KYIV: Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Thursday that at least forty-nine people were killed in a Russian attack that hit a grocery store in the northeast Kharkiv region.
He condemned the Russian strike, calling it a rocket attack on an ordinary grocery store and labelling it a “terrorist attack.”
Zelensky said that more than 48 people were killed, and Ukraine’s prosecutor general and interior minister later put the death toll at least 49.
Images shared online by the president’s office showed emergency workers examining a huge pile of twisted metal and crushed concrete at the scene of the purported attack, while others showed the victims’ bodies lying on the ground after being removed from the rubble.
Zelensky said on his Telegram account that he extends condolences to all those who have lost their loved ones. Help is being provided to the injured.
The office of Ukraine’s prosecutor general, in a message also shared on the social media platform Telegram messaging app, said that there are about 49 dead, including a minor, as well as seven injured.
Oleh Synehubov, the governor of the Kharkiv region, said the building hit was a shop and café in the village of Hroza, Kharkiv’s Kupyansk district, and that the shells or missile hit at about 1:15 p.m. local time, when the business was busy.
Synehubov said on Telegram that rescue workers continue to work at the site.
Zelensky pledged that Ukraine would “respond to the terrorists. Absolutely fair. And powerful.”
Today, Russia deliberately and barbarically attacked civilian targets – a café and a store in the village of Hroza in the Kupiansk district.
They killed at least 49 people & injured 6 more, including a child.#RussiaIsATerroristState pic.twitter.com/HbPpZORIjo
— MFA of Ukraine 🇺🇦 (@MFA_Ukraine) October 5, 2023
Interior Minister on Russian attack
In his statement, Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said that residents of the small village of about 330 residents had been holding a memorial service in the cafe that was targeted.
Klymenko told Ukrainian television that from every household, from every family, there were people present at this commemoration. This is a terrible tragedy.
7 people were also in hospital after the strike, which appeared to be the most devastating Russian attack on a residential area in weeks.
Klymenko said it was not immediately clear whether Russian troops, who invaded Ukraine nineteen months ago, had shelled the village or had fired a missile.
He said the attack was clearly very targeted and that Ukrainian security services had started an investigation into the matter.
