Russian attack on Ukrainian village shows 'danger to the world at large,' says archbishop

By Gina Christian, Lilia Kovalyk-Vasiuta

(OSV News) -- A Russian attack that killed one fifth of a Ukrainian village's residents shows a danger Russia "presents not only to Ukrainians, but to the world at large," a Ukrainian Catholic archbishop told OSV News.

On Oct. 5, Russian forces launched a missile strike on a cafe in the village of Hroza, located in the Kharkiv region of Ukraine. The attack took place as residents gathered for a wake, following the reburial of a Ukrainian soldier in his hometown. Among the 51 slain were the soldier's widow and his son, along with a child.

Media initially reported the missile had struck a grocery store. The location was subsequently updated by local authorities. At one point, the death toll was adjusted to 52, but later revised down to 51, with six injured and four missing, two of them children. Hroza was a village of roughly 300 people.

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy denounced the attack as "absolute evil," and said it could not even be called "beastly … because it would be an insult to beasts."

The targeting of Ukrainian civilians was intentional, he said.

"Russian military personnel couldn't have been unaware of where they were striking. It was not a blind attack," said Zelenskyy in his statement. "People had gathered there for a memorial meal, a Christian memorial meal. Who could launch a missile at them?"

The strike drew international condemnation, with statements issued by the White House, the United Nations and the International Rescue Committee among others.

"There are no words" for an attack on "civilians when they are most vulnerable" and "their grief is covered by genocide," Metropolitan Archbishop Borys Gudziak of the Ukrainian Catholic Archeparchy of Philadelphia told OSV News.

The archbishop, who spoke with OSV News shortly after celebrating a Divine Liturgy for those killed in the attack, said the attack revealed Russia's motivations for its war on Ukraine, which continues attacks launched in 2014 and has claimed tens of thousands of lives.

"What possesses a people (Russia) to build its future through such carnage?" asked Archbishop Gudziak. "What possesses the (Russian) Orthodox Church to support such crimes against humanity?"

Russian religious leaders, particularly Patriarch Kirill and clergy of the Russian Orthodox Church, have publicly supported their nation's war on Ukraine, blessing soldiers and military equipment and calling the campaign a "holy war" to defend Russia against the West.

The head of the Kharkiv Exarchate (territorial province governed by an exarch) of the Ukrainian Catholic Church, Bishop Vasyl Tuchapets, told OSV News from Ukraine that "since the beginning of the full-scale invasion of the Russian Federation into Ukraine, Kharkiv and the Kharkiv region are one of the most dangerous (areas)."

Noting that while Ukrainian people got used to attacks, he said that no one can "accept and become accustomed to the deaths of innocent civilians."

"This tragedy is one of the worst in the entire war in Kharkiv region," he said.

According to Oleh Syniehubov, the head of the Kharkiv Regional Military Administration, in the Kharkiv region Oct. 6-8 have been declared days of mourning for the victims.

The war has been declared a genocide in two joint reports issued May 2022 and July 2023 by the New Lines Institute and the Raoul Wallenberg Center for Human Rights.

As of Oct. 6, Russia has killed more than 9,701 Ukrainian civilians and injured some 17,748, while committing close to 109,183 documented war crimes since February 2022.

Currently, there are an estimated 5.1 million individuals internally displaced within Ukraine, according to the International Organization for Migration, part of the United Nations network. More than 6.2 million Ukrainians have sought safety abroad since the start of the full-scale invasion. At least 2.5 million Ukrainians have been forcibly taken to the Russian Federation, and close to 19,600 children are being held in Russian "reeducation" camps, with the actual number for the latter feared to be much higher.

From 2014 to 2021, some 14,400 Ukrainians were killed and 39,000 injured in Russian attacks, according to the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.

In addition, Russia's war has resulted in profound environmental damage to Ukraine due to air, soil and water contamination from munitions and from the destruction of the Kakhovka Dam. More than 6 million domestic animals have perished since February 2022.

"May leaders of the world, the leaders in our country, have the courage to look the people of Hroza in the eye and have the wisdom to stand on the right side of history," said Archbishop Gudziak.

"God teaches us to forgive, but we also know that every evil must be punished," Bishop Tuchapets added.
"Intentional attacks against civilians are war crimes. Russia’s leadership, all commanders, perpetrators and accomplices of these atrocities will be held to account. There will be no impunity for war crimes," he told OSV News.

Bishop Tuchapets spoke to OSV News amid a new shelling on Oct. 6 as Russians fired FAB-500 high-explosive bomb in the village of Petropavlivka, in the Kupiansk district near Kharkiv, at 4 a.m. local time. The attack damaged residential buildings, outbuildings, garages and power poles, according to the statement of regional police.

A few hours later, the village of Shevchenkove, in the Kupiansk district, was shelled with a Tornado-S MLRS. It hit a vegetable garden and greenhouses on the territory of a private house. A 56-year-old man was injured.

"We ask God in our prayers to stop the hand of the Russian aggressor and we pray for the innocent killed people. The war continues, people are suffering, and therefore we must continue to be united, together, to help those in need, in order to bring the day of liberation of our land, victory and peace closer as soon as possible," he said.