GROZA: A Russian strike on Thursday killed at least 51 people gathered for a wake in an eastern Ukrainian village in what a UN official called a “horrifying” attack.

Footage published by the Ukrainian police showed a large area of smoking rubble and several bodies being taken away by emergency workers in the village of Groza.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky posted an image of a woman kneeling over the body of someone apparently killed in the strike, with other corpses around her.

The mourners were in a cafe and there were also victims in a shop in the same building in the village, which has a population of 330 people, in the northeastern region of Kharkiv.

“A memorial service for a deceased fellow villager was being held,” Interior Minister Igor Klymenko said on TV. He said a six-year-old child was among the victims, adding that a total of 60 people had been attending the wake.

Putin warns West over nuclear testing

Groza is located more than 30 kilometres from the frontline town of Kupiansk in an area where Russian forces have been pushing to recapture territory they lost to Ukrainian troops last year.

Klymenko said initial evidence showed an Iskander missile had been used. “The search and rescue operation is ongoing,” Klymenko said. “There may still be people under the rubble”.

Zelensky, who was attending a European summit in Spain, condemned the attack on social media. He called the strike “completely deliberate” and said it was a “brutal Russian crime”.

Denise Brown, Ukraine coordinator for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs(OCHA), also condemned the alleged Russian strike. Brown said she was “appalled”, adding that the images from the scene of the strike were “absolutely horrifying”.

“Intentionally directing an attack against civilians or civilian objects is a war crime,” she said in a statement.

President Vladimir Putin on Thursday held out the possibility that Russia could resume nuclear testing for the first time in over three decades and might withdraw its ratification of a landmark nuclear test ban treaty.

Putin, the ultimate decision maker in the world’s biggest nuclear power, also said that Moscow had successfully tested a nuclear-powered and nuclear-capable cruise missile — the Burevestnik — whose capabilities he has called unmatched.

The Kremlin chief said there was no need to change Russia’s nuclear doctrine however, as any attack on Russia would provoke a split-second response with hundreds of nuclear missiles that no enemy could survive.

“Do we need to change this? And why? Everything can be changed but I just don’t see the need for it,” Putin said of the nuclear doctrine, saying the existence of the Russian state was not under threat. “I think no person of sound mind and clear memory would think of using nuclear weapons against Russia,” he said.

Published in Dawn, October 6th, 2023