Bloodiest strike: Russia’s attack kills 52 people at once

The Russians attacked a cafe and a shop in the village of Hroza in Kharkiv Oblast on October 5. As of the morning of October 6, 52 people were killed, including a 6-year-old girl, reported Oleh Syniehubov, Head of the Kharkiv Oblast Military Administration.

“One person died in a medical facility. People are still there [in medical facilities – ed.]. The injuries are quite serious. The units of the State Emergency Service are still working on the spot. Body parts are being identified,” Syniehubov said.

The number of victims may be higher, local authorities say. In a café bombed by the Russians, a memorial service was held for a dead Ukrainian warrior whose body was being reburied. 330 residents lived in the village of Hroza. At least a member of each family in the village was present at the memorial dinner, said the Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, Ihor Klymenko.

The family of the fallen defender of Ukraine was also present at the memorial dinner – a son, a Ukrainian defender, a daughter-in-law, and a wife. They all died, said Dmytro Chubenko, press secretary of the Kharkiv Oblast Prosecutor’s Office.

“The missile strike, inflicted yesterday by the occupiers on the Hroza village in the Kupiansk district, became the bloodiest in the region since the beginning of the full-scale invasion,” the National Police of Ukraine wrote. A three-day mourning for the dead was announced in Kharkiv Oblast.

So far, it has not been possible to establish the type of weapon with which the Russians attacked. However, it was probably a sufficiently heavy guided air missile or a high-explosive bomb, the minister suggests. The hit was so precise that there is a suspicion that one of the residents adjusted the fire, Klymenko says.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy expressed his condolences to all those who lost relatives and friends. Russian terror must be stopped, the President of Ukraine once again emphasized.

“Russian missile struck an ordinary grocery store in the Kupiansk district of the Kharkiv Oblast. This was a fully deliberate, demonstrative, and brutal terrorist attack. … All those who help Russia circumvent sanctions are criminals. Those who continue to support Russia are all supporting evil. Russia needs this and similar terrorist attacks for one reason only: to make its genocidal aggression the new normal for the entire world. And I thank every leader and every nation that supports us in the defense of life!” Zelenskyy said. 

After the Russian attack on Hroza, former UK Defence Minister Ben Wallace called on Germany to unblock the supply of Taurus cruise missiles to Ukraine. “Every time Russia strikes civilians & breaks international law by targeting civilian infrastructure in Ukraine, there needs to be a response. We did that with Starstreak and Storm Shadow. Germany should now send their Taurus missile systems to Ukraine and join the UK and France,” Wallace said.

“Russia must be stopped as soon as possible and kept accountable for all its barbarism,” Zbigniew Rau, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Poland, emphasized.