49 people killed in Russian attack on Kharkiv village, say officials

A Russian strike on a village in northeastern Ukraine has killed at least 49 people, including a six-year-old boy, according to Ukrainian officials.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that Russia had hit a grocery store in the attack on Thursday, describing it as a “brutal Russian crime” in a post on the Telegram messaging app.

Kharkiv region governor Oleh Synehubov said that a cafe and a shop had been attacked at around 1.15pm local time (11.15am BST) in the village of Hroza in the Kupiansk district of Kharkiv, and that many civilians had been there at the time.

“The rescuers continue to work on the site,” Mr Synehubov said on Telegram.

Officials posted footage of rescue workers clambering through smouldering rubble as bodies lay alongside broken concrete and twisted metal.

It was not immediately clear whether Russian forces, who invaded Ukraine 19 months ago, had shelled the village or had fired a missile.

Mr Zelensky, who was attending a summit with European leaders in Spain, said that “the Russian terror should be stopped”.

“Now we are talking with European leaders, in particular, about strengthening our air defence, about strengthening our soldiers, about giving our country protection from terror,” he said in a Telegram post.

He described the incident as a “terrorist attack”, adding that Russia wants to make “genocidal aggression a new norm for the whole world”.

He added Ukrainian forces would be retaliating “powerfully”.

“Now we are talking with European leaders, in particular, about strengthening our air defense, in particular, about strengthening our soldiers, in particular, about giving our country protection from terror. And we will respond to terrorists. Absolutely.”

The attack is among the deadliest to hit civilians since the war began.

In Mariupol, almost 600 people are thought to have died when the theatre they were sheltering in was targeted in Russian strike in March 2022.

In April 2022, 52 people were killed while at a train station in Kramatorsk.

This article is being updated