The White House has condemned the attack on a cafe and grocery store in Ukraine’s Hroza village that killed 51 people, as “horrifying”, while British prime minister Rishi Sunak said the strike “demonstrated the depths of depravity Russian forces are willing to sink to”, according to a Downing Street spokesperson.
In a briefing before the death toll rose, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said: “Let’s stop and think about what we’re seeing: 49 innocent people who were killed by a Russian airstrike while they were shopping for food at a supermarket. That’s what they were doing.
“Can you imagine just walking to the grocery store with your kids, trying to figure out what is it that you’re going to make for dinner, and you see an explosion happen where bodies are everywhere. And it’s horrifying.
“This is why we’re doing everything that we can to help Ukraine, to help the brave people of Ukraine to fight for their freedom, for – to fight for their democracy,” she added.
Ukrainian officials said a Russian missile slammed into a cafe and grocery store in a village in north-eastern Ukraine on Thursday, during a gathering to mourn a Ukrainian soldier, killing dozens.
German foreign minister Annalena Baerbock wrote on X: “As long as bombs rain down on supermarkets and cafes, we do everything for Ukraine to protect itself from Putin’s missile terror”. Earlier on Thursday, at a meeting of European leaders in Granada, Spain, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced that Berlin was working on supplying Kyiv with a new Patriot air-defence system.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said it was “no blind strike”. He described it on Telegram as “a demonstrably brutal Russian crime – a rocket attack on an ordinary grocery store, a completely deliberate act of terrorism. My condolences to all those who have lost loved ones.”
Large piles of bricks, shattered metal and building materials remained where the cafe and shop were hit early in the afternoon in Hroza village in Kharkiv region.
The mourners were in a cafe and there were also victims in a shop in the same building in the village, which has a population of 330 people, in the north-eastern region of Kharkiv. Sixty people had been attending the memorial service, said interior minister Igor Klymenko.
“My son was just found without a head, without arms, without legs, without anything. They recognised him from his documents,” Volodymyr Mukhovaty, 70, told Agence France-Presse
His wife and daughter-in-law were also attending the wake and although he had “little hope” of finding them alive, he watched rescue workers from a distance, just in case. “I lived with my wife for 48 years,” he said. “I will not last long alone.”
Denise Brown, Ukraine coordinator for the UN Office for the coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), called the attack “absolutely horrifying” and that “intentionally directing an attack against civilians or civilian objects is a war crime”.
The attack was the deadliest in Kharkiv region since Russia’s invasion more than 19 months ago, a regional official told public broadcaster Suspilne. It also appeared to be one of the biggest civilian death tolls in any single Russian strike.
“A deliberate missile strike on a village in Kharkiv region on an ordinary store and cafe,” Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address, delivered while attending a summit of the European Political Community in Spain.
“Russian troops could not have been unaware of where they were hitting. This was no blind strike.”
Moscow did not immediately comment on the events in Hroza. Moscow denies deliberately targeting civilians, but many have been killed in attacks that have hit residential areas as well as energy, defence, port, grain and other facilities.
Hroza is located more than 30km (18 miles) from the frontline town of Kupiansk in an area where Russian forces have been pushing to recapture territory they lost to Ukrainian troops last year.
Minister Klymenko said initial evidence showed an Iskander missile had been used.
Zelenskiy said a six-year-old boy was among the dead and regional officials said families had remained in the village despite a wartime order to evacuate.
Rescue workers made their way through mounds of debris and laid out bodies in a field next to a children’s playground. Some were placed in white body bags and taken away. Others were barely covered by carpets or other materials.
“It’s difficult to talk about this, but we only found bits and pieces and remains of the bodies,” said regional police investigator Serhiy Bolvinov. “We’ll use DNA laboratories to identify the bodies.”
The missile hit during a service marking the reburial in his home village of a soldier who had died in action elsewhere.
“There were only civilians. The boy was from this village. When he died, we were under occupation. The [family] decided to rebury him, to bring him home,” said resident Oleksandr Mukhovatyi. “Then this happened. Someone betrayed us. The attack was precise, it all landed in the coffee shop.”
Mukhovatyi said his mother, brother, and sister-in-law were among the dead. Prosecutors told public broadcaster Suspilne that the son of the soldier being reburied, also a soldier, was also killed in the attack.
Klymenko said local officials had been sitting down for a meal when the missile struck. “From every family, from every household, there were people present at this commemoration. This is a terrible tragedy,” Klymenko told Ukrainian television.
He said the strike was clearly targeted and that Ukrainian security services had launched an investigation into the matter.
“The terrorists deliberately carried out the attack during lunchtime, to ensure a maximum number of casualties,” said defence minister Rustem Umerov. “There were no military targets there. This is a heinous crime intended to scare Ukrainians.”
