Grieving families waited until the night for news of relatives. Somewhere among the charred personal effects, a cell phone rang and rang with no one answering. The bodies – more than 50 in all – were wrapped in white bags and carted away near a slide and swing set at a children’s playground.
Thursday’s strike in the tiny village of Hroza, whose population had declined from about 500 before the war, killed about one in six of the town’s remaining 300 residents, Ukrainian officials said.
As of Friday morning, the death toll had risen to 52 and six more people were injured, Oleh Synyehubov, the regional military administrator, said on the messaging app Telegram. A six-year-old boy was among the dead, he said.
In his late-night address, President Volodymyr Zelensky appeared to struggle to find the right words to denounce the attack, which was among the deadliest attacks on civilians in recent months and was made all the more devastating as it struck people gathering at a memorial service had gathered. To call it “bestial” would be an affront to the beasts, he said.
“It wasn’t a blind attack. People had gathered there for a memorial meal, a Christian memorial meal. Who could fire a missile at them? WHO?” he asked.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry S. Peskov said at a news conference on Friday that the Russian military does not attack civilian targets and that attacks are carried out only on military infrastructure.
Officials at the scene of the strike on Thursday. Photo credit: David Guttenfelder for The New York Times. A man comforted his wife as they waited for news from his father on Thursday. Photo credit: David Guttenfelder for The New York Times. President Volodymyr Zelensky and Ukraine’s state emergency service said a grocery store and a cafe were hit. Photo credit: David Guttenfelder for The New York Times
According to Ukraine’s State Emergency Service, search and rescue work at the site of the attack, which Zelensky said hit a grocery store and a cafe, was completed just before 8 p.m. on Thursday.
But rescue workers continued to comb the scene on Friday, dismantling the rubble and inspecting the site, according to Mr. Synyehubov, who said they found more remains. As they worked, people came to lay flowers and light candles. Three bouquets of red roses were placed next to a small brown teddy bear.
The village is 23 miles from the front line, but there are no obvious military or industrial targets nearby. Ukraine’s Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said a preliminary investigation showed the attack was an Iskander missile, which has a relatively short range.
According to the state rescue service, 29 of the dead had been identified by late Thursday afternoon. Ukrainian National Police said DNA testing was needed to confirm the identities of some of the dead due to the extent of their injuries.
According to a press release, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said he was at the scene himself and had deployed a field team to the site to “talk to survivors and gather further information about the attack.”
—Victoria Kim and David Guttenfelder