Funeral in Ukraine Devastated as Russian Airstrike Claims 51 Lives

In a devastating attack, a village in Ukraine called Hroza, located southeast of Kharkiv, was targeted by Russia, resulting in the deaths of at least 51 people, including a six-year-old boy. The incident occurred while locals were gathered for a wake for a resident, with a missile striking the village at 13:15 local time. Ukraine's defense ministry confirmed that there were no military targets in the area, emphasizing that only civilians were affected. Oleh Synyehubov, the head of the Kharkiv region, labeled the attack as one of the worst crimes committed in the area. He also revealed that all the victims were residents of the village, which had a population of approximately 501 people in 2020. This means that the shelling alone claimed the lives of 10% of the population. Ukrainian Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko expressed the tragedy of the situation, stating that individuals from every family and household were present during the attack. The village is part of the Kupyansk district and has been a site of ongoing clashes between Russian and Ukrainian forces since President Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion in February of the previous year. Initially serving as a significant supply hub for Russian forces, Kyiv managed to recapture the area in September 2022 after months of intense fighting. President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine condemned the attack and described it as a brutal Russian crime. He accused Russia of using such terrorist acts to normalize its genocidal aggression worldwide. Zelensky made this statement on the messaging platform Telegram while he was attending the European leaders' summit in Granada, Spain. At the summit, the European Union's foreign affairs chief, Josep Borrell, cautioned that political disputes were jeopardizing the United States' ability to fund the Ukrainian military. Notably, the recent US Congress budget deal did not allocate funds for Ukraine. Borrell stressed that no European countries would be capable of filling the financial void resulting from a loss of American support. He emphasized that Europe cannot substitute the role played by the US in this regard. During the summit, Zelensky requested additional air defense missiles from European leaders and asserted that other nations should express gratitude to Ukraine for defending them against Russian aggression. There remains uncertainty regarding the specific type of missile employed in the attack, as the statement from the Ukrainian interior minister claiming it was an Iskander missile has yet to be independently verified by the BBC.