Russian troops launched a missile attack on a grocery store and a café in the village of Hroza in Kharkiv Oblast on Oct. 5, where a funeral reception was being held on the occasion of the reburial of a Ukrainian soldier, said Dmytro Chubenko, a spokesman for the regional prosecutor's office.
"A memorial service was held because of the reburial of a fallen Ukrainian soldier," Chubenko said, according to Interfax. "He was originally buried in Dnipro, and his relatives wanted to rebury him in the village where he came from. The burial was organized by the family of the deceased soldier, his son and the widow. The son of the reburied man was also a soldier."
The strike occurred at around 1:15 p.m. when at least 60 people gathered at a local cafe for a memorial service for a deceased resident, interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said on national television.
The son, along with his wife and mother, were among the 51 people killed in the attack that wiped out over half of the village's population. It is the single deadliest Russian attack against civilians in 2023.
While Klymenko initially said the population of Hroza was over 300 people, a Kharkiv Oblast Prosecutor's Office spokesman later clarified that the number of people living in the village just before the attack didn't exceed 100.
The attack was likely carried out with an Iskander ballistic missile and was targeted, according to local police.
Daria Shulzhenko
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