On Friday, the Kremlin defiantly reacted again to questions about the bloody strike by Russian troops, which killed more than 50 civilians in the Ukrainian village of Groza, Kharkiv region, Reuters reports.

“The Russian military does not attack civilian targets. Strikes are being carried out on military facilities, places of gathering of servicemen and representatives of the military leadership,” Kremlin spokesman Dmytro Peskov said during a daily press conference after answering a question about it.

Thursday’s attack by Russian troops on the village of Groza came just a day after the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights released a report that said Russia had killed an average of six civilians a day in Ukraine over the past six months.

“More than 20 months after the start of the Russian invasion, Ukrainian civilians continue to pay a terrible price, with nearly 10,000 dead and tens of thousands injured,” the report says. “For the past six months, the war has caused an average of six civilian casualties per day,” the document says.

Speaking about Thursday’s attack on Groza, the UN humanitarian coordinator for Ukraine, Denise Brown, said she was “appalled” by the deadly attack that killed more than 50 people at a grocery store and cafe in the village.

“The images coming out of this community of just over 300 people are simply horrific,” she said in a statement.

Ukrainian authorities initially announced that at least 48 people had been killed, with 3 more bodies found by Thursday evening. Another lifeless body was found on Friday.

Ukraine is again counting its dead after the latest Russian strike on Kharkiv

This is the second deadliest attack by Russian forces on Ukrainian civilians since the beginning of the invasion, after the Mariupol Theater bombing last March. Around 600 people are believed to have died in this attack as they tried to hide from the fighting, although the exact number is still unknown.

At the time, Russia also denied that its forces were behind the attack, as it has been behind all other strikes that have resulted in casualties among Ukrainian civilians.

Despite the fact that numerous videos of these Russian attacks on civilian objects appeared on social networks, the Kremlin in some cases denied their veracity, in others it stated that Ukrainian military personnel were in the buildings or that they were hit by Ukrainian anti-missile projectiles. aircraft protection, among other justifications.

On Friday, Ukrainian rescuers and international teams were still in Grozny, trying to identify remains scattered among huge piles of bricks, wood and metal.

NATO Secretary General Antonio Guterres condemned the missile attack, and a spokesman reminded that “attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure are prohibited by international humanitarian law.”

A three-day mourning period was announced in the Kharkiv region, and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, announced the start of an investigation into the attack. He stated that he was “deeply shocked by these crimes.”

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