UN asks Russia to investigate strike that killed 59 civilians in Ukrainian town, compensate the victims

Investigators at the United Nations requested Russia Tuesday to take ownership of the missile strike that killed 59 civilians in a Ukrainian hamlet, to openly investigate the incident, to compensate the victims, and to hold those responsible accountable.

In the twenty months since the Kremlin’s forces began a full-scale invasion, the attack on a cafe in the town of Hroza on October 5 was one of the worst. During the wake of a local soldier killed in combat with Russian forces, entire families lost their lives. Twenty-two men, thirty-six women, and an eight-year-old boy were killed in the explosion. A week was needed to identify every deceased person after many bodies found in fragments were discovered.

The U.N. Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine said in a report published Tuesday it has reasonable grounds to believe that a Russian Iskander missile a short-range precision-guided ballistic weapon probably caused the blast in Hroza.

The extensive damage and weapon debris at the scene led investigators to that conclusion, the report said.

It said that Russia either failed to undertake all feasible measures to verify that the intended target was a military objective rather than civilians or civilian objects, or deliberately targeted civilians or a civilian object.

Either of those explanations amounts to a violation of international humanitarian law, the report said.

The incident serves as a stark reminder of the human cost of the war in Ukraine and underscores the necessity of holding perpetrators accountable, Danielle Bell, head of the U.N. mission in Ukraine, said in a statement.

The Kremlin did not directly address the strike in Hroza at the time, but continued to insist that it aims only at legitimate military targets in Ukraine.

Russia’s U.N. ambassador, however, told the U.N. Security Council, that a high-ranking Ukrainian nationalist and a lot of neo-Nazi accomplices were at the wake.

Neither Moscow nor Kyiv officials made any immediate comment on Tuesday’s report.

Repeated civilian deaths have weakened Russia’s claim that it doesn’t target civilians.

Ukraine’s presidential office said early Tuesday that one civilian was killed and at least 17 others were injured over the previous 24 hours.

The death was a woman visiting a cemetery and among the injured were five people traveling on a bus, it said.

(with inputs from agencies)