BBC News: <\/p>\n\n\n\n
A Russian attack on the village of Hroza, south-east of Kharkiv, has killed at least 51 people, including an eight-year-old boy, Ukraine says.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Villagers were attending a wake for a local resident when a missile struck at 15:15 local time (13:15 BST).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ukraine’s defence ministry said there were no military targets in the area – only civilians.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kharkiv regional head Oleh Synyehubov described the attack as one of the region’s “bloodiest crimes”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He confirmed that everyone who died were residents of the village, and that today’s attack killed 20% of its population.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “One-fifth of this village has died in a single terrorist attack,” he said on national television.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ukrainian Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said every household was affected in the village: “From every family, from every household, there were people present”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Interfax Ukraine reported that the funeral was for a Ukrainian soldier. His widow, son – also a soldier – and daughter-in-law were among those killed, the outlet quoted local prosecutor Dmytro Chubenko as saying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The soldier had previously been buried in Dnipro, but his relatives said they wanted to rebury him in his home village.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the act “couldn’t even be called a beastly act – because it would be an insult to beasts”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He accused Russia of deliberately targeting the village while people gathered for the memorial service, and said it “was not a blind strike”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Who could launch a missile at them? Who? Only absolute evil”, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Kupyansk district – which the village is part of – has been on the front line of clashes between Russian and Ukrainian armies since Vladimir Putin launched his full scale invasion in February last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It was a major supply hub for Russian forces at the start of the war, but Kyiv recaptured it in September 2022 after months of fighting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The interior minister said an Iskander missile was used in the attack, but the BBC has been unable to independently verify this claim.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Russia bombed the village as Mr Zelensky attended the European leaders’ summit in Granada, Spain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There, the European Union’s foreign affairs chief, Josep Borrell, warned that political infighting was threatening the US’s ability to fund the Ukrainian military.<\/p>\n\n\n\n