A Russian rocket blast turned a village cafe and store in eastern Ukraine into rubble on Friday, killing at least 51 civilians in one of the deadliest attacks in the war in months, according to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy 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.
Zelenskyy, 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 30 kilometres (19 miles) west of Kupyansk, a key focus of the Russian military effort. Zelenskyy visited the area Tuesday to meet with troops and inspect equipment supplied by the West.
Dmytro Nechvolot told The Associated Press he was looking for his 60-year-old father, who attended the wake for a soldier from Hroza who died last year but who was reburied after being identified by DNA. He kept walking up to his father’s red car, which was still parked nearby, as he waited for confirmation that his father had been killed.
“I have lost a man I looked up to, a beloved father, and an unforgettable grandfather,” he said.
On Thursday, Zelenskyy 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 defence, 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 defence, 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 Zelenskyy’s cry, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Germany will supply Ukraine with another Patriot missile air defence 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 Zelenskyy, 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.