On the afternoon of Thursday 5th October, a Russian Iskander missile struck a cafe in the village of Hroza, in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region. Over 60 people were gathered there, holding a wake for a Ukrainian soldier.
As of Friday afternoon, 52 people are known to have died in the attack, including one child. Six others, including another child, were injured. In this one instance, almost half of the village’s population was killed.
This attack has become the deadliest Russian strike in Kharkiv since February 2022 – a three-day mourning period will be observed from the 6th to the 9th.
AOAV has recorded an alarming number of highly deadly strikes on civilian targets since Russia’s full-scale invasion. The 10 deadliest attacks so far have been recorded across multiple regions, including Donetsk, Chernihiv, Luhansk, and Kharkiv, and Dnipropetrovsk, striking targets such as entertainment venues, schools, and hospitals.
| Event date | Event description |
| 16/03/2022 | At least 600 killed in Russian airstrike on theatre sheltering over 1,000 civilians (including children) in Mariupol, Donetsk |
| 17/05/2022 | 87 civilians killed and 12 injured in Russian shelling of Desna, Chernihiv |
| 07/05/2022 | 62 civilians killed in Russian airstrike on a school in Bilohirivka, Luhansk |
| 11/03/2022 | 56 civilians (mostly elderly and disabled) killed in tank fire on a nursing home in Kreminna, Luhansk |
| 29/07/2022 | 53 Ukrainian POWs killed and 75 injured, eight prison guards injured, in shelling on a prison in Olenivka, Donetsk |
| 17/03/2022 | 53 civilians killed in Russian airstrikes and shelling of Chernihiv |
| 05/10/2023 | 52 civilians killed and six injured in Russian Iskander missile strike on people gathered for a wake in a café in Hroza village, Kharkiv |
| 09/07/2022 | 48 civilians killed and nine injured in Russian Uragan MLRS strike on Chasiv Yar, Donetsk |
| 03/03/2022 | 47 civilians killed in Russian airstrikes on a school and residential area in Chernihiv |
| 14/01/2023 | 46 civilians killed and 80 injured in Russian AL Kh-22 missile strike on an apartment block in Dnipro, Dnipropetrovsk |
Overall, as of 06 Oct, @AOAV has recorded 17,095 civilian casualties (5,100 killed, 11,995 injured) of explosive weapons use in Ukraine since the Russian invasion began, based on data gathered using incident-specific English-language media reporting.
AOAV’s casualty figures represent the lowest of estimations in terms of the number of people killed and injured by explosive weapon use. In an effort to quantify the explicit harm caused by specific explosive weapons, AOAV solely records incident-specific casualty figures, as reported in English-language media.
AOAV condemns the use of violence against civilians and the use of explosive weapons in populated areas. All actors should stop using explosive weapons with wide-area effects where there is likely to be a high concentration of civilians.
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