KYIV (Reuters) – The death toll from a missile strike on the village of Hroza in northeastern Ukraine has increased to 59, according to Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko on Thursday.
Ukraine has stated that a Russian missile struck a café in the Kharkiv region, where people had gathered to mourn a fallen Ukrainian soldier. Moscow denies targeting civilians in its full-scale invasion and reiterated this stance during a Kremlin briefing regarding the strike on Hroza.
“The Russians killed 59 people with a direct hit using an Iskander missile on the village of Hroza,” stated Klymenko through the Telegram messaging app.
“All the victims were local residents, including pensioners, medics, farmers, teachers, and entrepreneurs. They were all civilians, and multiple generations within families perished.”
This death toll is one of the highest among civilians in any single Russian strike during the nearly 20-month-long war.
Forensic experts worked non-stop for six days to identify the victims. They required mobile DNA laboratories to identify 19 individuals, and one person, a 60-year-old man, could only be identified after collecting 20 body parts, Klymenko explained.
The Ukrainian SBU security service has accused two villagers, who allegedly fled to Russia, of assisting in guiding the missile strike.
According to CTK news agency, the Czech Foreign Ministry plans to summon Russia’s ambassador to discuss the attack on Hroza.
Reporting by Olena Harmash, Editing by Timothy Heritage
Credit: The Star : News Feed
