At least 51 killed in missile strike during village wake service; European leaders rally around Zelenskiy amid US funding uncertainty
At least 51 people including a six-year-old boy were killed during a missile attack on a cafe during a wake service in a village of Hroza in the Kharkiv region on Thursday, Ukrainian officials said. According to preliminary findings, Russian targeted the cafe with an Iskander ballistic missile, Ukraine’s minister of internal affairs, Ihor Klymenko, said.
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, accused Russia of “genocidal aggression” after the attack. He described it as “a demonstrably brutal Russian crime – a rocket attack on an ordinary grocery store, a completely deliberate act of terrorism”, later saying it was “no blind strike”.
European leaders rallied around the Ukrainian president in the face of US jitters over defence funding. The gathering at the European Political Community (EPC) summit in Granada, Spain, gave leaders including the French president, Emmanuel Macron, the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, and the British prime minister, Rishi Sunak, a chance to restate their commitment to Ukraine after political turbulence in the US and Europe raised questions about continued support.
Germany will “do everything possible” so that Ukraine can protect itself from Russian missiles, foreign minister Annalena Baerbock said Thursday after Moscow’s latest deadly strike in Ukraine. “More than 50 people dead in Hrosa,” she posted on X, formerly Twitter. “As long as bombs hail on supermarkets and cafes, we do everything for Ukraine to protect itself from Putin’s missile terror.”
The Biden administration is considering using a US State Department grant program to send additional military aid to Ukraine, Politico reported on Thursday citing two US officials with knowledge of the discussions.
Slovakia will not send more military aid to Ukraine for now, prime minister Ľudovít Ódor said. Instead, the decision will be delayed until a new government is formed following last week’s election, which saw a victory for Robert Fico, a populist, pro-Russian three-time former prime minister who campaigned on a promise to end military aid to Ukraine.
The US president, Joe Biden, wants to give a “major” speech on support for Ukraine, the White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said, without specifying when that would happen. She described the Hroza missile attack as “horrifying”.
Vladimir Putin ramped up his nuclear rhetoric, saying his country had successfully tested the nuclear-powered, nuclear-capable Burevestnik strategic cruise missile, as he suggested Russia could resume nuclear testing for the first time in more than three decades.
Putin also suggested that the plane crash that killed Wagner mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin in August was caused by hand grenades detonating inside the aircraft, not by a missile attack. “Fragments of hand grenades were found in the bodies of those killed in the crash. There was no external impact on the plane – this is already an established fact,” he said.
