Strike leaves 51 dead in Ukraine village
Zelensky calls attack ‘brutal Russian crime’
HROZA, Ukraine — A Russian rocket blast turned a village cafe and store in eastern Ukraine into rubble Thursday, killing at least 51 civilians in one of the deadliest attacks in the war in months, according to President Volodymyr Zelensky and other top officials in Kyiv.
Rescuers climbed over the wreckage as they searched for survivors in the remains of the only cafe in the village of Hroza. Body parts were strewn across a nearby children's playground that was severely damaged by the strike. Cellphones were collected and put in a courtyard nearby, waiting to be claimed. Occasionally, one of them rang, lighting up a shattered screen.
Around 60 people, including children, were in the cafe attending a wake when the missile hit, Ukrainian officials said.
Zelensky, attending a summit of about 50 European leaders in Spain to drum up support from Ukraine’s allies, denounced the strike as a “demonstrably brutal Russian crime” and “a completely deliberate act of terrorism.”
According to preliminary information from Kyiv, the village was hit by an Iskander missile.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the strike was “horrifying,” and said it demonstrated why the United States is doing everything it can "to help the brave people of Ukraine to fight for their freedom, to fight for their democracy.”
Hroza, which had a population of about 500 before the war, is in the northeastern Kharkiv region and was seized by Russia early in the war before being recaptured by Ukraine in September 2022. It’s only 19 miles west of Kupiansk, a key focus of the Russian military effort. Zelensky visited the area Tuesday to meet with troops and inspect equipment supplied by the West.
On Thursday, Zelensky was at a summit of the European Political Community in Granada, Spain, where he asked for more Western support, 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,” he said in a statement posted on his Telegram channel. “Now we are talking with European leaders, in particular, about strengthening our air defense, strengthening our soldiers, giving our country protection from terror. And we will respond to the terrorists.”
“The key for us, especially before winter, is to strengthen air defense, and there is already a basis for new agreements with partners,” he told the group, which was formed in the wake of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Heeding Zelensky’s cry, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Germany will supply Ukraine with another Patriot missile air defense system as he expects Russia will again target crucial infrastructure and cities across Ukraine in the winter months.
“This is what is now needed the most,“Scholz said after meeting Zelensky, according to the German news agency dpa.
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, but there have been concerns that Russia will again ramp up its strikes on power facilities as winter draws nearer.
Zelensky noted that 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 UN-sponsored grain deal designed to ensure safe grain exports from the invaded country’s ports.
The UK 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 UK was working with Ukraine to help improve the safety of shipping.
Speaking in Granada, Zelensky emphasized the need to preserve 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 US 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.