Get all your news in one place.
100’s of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
The Independent UK
The Independent UK
National
Tara Cobham and Jane Dalton

Ukraine-Russia war – live: Deadly Russian attack on memorial service was no blind strike, says Zelensky

Kharkiv Governor/Telegram

Russian strike hits village in Kharkiv on Thursday, killing over 50 people

A Russian missile strike killed a 10-year-old boy and his grandmother on Friday in the north-eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, officials said, a day after a strike in the same region killed at least 52 civilians in one of the deadliest attacks in the war in months.

Reporters saw emergency crews pulling the body of the boy – who was wearing pyjamas with a Spiderman design – from the rubble of a building after the early morning attack, which injured 28 more people, including an 11-month-old baby, regional governor Oleh Synehubov said.

The boy's father, Oleh Bychko, said he had managed to pull his younger son and wife out of the rubble after the strike. Bychko, his face scratched and his clothes covered in blood, stood shocked and lost for words after the death of his 10-year-old son, Tymofiy.

A day earlier, a Russian rocket blast turned a village cafe and store in Hroza, a village in eastern Ukraine to rubble, killing at least 51 civilians, according to Ukrainian officials.

About 60 people, including children, were attending a wake at the cafe when the missile hit, the officials said.

Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky, attending a summit of about 50 European leaders in Spain to rally support from Ukraine's allies, called the strike as a "demonstrably brutal Russian crime" and "a completely deliberate act of terrorism".

Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100’s of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
Our Picks
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.