Closing summary
The death toll from a Russian missile strike on the village of Hroza in north-eastern Ukraine rose to 52 on Friday after another victim died overnight in hospital, the regional governor said. A missile slammed into a cafe and grocery store in the village on Thursday as people gathered to mourn a fallen Ukrainian soldier. “Fifty-two people died as a result of this missile attack. One person died in a medical facility,” Oleh Synehubov, governor of the Kharkiv region, told Ukrainian television earlier. Separately, interior minister, Ihor Klymenko, said people from every family in the Ukrainian village of Hroza have been affected by the missile attack.
Russia unleashed new airstrikes on Ukraine early on Friday, killing a 10-year-old boy and his grandmother in the city of Kharkiv and damaging grain and port infrastructure in the Odesa region in the south, Ukrainian officials said.
Russian lawmakers will consider revoking the ratification of a global nuclear test ban, the parliament speaker reportedly said on Friday.
Russia is seeking re-election to the UN’s top human rights body next week in what is seen as a crucial test of western efforts to keep Moscow diplomatically isolated over its invasion of Ukraine, Reuters reports. Some diplomats are reported to have said Russia has a reasonable chance of getting voted back onto the UN Human Rights Council in Tuesday’s secret ballot, 18 months after it was ousted in a US-led drive.
Sweden will send Ukraine a new military support package worth 2.2bn crowns ($199m), consisting mainly of ammunition and spare parts to earlier donated systems, the Swedish defence minister, Pål Jonson, said on Friday.
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The US has expelled two Russian embassy officials after Russia earlier expelled two American diplomats from the American embassy in Moscow, the US state department said on Friday.
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Kazakhstan has announced efforts to promote the use of the Kazakh language over Russian in its media, amid growing scepticism over Moscow’s influence in the country since the invasion of Ukraine.
Kazakh is the official language of the former Soviet republic in central Asia, but Russian is recognised too and is widely spoken among the tightly controlled country’s population of about 20 million.
“The draft law on the media stipulates an increase in the share of the state language in television and radio from 50% to 70%,” the culture minister, Aida Balayeva, told reporters in the capital, Astana.
You can read the full story here:
Joe Biden on Friday said it is possible that he may meet with China’s president, Xi Jinping, next month in San Francisco, though nothing has been set up yet, according to Reuters.
Washington has provided over $40 billion to supply Kyiv with dozens of tanks, thousands of rockets and millions of rounds of ammunition that Ukraine has used to defend itself since Russia invaded in February 2022.
Beijing, meanwhile, has maintained close economic and diplomatic ties with Russia since the invasion, and has accused US-led Western forces of seeking to prolong the war by providing arms and support to Ukraine.
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The US commerce department has added 42 Chinese companies to a government export control list over support for Moscow’s military and defence industrial base, Reuters reports.
Another seven entities from Finland, Germany, India, Turkey, United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom were also added to the trade export control list.
The circuits include microelectronics that Russia uses for precision guidance systems in missiles and drones launched against civilian targets in Ukraine, the commerce department said in a statement.
“Today’s additions to the Entity List provide a clear message: if you supply the Russian defence sector with US-origin technology, we will find out, and we will take action,” assistant secretary for export enforcement Matthew Axelrod said.
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Arriving at the EU summit in Granada earlier on Friday, Latvia’s new prime minister, Evika Siliņa, said supporting Ukraine was at the top of her agenda.
“For Latvia our main topic and main priority will remain Ukraine,” she told reporters.
“We believe that we must support Ukraine financially, military and politically, but in the same time, there are other issues that are important to our society such as high inflation rates, illegal migration,” she said.
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Russia will start delivering its grain to African countries within a month to six weeks, the Interfax news agency cited agriculture minister Dmitry Patrushev as saying.
“We are now finalising all the documents. I think that within a month - or a month and a half - they will start,” Interfax quoted Patrushev as saying.
Vladimir Putin told African leaders in July he would gift them tens of thousands of tonnes of grain despite western sanctions, which he said made it harder for Moscow to export its grain and fertilisers.
Addressing a Russia-Africa summit at the time, the Russian president said:
We will be ready to provide Burkina Faso, Zimbabwe, Mali, Somalia, Central African Republic and Eritrea with 25-50,000 tonnes of free grain each in the next three to four months.
UN chief Antonio Guterres has called the promised grain “a handful of donations”.
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The process through which countries can access the EU is a “merit based” one, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said on Friday, as European leaders met in Spain to discuss EU enlargement and how to tackle a migration crisis.
“The accession process to the European Union is a merit-based one,” von der Leyen said at a news conference in Granada.
She said last month that Ukraine has made “great strides” towards joining the EU since getting candidate status in 2022, but that hard work still lies ahead.
Ukraine and other hopefuls must meet strict criteria including on their democratic track record and economic performance to advance on their path to membership.
Both the candidate countries and the EU must work hard to keep up the momentum on the enlargement process to a larger Union.
— Ursula von der Leyen (@vonderleyen) October 6, 2023
The Commission’s annual reports on accession will allow us to take stock and have an informed debate during the December EUCO. pic.twitter.com/LI2IAJyvEQ
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The head of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO) said on Friday that for Russia to consider pulling out of the treaty would be “concerning” after Moscow indicated it was moving towards revoking its ratification (see earlier post at 13.41).
In a statement, CTBTO chief Robert Floyd said:
The Russian Federation has consistently reaffirmed its strong support of the CTBT since its very inception.
It would be concerning and deeply unfortunate if any state signatory were to reconsider its ratification of the CTBT.
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Russia’s defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, has called for more Su-34 fighter jets to be produced, AFP reports.
“These planes are real workhorses. They can make four to five flights a day,” Shoigu said during a visit to an aeronautical manufacturing base in Novosibirsk in Siberia.
“That’s why we need to step up, accelerate” their manufacture, Shoigu said.
He said the defence ministry has “tasked the factory’s management with accelerating production and repair work” of Su-34s because the weapon is “in demand”.
A Ukrainian court has frozen the Ukrainian assets of three Russian businessmen over their alleged support for Russia’s war in Ukraine, prosecutors and the security service said.
The Ukrainian Security Service said assets owned by Mikhail Fridman, Pyotr Aven and Andrey Kosogov had been frozen, Reuters reports.
They were considered part of Vladimir Putin’s close circle and contributed to “large-scale financing of the Russian Federation’s armed aggression”, it said.
The three businessmen did not immediately comment on the moves and comments by the SBU and prosecutors.
“At the request of prosecutors... assets of 20 Ukrainian companies totalling over 17 billion hryvnias ($464.48 million) were frozen,” the prosecutor general’s office said on Telegram.
It said the frozen assets included securities and corporate rights of mobile phone operators, a mineral water producer, financial and insurance companies.
“The beneficial owners of the companies are three Russian oligarchs who own one of the largest Russian financial and investment consortia,” it said.
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Russia scrambled a MiG-31 fighter jet on Friday to escort a US navy P-8A Poseidon patrol plane approaching its airspace over the Norwegian Sea, the Russian defence ministry has said.
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Russia is seeking re-election to UN Human Rights Council next week - reports
Russia is seeking re-election to the UN’s top human rights body next week in what is seen as a crucial test of western efforts to keep Moscow diplomatically isolated over its invasion of Ukraine, Reuters reports.
Some diplomats are reported to have said Russia has a reasonable chance of getting voted back onto the UN Human Rights Council in Tuesday’s secret ballot, 18 months after it was ousted in a US-led drive.
“I think there is Ukraine fatigue. And second, many people do not want UN bodies to be dominated by Western voices, not to mention overbearing attitudes,” a senior Asian diplomat told Reuters.
Critics of Russia say its re-election while the nearly 20-month war in Ukraine still rages would wreck the credibility of the Geneva-based Council, seen as one of the more effective UN bodies.
The members of the human rights council are elected by the 193-nation general assembly in New York for three-year terms.
The March 2006 resolution that established the rights council says the assembly may suspend membership rights of a country “that commits gross and systematic violations of human rights”.
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Heartbroken relatives of some of those killed in the deadly missile strike in the north-eastern Ukrainian village of Hroza on Thursday have expressed their pain and anguish.
“Many people died, my mother, my brother and my sister-in-law,” said Oleksandr Mukhovatyi as families gathered at the scene.
People from every family in Hroza village have been affected by the attack, one of the deadliest single strikes on civilians since Moscow invaded Ukraine in February 2022.
You can watch the video here:
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The two largest hacktivist groups in the war in Ukraine have vowed to de-escalate cyber-attacks and comply with new rules of engagement published by a war watchdog.
BBC News reports:
On Wednesday, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) issued the first list of rules for civilian hackers ever created.
Dubbed a “Geneva Code of cyberwar”, it was initially criticised as unworkable. But now Ukrainian and Russian hackers say they will comply with the rules.
Since the invasion of Ukraine there has been a steady stream of disruptive cyber-attacks against public services in both Ukraine and Russia with varying degrees of impact.
Hacktivist groups have been using largely unsophisticated forms of cyber-attack, but successfully temporarily disrupted banks, companies, pharmacies, hospitals, railway networks and civilian government services for Ukrainian and Russian citizens.
With few soft targets in government or military, hacktivists on both sides have revelled in causing friction for ordinary people to further their causes, often collecting angry social media posts from those affected by their attacks.
By vowing to comply with the ICRC rules, hacker groups will avoid cyber-attacks that affect civilians.
Speaking to the BBC, the leader of the infamous pro-Russian hacking group Killnet said he “agrees to the terms and rules of the Red Cross, let this be the first step from Killnet to peace”.
Killmilk, as he is known, started the Telegram group for Killnet shortly after his country invaded, and now has 90,000 followers.
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A Turkish-flagged general cargo ship that was sailing on Thursday in the Black Sea en route to Ukraine’s Izmail port did not sustain damage from an explosion, Turkey’s maritime authority and the ship’s captain told Reuters on Friday.
The authority said:
An explosion occurred 15-20 meters behind the Kafkametler ship en route to Izmail port from Batumi port while it was cruising off the coast of Romania/Sulina (port).
The ship continued sailing to its destination to deliver its cargo following checks and there was no evidence that the explosion was caused by a mine, it added.
Maritime sources told Reuters on Thursday that the vessel had hit a sea mine and sustained minor damage, although the crew was safe.
Russian lawmakers to consider rescinding ratification of global nuclear test ban, speaker says
Russian lawmakers will consider revoking the ratification of a global nuclear test ban, the parliament speaker said on Friday, the Associated Press reports.
The statement from Vyacheslav Volodin, the speaker of the lower house, the State Duma, followed Vladimir Putin’s warning that Moscow could consider rescinding the ratification of the international pact banning nuclear tests since the US has never ratified it.
There are widespread concerns that Russia could move to resume nuclear tests to try to discourage the west from continuing to offer military support to Ukraine.
Volodin reaffirmed Moscow’s claim that western military support for Ukraine means the US and its allies are engaged in the war.
“Washington and Brussels have unleashed a war against our country,” Volodin said. “Today’s challenges require new decisions.”
He said that senior lawmakers will discuss recalling the 2000 ratification of the nuclear test ban at the next meeting of the agenda-setting house council.
“It conforms with our national interests,” Volodin said. “And it will come as a quid pro quo response to the United States, which has still failed to ratify the treaty.”
When asked on Friday if rescinding the ban could pave the way for the resumption of tests, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters that “it doesn’t mean a statement about the intention to resume nuclear tests”.
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The Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, has said that investigators had not yet produced a final report on the cause of the plane crash that killed Wagner mercenary boss Yevgeny Prigozhin in August, Reuters reports.
On Thursday, the Russian president, Vladimir Putin said fragments of hand grenades were found in the bodies of the victims.
Prigozhin died when his business jet crashed on 23 August, two months after he staged an aborted mutiny against Russian military commanders in which his Wagner mercenary troops briefly took control of the southern city of Rostov and advanced towards Moscow.
Two other top Wagner commanders, Prigozhin’s four bodyguards and a crew of three were also killed.
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Every family in Hroza village affected by deadly missile attack, minister says
People from every family in the Ukrainian village of Hroza have been affected by the missile attack that killed dozens of people on Thursday, interior minister, Ihor Klymenko, has said.
Ukrainian officials said a Russian missile slammed into a cafe and grocery store during a gathering to mourn a Ukrainian soldier.
“From every household there were people present,” Klymenko was quoting as having said by BBC News.
In comments to Ukrainian TV, he said that Hroza had had a population of 330 residents before the attack on Thursday.
He said “every family, every household” was represented by at least one person at the wake.
The Kremlin on Friday repeated its assertion that the Russian military does not strike civilian targets in Ukraine, after the death toll from the airstrike on the north-eastern village of Hroza rose to 52.
Rescue workers scoured the rubble for bodies after what Kyiv said was one of Moscow’s deadliest attacks on civilians since its invasion last year.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said that Russia strikes Ukraine’s military infrastructure as well as concentrations of troops and the country’s military leadership.
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Boy, 10, and his grandmother killed in airstrike on Kharkiv, Ukrainian officials say
Russia unleashed new airstrikes on Ukraine early on Friday, killing a 10-year-old boy and his grandmother in the city of Kharkiv and damaging grain and port infrastructure in the Odesa region in the south, Ukrainian officials said.
The boy and his grandmother were killed when Russia hit Ukraine’s second biggest city with two Iskander ballistic missiles, regional governor, Oleh Synehubov, said.
Twenty-eight others were injured, including an 11-month-old baby, he said, according to Reuters. These claims are yet to be independently verified.
The missile attack was claimed to have destroyed much of a residential building, where rescue workers searched among the rubble.
The attacks followed a Russian missile strike on Thursday in which Ukrainian officials said dozens of people were killed in the village of Hroza in north-eastern Ukraine during a gathering to mourn a fallen Ukrainian soldier.
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Hello everyone, this is Yohannes Lowe. I’ll be running the blog until 7pm (UK time). Please do feel free to get in touch on Twitter if you have any story tips.
Morning summary
The death toll from a Russian missile strike on the village of Hroza in north-eastern Ukraine rose to 52 on Friday after another victim died overnight in hospital, the regional governor said. A missile slammed into a cafe and grocery store in the village on Thursday as people gathered to mourn a fallen Ukrainian soldier. “Fifty-two people died as a result of this missile attack. One person died in a medical facility,” Oleh Synehubov, governor of the Kharkiv region, told Ukrainian television. “People are still there [in hospitals]. The injuries are quite serious.”
The White House has condemned the attack on a cafe and grocery store in Ukraine’s Hroza village that killed 51 people as “horrifying”, while the British prime minister, Rishi Sunak, said the strike “demonstrated the depths of depravity Russian forces are willing to sink to”, according to a Downing Street spokesperson. In a briefing before the death toll rose, the White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said: “Let’s stop and think about what we’re seeing: 49 innocent people who were killed by a Russian airstrike while they were shopping for food at a supermarket. That’s what they were doing.”
The office for the UN high commissioner for human rights (OHCHR) on Friday deployed a field team to investigate the Russian attack on the Ukrainian village of Hroza that left at least 52 people dead. “The UN high commissioner for human rights, Volker Turk, who saw for himself the horrific impact of such strikes, is profoundly shocked and condemns these killings,” OHCHR spokesperson Elizabeth Throssell told reporters in Geneva.
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 on 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 programme 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, said the country’s prime minister, Ľudovít Ódor. 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.
Sweden will send Ukraine a new military support package worth 2.2bn crowns ($199m), consisting mainly of ammunition and spare parts to earlier donated systems, the Swedish defence minister, Pål Jonson, said on Friday. The new military aid package will be Sweden’s 14th to Ukraine since the start of the war, taking the total value of the Nordic country’s such aid to just over 22bn crowns, Reuters reported.
That’s it from me, Tom Ambrose, for now. My colleague Yohannes Lowe will be along shortly to continue bringing you the latest from Russia’s war on Ukraine.
The office for the UN high commissioner for human rights (OHCHR) on Friday deployed a field team to investigate the Russian attack on the Ukrainian village of Hroza that left at least 52 people dead.
“The UN high commissioner for human rights, Volker Turk, who saw for himself the horrific impact of such strikes, is profoundly shocked and condemns these killings,” OHCHR spokesperson Elizabeth Throssell told reporters in Geneva.
“He has deployed a field team to the site to speak to survivors and gather more information.”
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Death toll rises to 52 after Russian attack on Ukrainian village of Hroza
The death toll from a Russian missile strike on the village of Hroza in north-eastern Ukraine rose to 52 on Friday after another victim died overnight in hospital, the regional governor said.
A missile slammed into a cafe and grocery store in the village on Thursday as people gathered to mourn a fallen Ukrainian soldier.
“Fifty-two people died as a result of this missile attack. One person died in a medical facility,” Oleh Synehubov, governor of the Kharkiv region, told Ukrainian television. “People are still there [in hospitals]. The injuries are quite serious.”
Synehubov said rescuers were still working at the scene of the attack, Reuters reported.
Three days of mourning was announced in the Kharkiv region after the deadliest attack in the region since Russia’s invasion more than 19 months ago. It was also one of the biggest civilian death tolls in any single Russian strike.
Moscow denies deliberately targeting civilians, but many have been killed in attacks that have hit residential areas as well as energy, defence, port, grain and other facilities.
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In case you missed it earlier, the White House has condemned the “horrifying” attack on a cafe and grocery store in Ukraine’s Hroza village that killed 51 people, while British prime minister, Rishi Sunak, said the strike “demonstrated the depths of depravity Russian forces are willing to sink to”, according to a Downing Street spokesperson.
In a briefing before the death toll rose, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said:
Let’s stop and think about what we’re seeing: 49 innocent people who were killed by a Russian airstrike while they were shopping for food at a supermarket. That’s what they were doing.
Can you imagine just walking to the grocery store with your kids, trying to figure out what is it that you’re going to make for dinner, and you see an explosion happen where bodies are everywhere. And it’s horrifying.
“This is why we’re doing everything that we can to help Ukraine, to help the brave people of Ukraine to fight for their freedom, for – to fight for their democracy,” she added.
Ukrainian officials said a Russian missile slammed into a cafe and grocery store in a village in north-eastern Ukraine on Thursday, during a gathering to mourn a Ukrainian soldier, killing dozens.
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Sweden announces military aid package for Ukraine
Sweden will send Ukraine a new military support package worth 2.2bn crowns ($199m), consisting mainly of ammunition and spare parts to earlier donated systems, the Swedish defence minister, Pål Jonson, said on Friday.
The new military aid package will be Sweden’s 14th to Ukraine since the start of the war, taking the total value of the Nordic country’s such aid to just over 22bn crowns, Reuters reported.
Jonson told a news confrence the government had also formally tasked the armed forces with analysing whether Sweden would be able to send JAS Gripen fighter jets to Ukraine.
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An extraordinary rally in Warsaw last Sunday drew crowds of up to 800,000 opposition supporters, many waving Polish and EU flags, on to the streets of the capital.
The prevailing atmosphere was one of peaceful concern for the fate of the country. As one of the biggest demonstrations in Poland’s recent history, it was a stunning show of support for the opposition Civic Coalition and its leader, the former prime minister Donald Tusk, as he prepares to challenge the rightwing populist governing party Law and Justice in elections on 15 October.
But despite the success of the march, and all it symbolised, Poland’s authoritarian trajectory is stronger than it has ever been. For the past eight years, the government of an EU member state has been in the grip of unremitting populism.
Ever more institutional elements of the liberal democratic system have been stripped away, while independent media have been targeted and minority rights significantly weakened.
Instead of being a democratic contest – the moment in the cycle when the people get to demand accountability – this election campaign has been yet another expression of illiberalism. The opposition’s warnings about the threat to democracy have been ridiculed or dismissed. Neutralising political scandals has become an art form.
The entire apparatus of the state, taken over by Law and Justice, has been used to tip the scales in the party’s favour. We are well on the road to hi-tech authoritarianism, with pro-government propaganda pouring out of every social media platform.
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More reaction now to the attack on Hroza:
The German foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, wrote on X: “As long as bombs rain down on supermarkets and cafes, we do everything for Ukraine to protect itself from Putin’s missile terror.” Earlier on Thursday, at a meeting of European leaders in Granada, Spain, the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, and the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, announced that Berlin was working on supplying Kyiv with a Patriot air-defence system.
Josep Borrell, the EU’s chief diplomat, said of the attack: “Intentional attacks against civilians are war crimes. Russia’s leadership, all commanders, perpetrators and accomplices of these atrocities will be held to account. There will be no impunity for war crimes.”
Denise Brown, the Ukraine coordinator for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), called the attack “absolutely horrifying” and said that “intentionally directing an attack against civilians or civilian objects is a war crime”.
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EU leaders to discuss Ukraine membership
The Associated Press: A day after pledging the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, their unwavering support, EU leaders on Friday will face one of their worst political headaches on a key commitment – how and when to welcome debt-laden and battered Ukraine into the bloc.
The 27-nation EU has said since the start of Russia’s invasion in February 2022 that at the end of the war it would work steadfastly on “lasting unity” that would eventually translate into Ukraine’s membership in the wealthy bloc.
For a nation fighting for its very survival, that moment cannot come quickly enough. For the bloc itself, that remains to be seen.
On Friday, the leaders will assess “enlargement” as they call it at their informal summit in southern Spain’s Granada. Beyond Ukraine, several western Balkan nations and Moldova are also knocking with increasing impatience at the door.
In his summit invitation letter, the EU council president, Charles Michel, asked the leaders “critical questions, such as: What do we do together? How do we decide? How do we match our means with our ambitions?”
That has already proven difficult enough for the current members, especially with decades-old rules still on the books that were thought out for a dozen closely knit nations. At the time, deciding by unanimity and veto rights were still considered workable procedures, and money was still relatively easy to come by.
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US condemns ‘horrifying’ attack on Kharkiv village
The White House has condemned the attack on a cafe and grocery store in Ukraine’s Hroza village that killed 51 people as “horrifying”, while the British prime minister, Rishi Sunak, said the strike “demonstrated the depths of depravity Russian forces are willing to sink to”, according to a Downing Street spokesperson.
In a briefing before the death toll rose, the White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said: “Let’s stop and think about what we’re seeing: 49 innocent people who were killed by a Russian airstrike while they were shopping for food at a supermarket. That’s what they were doing.
“Can you imagine just walking to the grocery store with your kids, trying to figure out what is it that you’re going to make for dinner, and you see an explosion happen where bodies are everywhere. And it’s horrifying.
“This is why we’re doing everything that we can to help Ukraine, to help the brave people of Ukraine to fight for their freedom, for … to fight for their democracy,” she added.
Updated
Opening summary
Welcome back to our live coverage of the war in Ukraine. This is Helen Sullivan with the latest.
Our top stories this morning: The discussions come as Ukraine faced of its deadliest attacks of the war on Thursday. The White House has condemned the attack on a cafe and grocery store in Ukraine’s Hroza village that killed 51 people as “horrifying”, while the British prime minister, Rishi Sunak, said the strike “demonstrated the depths of depravity Russian forces are willing to sink to”, according to a Downing Street spokesperson.
The attack was the deadliest in Kharkiv region since Russia’s invasion more than 19 months ago, a regional official told public broadcaster Suspilne. It also appeared to be one of the biggest civilian death tolls in any single Russian strike.
And EU leaders will discuss how and when to welcome debt-laden and war-battered Ukraine into the bloc, the Associated Press reports, as they meet for the second day of an informal summit in Granada, Spain.
In other key recent developments:
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 on 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 programme 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, said the country’s prime minister, Ľudovít Ódor. 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.
Updated
