A woman and her young grandson have been killed and at least 30 people injured in a Russian missile strike on Kharkiv in eastern Ukraine, a day after 52 people were killed in a rocket attack on a wake taking place in a village in the same region.
Local officials said two missiles hit a residential area of Kharkiv, which is Ukraine’s second city and sits just 35km from the Russian border, badly damaging apartments and killing a 67-year-old resident and her 10-year-old grandson, and badly injuring his 11-month-old brother.
“The rescue operation is continuing. I am grateful to everyone who helps our people,” Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said after the 7am attack on Friday.
“And I thank all our soldiers who, despite everything, are moving forward, destroying the occupiers and bringing closer the return of justice to Ukraine. Our resilience, our progress and daily losses [inflicted on] the occupiers must be the answer to Russian terror.”
The strike came as Ukraine mourned 52 people killed a day earlier when a missile hit the village of Hroza, about 85km southeast of Kharkiv, obliterating a shop and a cafe where a wake was being held for a local soldier who died fighting Russia’s invasion.
Ukrainian security services suspect Russian forces were tipped off – perhaps by a local resident – about the gathering in the cafe for Andriy Kozyr, a Hroza native who was recently reburied in the village after the area where he was killed was liberated.
“We lost 18 people on one street, where our parents lived. On one side, the neighbours are gone, and on the other side a woman is gone,” local man Yevhen Pyrozhok told reporters on the scene.
“My son was just found without a head, without arms, without legs, without anything. They recognised him from his documents,” said Volodymyr Mukhovaty (70), acknowledging that he had “little hope” that his missing wife and daughter-in-law had survived the attack.
The attack drew condemnation from the United States, European capitals and international organisations.
“Intentional attacks against civilians are war crimes. Russia’s leadership, all commanders, perpetrators and accomplices of these atrocities will be held to account. There will be no impunity for war crimes,” said European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell.
Micheál Martin, Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Minister for Defence, wrote: “Horrified by the deaths of over 50 civilians, including children... Intentionally directing attacks against civilians is a war crime. Ireland continues to work for accountability for all international crimes arising from Russia’s aggression in Ukraine.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov insisted that Russian troops target only “military infrastructure sites, places where military personnel and representatives of the military leadership gather”.
The United Nations said its high commissioner for human rights, Volker Turk, was “profoundly shocked and condemns these killings” and “deployed a field team to the site to speak to survivors and gather more information”.
Hroza was attacked while Mr Zelenskiy met European leaders in Spain to seek more weapons and other aid, before what is expected to be a second winter of intense Russian air attacks on his country’s power grid.
“We will have more air defence systems – there are clear agreements... There will be more artillery for our warriors. There will be more long-range weapons,” he said after the talks.
Meanwhile, Russian president Vladimir Putin suggested the plane crash that killed Wagner mercenary group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin and several top aides in August was caused by hand grenades exploding on-board. The Kremlin has denied that Mr Putin ordered the men to be killed after Wagner staged a deadly one-day mutiny in June.
