A Russian attack on the village of Hroza, south-east of Kharkiv, has killed at least 51 people, including a six-year-old boy.
Locals were attending a wake for a local resident when a missile struck at 13:15 local time (15:15 BST).
Ukraine’s defence ministry said there were no military targets in the area – only civilians.
Kharkiv regional head Oleh Synyehubov described the attack as one of the region’s “bloodiest crimes”.
He confirmed that everyone who died were residents of the village, which in 2020 had a population of about 501 people, meaning today’s shelling alone killed 10% of the population.
“From every family, from every household, there were people present,” Ukrainian Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said.
The Kupyansk district – which the village is part of – has been on the front line of clashes between Russian and Ukrainian armies since Vladimir Putin launched his full-scale invasion in February last year.
It was a major supply hub for Russian forces at the start of the war, but Kyiv recaptured it in September 2022 after months of fighting.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky described the attack as a “brutal Russian crime”.
“Russia needs this and similar terrorist attacks for only one thing: to make its genocidal aggression a new norm for the whole world,” he said on Telegram.
The interior minister said an Iskander missile was used in the attack, but the BBC has been unable to independently verify this claim.
Russia bombed the village as Mr Zelensky attended the European leaders’ summit in Granada, Spain.
There, the European Union’s foreign affairs chief, Josep Borrell, warned that political infighting was threatening the US’s ability to fund the Ukrainian military.
A recent budget deal in the US Congress did not include funding for Ukraine.
Mr Borrell said no European countries would be able to make up the gap left by any loss of American support.
“Can Europe fill the gap left by the US? Well, certainly Europe cannot replace the US,” he said.
On Thursday, Mr Zelensky asked European leaders for more air defence missiles and said other countries could thank Ukraine for protecting them from Russian aggression.
Source: Ghana News
