“I am shocked by reports of a Russian attack that not long ago destroyed the village of Hroza, in the Kharkov region, killing dozens of civilians. The images coming out of the town where just over 300 people live are absolutely horrifying,” he said. the UN Humanitarian Coordinator in Ukraine, Denise Brown, in a statement released this Thursday.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky denounced a Russian missile attack on a shop in a village in eastern Ukraine, saying it killed at least 51 civilians and was one of the deadliest attacks in recent months.

In the document, Denise Brown complained on behalf of the UN and the humanitarian community that the Ukrainian people “had to witness yet another barbaric consequence of the Russian invasion today.”

The diplomatic official noted that directing an attack against civilians or civilian objects is a war crime, as is deliberately launching an attack with disproportionate potential.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres also said he “strongly condemns” the attack. “Attacks against civilians and civilian infrastructure are prohibited under international humanitarian law and must stop immediately,” Guterres spokesman Stephane Dujarric said in a statement.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, said he was “shocked and saddened” by the attack, in a message published by his office on X, formerly Twitter.

“Our human rights monitors will visit the site to gather information. Accountability is critical,” he added.

Groza is located more than 30 kilometers from the city of Kupiansk on the front line, in an area where Russian forces are trying to retake territory they lost to Ukrainian forces last year.

Attack takes ‘Russian atrocities to an even darker level’

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said Thursday that the attack that killed at least 51 people who had gathered in eastern Ukraine took Russian atrocities “to another dark level.”

“Intentional attacks on civilians are war crimes,” Borrell posted on social media during a European summit in Grenada, where European leaders were with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky when news of the attack broke.

Zelensky calls for strengthening air defenses

Zelensky, who is in Granada, Spain, at a summit with about 50 European leaders aimed at rallying support for the war-torn country, called the attack a “verifiably brutal Russian crime” and “a completely deliberate act of terror” .

The Ukrainian president urged Western allies to help strengthen Ukraine’s air defenses, claiming that “Russian terror must be stopped.”

“Now we mainly talk to European leaders about strengthening our air defense, strengthening our soldiers, protecting our country against terrorism. And we will respond to terrorists,” he added.

“The most important thing for us, especially before winter, is to strengthen air defense, and there is already a basis for new agreements with partners,” Zelensky said in a statement published on the Telegram messaging channel.