days.

Based on materials from: Ukrainian Council of Shopping Centers