Russian strike hits village in Kharkiv on Thursday, killing over 50 people
Russia has fired a fresh wave of drones at southern Ukraine overnight, as UN Security Council members condemned Moscow’s bombing of a village wake that killed 52 people.
Vladimir Putin’s forces launched 36 Iranian-made attack drones, targeting the Odesa, Mykolaiv and Kherson regions, the Ukrainian military reported, adding that air defence systems destroyed 27 drones.
Odesa Governor Oleh Kiper said unspecified “logistics infrastructure” in his region had been damaged but that no injuries were reported.
Meanwhile, in Monday’s UN Security Council meeting, members from around the world condemned Thursday's strike by a Russian Iskander ballistic missile on a cafe in Hroza in the northeastern Kharkiv region. The village lost over 15 per cent of its 300 population when the memorial service for a Ukrainian soldier was targeted, with Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko saying every family was affected by the strike.
"This is one of the deadliest strikes by Russia against Ukraine since the beginning of its full-scale invasion last year," said US deputy ambassador Robert Wood, stressing his country’s support for investigators gathering possible evidence of war crimes.
It comes as Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Monday that it was in Russia’s interests to stoke war in the Middle East to weaken global unity.