Ukrainian officials said on Thursday (October 5) that a Russian strike on a grocery store and cafe in the eastern region of Kharkiv had killed dozens of people. 

The Ukrainian prosecutor general said at least 49 people were killed. The head of the Kharkiv region Oleg Sinegubov said the strike hit at around 1:15pm in the village of Groza. 

"Rescuers are working on the scene," he said, adding that a 6-year-old boy was among the dead. One child had been injured, he also said.

A Ukrainian official said that the victims of the strike were gathered for a wake. "It was a wake for a fellow villager who died," Interior Minister Igor Klymenko was quoted as saying by the Interfax Ukraine news agency.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the strike had slammed into the Kupiansk district of the war-battered region bordering Russia, where Moscow's forces have been pushing to recapture territory they lost last year to Ukrainian troops. 

"The brutal Russian crime of hitting an ordinary grocery store with a rocket is a completely deliberate terrorist attack," Zelensky said in a statement on social media.

Zelensky posted an image of a woman kneeling over the body of someone apparently killed in the strike, with other corpses strewn around her, while rescue workers worked nearby.

The village is 30 kilometers (around 20 miles) west of Kupiansk, a frontline town, and is estimated to have had a pre-war population of around 500 people.

Source: Le Monde

BDST: 2016 HRS, OCT 5, 2023
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