Terrorist attack by Russians near Kupyansk: what is known about the most mass killing of civilians in the Kharkiv region

On October 5, the Russians launched a rocket attack on the village of Groza, Kupyan district. A shop and a cafe were destroyed there.

On the afternoon of October 5, Russian troops destroyed a small village facility in which about 60 people were staying. So far, 55 people have died, including a 6-year-old child.

Half a hundred civilians died

Oleg Synegubov, the head of the Kharkiv Regional Military Administration, said that the invaders attacked civilians around 1:15 p.m. Soon it became known about 48 dead and 7 wounded.

Later, at 4:03 p.m., the Office of the President and the local prosecutor’s office reported that the death toll had risen to 49.

After that, the Minister of Internal Affairs Ihor Klymenko reported on 50 victims of Russian terror, and soon this number increased to 55 people.

According to the latest information, 58 people were rescued from the rubble, 51 of them died, a 6-year-old child was among the dead, and seven people were injured. This was reported by the spokesman of the Regional Department of Emergency Situations Yevhen Vasylenko.

Oleg Synegubov, the head of the Kharkiv Regional Military Administration, added that among the injured were 6 women, most of whom are over 50 years old, and a 55-year-old man. Two women are in a serious condition, doctors assess the condition of the rest of the injured as medium. One of the wounded died in hospital.

Why are there so many victims?

Ihor Klymenko said that in the cafe, which was destroyed by the Russians, there was a memorial service for a fellow villager.

“There were local residents in the store, and local residents were also directly in the cafe, where the memorial service for a deceased fellow villager was held. In total, there were about 60 people on the territory of this object,” he said.

Serhiy Starikov, head of the Shevchenkiv settlement military administration, clarified that it was a memorial dinner for a Ukrainian soldier who was reburied in his small homeland.

“The dead are people who were present at the memorial service. They were commemorating a soldier who was reburied. First he was buried in Dnipropetrovsk region, and then – here,” said Serhiy Starikov.

According to Minister Klymenko, 29 bodies have now been identified. All others were sent to the relevant medical and expert institutions of the city of Kharkiv. Klymenko emphasized that the Russian attack on the village of Groza became the most massive in terms of the number of casualties in the region since the beginning of the full-scale war.

“I want to note that 330 residents lived in this village. Just one person from each family, from each yard was present at this memorial dinner,” Klymenko emphasized.

“About 100 people currently live in the village of Groza. In other words, the Russian army killed most of the inhabitants of this village with one rocket,” said Dmytro Chubenko, the spokesman of the Kharkiv Regional Prosecutor’s Office.

According to him, taking into account the scale of destruction and the power of the explosion, the Russians most likely attacked the village with a cruise missile.

They could have hit the cafe

The minister also added that police and emergency managers are working at the site of the horrific airstrike in the cafe shop. They assume that a missile strike could be aimed at this object.

“The heads of the police, the head of the State Emergency Service, the employees of the Security Service are working to identify possible citizens who could direct the enemy to this object… The missile strike was so precise, it is a small enough room for such that’s why there is a suspicion in the Security Service and the police that we can definitely check this option,” Ihor Klymenko said.

Why did the Russians strike?

According to Klymenko, the Russians could have used a guided air missile or a high-explosive bomb to attack the cafe-shop. After all, even those people who were standing at a distance of 50 meters or more from the place of impact were injured.

“It is still unknown (what exactly the Russians hit), specialists are working. I can say unequivocally that it was enough a heavy missile or, perhaps, a guided air missile and a bomb, or a high-explosive bomb… We will install with the help of experts the exact weapons and from what this charge was released, is it an airplane or is it artillery,” Klymenko says.

Later, he added that previously the occupiers could kill half a hundred civilians with an Iskander missile.