U.N. probes deadly Russian strike on village with Ukraine "100% worried" about wavering U.S. support
Families in the small northeast Ukrainian village of Hroza were trying to process horror and loss Friday morning after a Russian rocket strike hit a grocery store and café, killing at least 51 of the town's remaining 300 or so inhabitants. Thousands of people had already fled the Kharkiv region, where Hroza is located, close to the Russian border, since Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his full-scale assault on Ukraine in February 2022.
Dozens of people, including children, had gathered Thursday afternoon for a wake to remember a fallen soldier's life, when their own lives were suddenly cut short by the rocket strike.
"We only found bits and pieces of some bodies," said Kharkiv's chief police investigator Serhii Bolvinov.
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy condemned the "demonstrably brutal Russian crime" and vowed that his own forces would "respond to the terrorists" powerful."
There was another missile attack Friday in the city of Kharkiv, only about 50 miles northwest of Hroza, which killed a 10-year-old boy and his grandmother, Ukraine's Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said on the Telegram messaging app. Associated Press journalists said they saw emergency crews pulling the boy's body, wearing Spider-Man pajamas, from a building destroyed in the early morning strike.
"Indications are that it was a Russian missile."
Elizabeth Throssell, spokeswoman for the United Nations human rights office, told journalists Friday in Geneva that while it was "very difficult to establish with absolute certainty what happened" in Hroza, "given the location, given the fact that the café was struck, the indications are that it was a Russian missile."
The office of Volker Turk, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), deployed a field team on Friday "to speak to survivors and gather more information" on the attack, with a spokesperson for his office saying he was "profoundly shocked and condemns these killings."
The missile strike was the bloodiest single attack in 16 months and it came as a poll showed U.S. public support for sending more aid to Ukraine falling — down 5% since the summer to 41%.
With additional U.S. funding for Ukraine currently frozen amid the ongoing federal budget battle in Washington, Ukrainian congresswoman Oleksandra Ustinova told CBS News she was "100% worried" about the future of American support for her country, as it battles to fend off Russia's 20-month-long, full-scale invasion.
"The most needed types of weapons right now for us is the air defense missiles," she told CBS News. "If we don't have any more of those coming, we would have hundreds and thousands of civilians dead this winter."
Any additional defenses that could have bolstered the chances of survival in the village of Hroza will come too late.
Russia considers bailing on nuclear test ban treaty
The speaker of Russia's lower house of parliament, meanwhile, has echoed Putin's own remarks, saying the country's lawmakers would "definitely discuss the issue of revoking ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty" during their next session.
"This is in line with the national interests of our state," said State Duma speaker Vyacheslav Volodin, calling it "a mirror response to the United States, which has not yet ratified the treaty."
The U.S. did sign onto the treaty banning nuclear weapons tests in 1996, but Congress has never ratified it.
Putin said Thursday that, "theoretically, it is possible to revoke ratification" of the treaty, which Russia's government ratified in 2000.