Vladimir Putin‘s troops have slain more than 50 Ukrainians after a rocket slammed into a crowded village café and grocery store in the eastern region of Kharkiv – in one of the deadliest strikes targeting innocent civilians since the war began.
The missile strike decimated the two buildings in the middle of the afternoon in the village of Hroza in the Kupyansk district of Kharkiv, which had been filled with men, women and children at the time.
Around 60 people had been attending a wake for a fellow villager inside the café while dozens of others were shopping at the grocery store next door when the rocket tore through the buildings.
Officials said that at least 51 people, including a six-year-old boy, had been killed and at least seven more were wounded in today’s horrific strike on the small village of about 330.
Internal Affairs Minister Ihor Klymenko said people from ‘every family, every household’ had been present at the funeral at the time of the attack.
‘This is a terrible tragedy,’ Klymenko said, adding that preliminary information points to Russia using an Iskander missile in the strike.
Harrowing images from the scene the bodies of the victims sprawled on the side of the road after they were killed in cold blood. One woman was seen collapsed in grief as she kneeled next to the bloodied body of a woman killed in the strike.
President Volodymyr Zelensky, who is meeting Western leaders including UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to plead for more aid, condemned Russia for the slaughter.
A woman collapses with grief as she kneels next to the bodies of Ukrainian civilians killed in the Russian strike on the grocery store on Thursday
The bodies of those killed in the strikes are seen in white body bags in the village of Hroza on Thursday
Ukrainian rescuers work amongst the rubble of the destroyed shop and cafe following the rocket attack on the village of Groza on Thursday
Firefighters are pictured at the scene of the rocket strike in Hroza today
Pictured: Rescuers at the scene of the missile strike, which destroyed a shop and café
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky (L) speaks with British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak at the start of a plenary session of the European Political Community summit today
‘The brutal Russian crime of hitting an ordinary grocery store with a rocket is a completely deliberate terrorist attack,’ Zelensky said in a statement on social media.
Mere hours after the attack Vladimir Putin lashed out at Western ‘arrogance’ and tried to claim that Russia had tried to stop the war.
In his annual keynote speech at the Valdai Discussion Club, this year in Sochi, Putin addressed the United States, saying: ‘All the time, we hear ‘You must’, ‘You have to’, ‘We’re seriously warning you’.
‘Who are you anyway? What right do you have to warn anyone? Maybe it’s time you yourself got rid of your arrogance, stopped behaving that way towards the world.’
Putin claimed, without providing any evidence, Russia was ready for ‘constructive cooperation’ while the West, having forgotten the meaning of compromise, saw any country that opposed it as an enemy.
The dictator made no mention of the 49 civilians who had been slaughtered in one of the deadliest strikes since he launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Officials posted footage of rescue workers clambering through smoldering rubble. Some photos showed bodies lying alongside slabs of concrete and twisted metal, and others showed rescue workers carrying away covered bodies.
Klymenko said it was not immediately clear whether Russian forces, who invaded Ukraine 19 months ago, had shelled the village or had fired a missile.
Russian authorities have repeatedly insisted that their forces are only targeting strategic military locations and are not waging war on the civilian population of Ukraine.
But the reality of Putin’s war is different. The world has watched in horror as Putin’s soldiers have dropped missiles on grocery stores, railway stations and hospitals throughout the 18 months of this full-scale war that has seen thousands killed.
And Klymenko says today’s strike on the café and grocery story is no different. He said the attack was very targeted and that Ukrainian security services had launched an investigation into the strike, which has left a further seven people receiving treatment in hospital.
The village of Hroza is around 20 miles west of Kupiansk, a frontline town where Mosco’s forces have been pushing to recapture territory they lost last year to Ukrainian troops.
Following the attack, Zelensky urged Western allies to help strengthen Ukraine’s air defenses, saying that ‘Russian terror must be stopped.’
‘Russia needs this and similar terrorist attacks for only one thing: to make its genocidal aggression the new norm for the whole world,’ Zelensky said.
‘Now we are talking with European leaders, in particular, about strengthening our air defence, strengthening our soldiers, giving our country protection from terror. And we will respond to the terrorists.’
Ukrainian policemen carry bodies out of a destroyed shop and cafe after a Russian strike hit the village of Groza on Thursday
More than 50 people have been killed in a Russian rocket strike as they went food shopping at a store in the eastern Ukrainian region of Kharkiv
Emergency workers search the victims of the deadly Russian rocket attack that killed more than 50 people in the village of Hroza near Kharkiv on Thursday
Rescues work at a site of a Russian military strike, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in the village of Hroza on Thursday
The rocket attack decimated a cafe and shop in the middle of the afternoon in the village of Hroza in the Kupyansk district of Kharkiv, which had been filled with men, women and children at the time. Pictured: Firefighters at the scene
Emergency workers search the victims of the deadly Russian rocket attack that killed more than 50 people in the village of Hroza near Kharkiv on Thursday
The rocket attack decimated a cafe and shop in the middle of the afternoon in the village of Hroza in the Kupyansk district of Kharkiv today
Zelensky’s advisor Mykhailo Podolyak said the attack had ‘no military logic’.
‘This is a reminder to anyone who is willing to smile and shake hands with war criminal Putin at international conferences,’ he said, referring to Russian leader Vladimir Putin.
‘A reminder to all those who want to sell something to Russia and return to bloody business as usual,’ he said, adding: ‘Putin’s Russia is a true evil’.
The barbaric strikes comes as Zelensky met with Sunak today at a summit of the European Political Community, which was formed in the wake of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
‘The key for us, especially before winter, is to strengthen air defence, and there is already a basis for new agreements with partners,’ Zelensky said in a statement posted on his Telegram channel.
Last winter, Russia targeted Ukraine’s energy system and other vital infrastructure in a steady barrage of missile and drone attacks, triggering continuous power outages across the country.
Ukraine’s power system has shown a high degree of resilience and flexibility, helping alleviate the damage, but there have been concerns that Russia will again ramp up its strikes on power facilities as winter draws nearer.
Zelensky noted the Granada summit will also focus on ‘joint work for global food security and protection of freedom of navigation’ in the Black Sea, where the Russian military has targeted Ukrainian ports after Moscow’s withdrawal from a U.N.-sponsored grain deal designed to ensure safe grain exports from the invaded country’s ports.
The U.K. Foreign Office cited intelligence suggesting that Russia may lay sea mines in the approach to Ukrainian ports to target civilian shipping and blame it on Ukraine.
‘Russia almost certainly wants to avoid openly sinking civilian ships, instead falsely laying blame on Ukraine for any attacks against civilian vessels in the Black Sea,’ it said, adding that the U.K. was working with Ukraine to help improve the safety of shipping.
Speaking in Granada, Zelensky emphasized the need to preserve the European unity in the face of Russian disinformation and to remain strong amid what he described as a ‘political storm’ in the United States.
Asked if he was worried that support for Ukraine could falter in the U.S. Congress, the Ukrainian president stressed that his visit to Washington last month made him confident of strong backing by both the Biden administration and Congress.
Zelensky called for ‘additional air defence system for Ukraine, additional artillery and shells, additional long-range missiles and drones for our soldiers, as well as additional formats of support and security guarantees for nations threatened by Russia’ to help protect Europe from potential aggression by Moscow.
Earlier Thursday, Russia targeted Ukraine’s southern regions with drones. Ukraine’s air force said that the country’s air defenses intercepted 24 out of 29 Iranian-made drones that Russia launched at the Odesa, Mykolaiv and Kirovohrad regions.
Andriy Raykovych, head of the Kirovohrad regional administration, said that an infrastructure facility in the region was struck and emergency services were deployed to extinguish a fire. He said there were no casualties.
A Russian strike on a hospital in the city of Beryslav in the Kherson region ravaged the building and wounded two medical workers, according to the regional administration chief, Oleksandr Prokudin
Video shows a missile slamming into the hospital, sparking a huge explosion that decimates the building
In other Russian attacks on Ukraine in the past day, two civilians were killed in shelling of the southern city of Kherson and another one died after a Russian strike on the city of Krasnohorivka in the eastern Donetsk region.
At least eight people were wounded by Russian shelling, according to Ukraine’s presidential office.
A Russian strike on a hospital in the city of Beryslav in the Kherson region ravaged the building and wounded two medical workers, according to the regional administration chief, Oleksandr Prokudin.
Video shows a missile slamming into the hospital, sparking a huge explosion that decimates the building.
Ukraine, in turn, has struck back at Russia with regular drone attacks across the border.
Roman Starovoit, the governor of Russia’s Kursk region that borders Ukraine, said that Ukrainian drones attacked infrastructure facilities in several areas, resulting in power cuts.
Starovoit also said that Ukrainian forces fired artillery at the border town of Rylsk, wounding a local resident and damaging several houses.
