A boy and his grandmother die in a new Russian attack on civilian targets in the Kharkiv region

2023-10-07 03:55:00

A Russian bombing yesterday killed a 10-year-old boy and his grandmother in Kharkiv, northeastern Ukraine, the day following one of the worst massacres of civilians since the start of the invasion of the country in February 2022 caused by missiles launched through Moscow.

“The body of a 10-year-old boy was found in the rubble,” Interior Minister Igor Klymenko said on Telegram, adding that his grandmother had also died.

The regional governor, Oleg Synegubov, reported at least 28 wounded, including an eleven-month-old baby who is a relative of the two fatalities.

Two residential buildings were damaged and a three-story residential building was destroyed. According to police, both buildings were hit by two Iskander ballistic missiles.

On Thursday, at least 52 people, including a six-year-old boy, were killed in a bombing in Groza, also in the Kharkiv region, where residents had gathered following attending the funeral of a soldier. The attack, in broad daylight, hit a store and a cafeteria located in the same building, where regarding sixty people were present.

At that moment, Sergei Pletinka, a 34-year-old soldier who was on leave, was at his parents’ house, right across the street. “I ran and arrived first. I heard a woman screaming. “She was trapped between a refrigerator and a wall that had collapsed,” she said.

Hypothesis. Firefighters were still removing debris with shovels and cranes Friday morning. Oleksii, a neighbor, went with his family to the cemetery, located at the entrance to the town, to delimit the area where his brother and sister-in-law, killed in the bombing, will be buried.

“I don’t know when we can bury them. My brother’s body was whole, but his wife’s head was missing,” he told the press.

In the cemetery, the grave of soldier Andrii Kozyr was covered with flowers and a Ukrainian flag. The residents who had participated in his funeral had gathered in the cafeteria impacted by the bombing. “Everyone who was at the funeral has died. This happened right following people entered the cafeteria,” said Valentina Koziienko, 73 years old. She lives right across the street.

“How did the Russians know there would be so many people there? Maybe someone told him,” she noted.

The day before, the police officer in charge of the investigation, Serguii Bolvinov, said that one of the hypotheses his team is considering is “that someone had given the coordinates of the cafeteria to the Russians.”

Support for Ukraine. The bombing in Groza was denounced by the international community. According to the UN, “everything suggests” that it was a Russian missile that hit the town, where 330 people lived before the tragedy. But when questioned regarding the bombing, the Kremlin responded that it was only attacking “military targets” and not civilians, its official response every time its missiles hit residential buildings.

“These two atrocities prove that global support for Ukraine must be maintained and strengthened. Weakening it would only lead to more war crimes of this type,” said the head of Ukrainian diplomacy, Dmytro Kuleba, yesterday. The call coincides with a moment of political crisis in the United States, which might lead to a reduction in aid to the former Soviet republic, which worries Kiev and its Western allies.

On the other hand, yesterday morning drone attacks were reported in the center, northeast and south of Ukraine. Ukrainian authorities claimed to have shot down 25 of 33 Iranian-made Shahed drones sent to their territory from Russia.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in turn warned that Russia will try once more this winter to destroy the country’s “electrical system.” On Thursday, he claimed to have concluded “clear agreements” with his European allies to obtain new air defense systems, which kyiv has been demanding for months.

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