Updated Oct 6, 2023 - World

Russian strike kills 52 Ukrainians in one of war's deadliest attacks

The death toll of a Russian strike on a cafe in Ukraine's Kharkiv region rose to 52 on Friday, Ukrainian officials confirmed.

The big picture: The attack is one of the deadliest on Ukrainian civilians since Russia's unprovoked invasion began.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in Telegram post Thursday that the attack was a "completely deliberate act of terrorism."
"Russia needs this and similar terrorist attacks for only one thing: to make its genocidal aggression the new norm for the whole world," said Zelensky, who is in Spain meeting with European leaders.

Details: The strike, which took place shortly after 1 pm local time on Thursday, occurred in the village of Hroza.

A 6-year-old boy was among the dead, Kharkiv Gov. Oleh Synehubov said in Telegram post earlier Thursday.
The death toll made the strike the "bloodiest crime" committed by Russia in Kharkiv region since the start of the invasion, he added in a subsequent post.
The office of Ukraine's Prosecutor General added in a Telegram post that seven other people were initially hurt in the attack; one person later died in the hospital from their injuries.
The death toll gradually ticked up, reaching 52 casualties and six wounded, Synehubov confirmed in a Telegram post Friday.

Russia denied that it had targeted Ukrainian civilians.

"We continue to repeat: the Russian military does not strike civilian targets," Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters Friday when asked about the attack on Hroza, Russian state news agency TASS reported.
Russia only carries out strikes on "places where military personnel gather," Peskov said.

Zoom out: The strike comes at a fraught time for U.S. aid to Ukraine.

The Biden administration has sought to reassure worried allies that military aid will continue, even as more Republicans have voiced opposition.
Additional aid for Ukraine's defense was notably excluded from a government stopgap funding measure last weekend.
"It does worry me," President Biden told reporters Wednesday about how Republicans' internal divisions could impact aid Ukraine aid.
European officials are worried they may not be able to fully bridge the gap in military and economic support if U.S. aid diminishes, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Go deeper: Speaker chaos deepens Ukraine funding threat