Ukrainian Presidential Press Service / Handout via Reuters
Dozens of people were killed in a Russian strike on a grocery store and cafe in Ukraine on Thursday, local authorities said, in an attack which Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky described as a “demonstrably brutal Russian crime.”
Officials say the deadly shelling took place in the village of Hroza in the eastern Kharkiv region. In a message on his Telegram account, Zelensky shared a picture of a woman kneeling alongside several bodies. He said that 48 had died in the attack, while Ukraine’s prosecutor general said soon after that the toll had reached 49.
“Russian terror must be stopped,” Zelensky’s message read, adding that anyone “who supports Russia until now supports evil.” “Russia needs this and similar terrorist attacks for only one thing: to make its genocidal aggression the new norm for the whole world,” he continued. “And I thank every leader, every nation that supports us in protecting life!”