Ukraine said a Russian missile hit a village cafe in the Kharkiv region last week as people gathered to mourn a fallen Ukrainian soldier. Moscow denies targeting civilians in its full-scale invasion, a position it repeated in response to a question at a Kremlin briefing about the strike on Hroza.

“The Russians killed 59 people with a direct hit with an Iskander (missile) on the village of Hroza,” Klymenko said on the Telegram messaging app.

“All victims are local residents. They were pensioners, medics, farmers, teachers, entrepreneurs. All were civilians. Entire families of several generations died.”

The toll is one of the biggest among civilians in any single Russian strike in nearly 20 months of the war.

Forensic experts worked round the clock for six days to identify the victims. They needed mobile DNA laboratories to identify 19, and one person – a 60-year-old man – was identified only after 20 body parts were collected, Klymenko said.

Ukraine’s SBU security service has accused two villagers who it said had fled to Russia of helping to guide the missile strike.

The Czech Republic’s foreign ministry will summon Russia’s ambassador over the attack on Hroza, CTK news agency reported today.