Russia-Ukraine updates: At least 51 killed in Kharkiv attack – Kyiv

Thanks for following along with all the latest updates on the fighting in Ukraine.

Thursday saw one of the deadliest attacks in recent months of fighting. Meanwhile, European leaders underscored concerns over possible US obstructions to further aid for Ukraine.

For more perspective, check out our video below examining what could be a new phase in Washington’s support for Kyiv.

• An attack on a supermarket in the village of Hroza killed 51 in one of the deadliest attacks in months.
• Putin spoke at a conference in Sochi, Russia, where he hailed recent missile tests and said Russia’s economy was resilient despite fighting.
• Zelenskyy attended a meeting of European leaders in Granada, where many expressed renewed support for Ukraine.
• Reports have circulated that Russia signed a deal for a naval base in the breakaway Georgian region of Abkhazia.

Maria Adeeva, the research director at the European Expert Association in Ukraine, called the Hroza strike “clearly deliberate”.

“Russians knew that all those people were there and they precisely attacked this building,” Adeeva told Al Jazeera. “This strike was so huge that from what we know now, only 30 bodies are being able to be identified from 51 people killed so that means that 20 bodies still aren’t identified,” she said.

“And from what we know from the last Russian attacks of the same kind, which were on the pizzeria in Kramatorsk, later, police said that they found people who navigated the strike those who gave out information and told Russians when and where to hit,” she said.

Adeeva referred to the arrest of a man who the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) accused of filming the Kramatorsk restaurant before the attack and giving them information about the popular establishment.

White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre has again called on Congress to approve more aid to Ukraine.

The appeal comes after US House of Representatives speaker Kevin McCarthy, a Republican, was removed from his role amid unrest from his own party.

The issue has thrown future aid to Ukraine, which must be approved by the US legislature, into question. At least one legislator vying to replace McCarthy, Jim Jordan, has said he would oppose future aid under current conditions.

Majorities of both parties support more aid for Ukraine, but a flank of hardline Republicans in the House have wielded outsized influence in their opposition to more aid.

“Ultimately we believe that Congress needs to act,” Jean-Pierre said. “We need Congress to keep their promise.”

Rescue operations to find survivors of the attack on the eastern Ukrainian village of Hroza are over, Ukrainian authorities said.

“As of 7.20 pm (1620 GMT) emergency and rescue work in the village of Groza, Kupiansk district, has been completed,” Ukraine’s state emergency service said, using an alternative spelling.

“A total of 51 people died, including a child born in 2017, and six people were wounded.”

The meeting of European leaders in Granada on Thursday touched on many subjects, with the war in Ukraine looming particularly large.

Many leaders used the forum to restate steadfast support for Kyiv. That’s something that observers say has become increasingly significant amid concerns about aid fatigue and questions about the US’s role going forward.

“Russia is counting on us getting tired, but we cannot get tired. We must do everything to help Ukraine win. We prove multilateralism works by being united and by supporting Ukraine until victory,” Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas wrote on X.

Putin says explosive traces were discovered in the remains of people killed when the plane carrying Wagner mercenary group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin crashed in Russia in August.

“The head of the investigative committee reported to me a few days ago. Fragments of hand grenades were found in the bodies of the victims of the air disaster. There was no external impact on the plane,” Putin said while speaking at the Valdai Discussion Club in Sochi.

Prigozhin was killed in the crash two months after he led an attempted coup in Russia. He led the mutiny after becoming increasingly outspoken over the treatment of his mercenaries fighting on behalf of Russia in Ukraine.

The Kremlin said in August that “deliberate wrongdoing” could be behind the deadly crash, which Russia is not investigating under international rules.

The White House has now responded to the Hroza attack, with White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre saying that it underscored the need to keep supporting Kyiv against Russia. The appeal comes amid Congressional infighting that has thrown the future of US aid into question.

“It is incredibly horrifying for the people of Ukraine,” Jean-Pierre told reporters. “This is why we’re doing everything that we can to help Ukraine.”

Yousuf Syed Khan, a senior lawyer at Global Rights Compliance who is assisting Ukraine’s public prosecutor in building a war crimes case against Russia, has condemned the latest strike that killed at least 51 civilians.

“Today’s senseless attack against a cafe in Hroza village, where a memorial service was being held, is among the deadliest attacks directed against civilians and civilian objects since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion last year. The cafe itself was situated some 40 kilometres from the nearest frontline,” Khan said in a statement.

The rights lawyer connected the attack to what he described as Russia’s continued “use [of] starvation as a method of warfare across Ukraine”.

“We have documented several similar attacks following the same pattern, where packed community venues offering food are deliberately targeted during peak visiting hours, either to deprive residents of their sustenance value, or simply to sow and spread terror,” he said.

President Maia Sandu has said Moldova “vehemently condemns this yet another violent act of aggression by Russia”, following the strike on the village of Hroza that killed at least 51.

“Today—and everyday—we stand in solidarity with Ukraine,” she wrote on X.

French President Emmanuel Macron has said that he feels a willingness among EU partners to continue to support Ukraine.

“There is a very deep, very strong commitment because we all know that we are talking about Europe and about the very possibility of lasting peace on our continent,” he told reporters during a meeting of European leaders in Granada.

The meeting comes as questions over the US’s support for Ukraine amid congressional infighting have roiled European leaders.

As Putin speaks at Valdai Discussion Club, here are some key takeaways.

• Nuclear weapons: “Theoretically we could revoke ratification” of the international nuclear test ban treaty, but the Russian leader said he was not there yet.
• War in Ukraine: “I have said many times that it was not us who started the war in Ukraine. On the contrary, we are trying to end it.”
• The West: “Adherence to bloc approaches, the desire to drive the world into a situation of constant confrontation between ‘us’ and ‘them’ is a vicious legacy of the 20th century … The West always needs an enemy.”
• Russia’s economy: “We have a stable, sustainable situation. We have overcome all the problems that arose after sanctions were imposed on us, and begun the next stage of development on a new basis.”

Slovakia has frozen decisions on providing military aid to neighbouring Ukraine until after its parliamentary elections, the presidency has told the Agence France-Presse news agency.

Spokesman Martin Strizinec said President Zuzana Caputova shared the view of the outgoing prime minister “that a decision on this question must reflect the result of recent legislative elections”. The spokesman said Caputova had not “changed her position on military aid to Ukraine and she will continue to back it”.

Robert Fico, a populist who pledged to end military help for Ukraine, was tapped on Monday to form a new government after his party finished first in Saturday’s elections with 23 percent of the votes. Progressive Slovakia, a pro-Ukraine centrist party, finished second with 18 percent.

Putin has said that Russia has successfully tested the Burevestnik, a nuclear-powered and nuclear-capable cruise missile with a potential range of many thousands of miles. The weapon represents a potentially potent new strategic missile in Russia’s arsenal.

During wide-ranging statements to the Valdai Discussion Club, Putin also told the annual gathering of analysts and journalists that Russia had almost completed work on its Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile system, another key element of its new generation of nuclear weapons.

Putin declined to rule out the possibility Moscow could carry out weapons tests involving nuclear explosions for the first time in more than three decades. Observers have warned such tests would be extremely destabilising amid heightened global tensions.

In the latest pledge during a meeting of European leaders in Spain, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has promised another Patriot air defence system to Kyiv.

The announcement came after Scholz met with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the gathering.

The US-made air defence system has been among the most sought-after military equipment for Ukraine, with Kyiv receiving the first such system in April.

With a death toll of at least 51, the strike on Hroza has brought back memories of some of the deadliest single attacks of the conflict. Russia has repeatedly denied targeting civilians, either saying the strikes were on legitimate military targets or blaming them on Ukraine.

Topping the list is likely a strike on the Donetsk Academic Regional Drama Theatre in Mariupol in eastern Ukraine on March 16, 2022. Hundreds of people were sheltering in the theatre at the time, according to Ukrainian officials, with an AP investigation finding as many as 600 people were killed inside and outside of the theatre.

Less than a month later, a strike on a railway station in Kramatorsk, about 237km (147 miles) north, killed 63 people, according to Ukrainian authorities. They said hundreds of civilians were gathered at the station to evacuate.

On July 6, 2022, Ukrainian officials said at least 48 people were killed by a missile strike in Chasiv Yar in the Bakhmut region. The strike caused a five-storey building to collapse.

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin says Moscow’s economy can deal with increased military spending now and in the coming years after dealing with sanctions due to its invasion of Ukraine.

During a meeting of the Valdai Discussion Club, Putin said, “We had a budget surplus of over 660 billion roubles ($6.6bn) in the third quarter”.

“On the whole, we have a stable, sustainable situation. We have overcome all the problems that arose after sanctions were imposed on us and have started the next stage of development,” he said.

A draft plan published last month indicated that defence spending will account for almost one-third of Russia’s total budget expenditure in 2024.

A Spanish government source has told the Reuters news agency that Madrid has offered Ukraine six more HAWK air defence systems to protect its grain export corridor and critical infrastructure.

Earlier on Thursday, Spain announced it has sent six US-made HAWK launchers to Kyiv, and that the Spanish army would train Ukrainian soldiers to use the systems and provide more demining equipment.

Ukrainian Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko says at least 51 people have now died after a wounded person did not survive while receiving aid following the attack in Hroza.

In an earlier update, Klymenko said, in preliminary findings, that Russia used an Iskander missile to hit the cafe and supermarket.

Putin has fired several barbs at the US while speaking at a thinktank meeting in the Russian city of Sochi, pinning the blame on the US – and the wider West, for the war in Ukraine, and accusing Washington of having “colonial thinking”.

During a meeting at the Valdai Discussion Club, Putin said: “We did not start the so-called war in Ukraine. On the contrary, we are trying to finish it.”

Putin argued that western leaders had lost “a sense of reality” because of the US’ attempts to expand its footprint around the globe, and he questioned what right the US had to lecture other countries.

He added that the West has dismissed compromise and said: “All the time, we hear, ‘You must’, ‘You have to’, ‘We’re seriously warning you.’ Who are you anyway? What right do you have to warn anyone? Maybe it’s time you yourself got rid of your arrogance, stopped behaving that way towards the world.”