A UN report urges Russia to investigate an attack on a Ukrainian village that killed 59 civilians

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — U.N investigators on Tuesday urged Russia to acknowledge responsibility for a missile strike on a Ukrainian village that killed 59 civilians, conduct a transparent investigation into what happened, provide reparations for victims and hold those responsible to account.

The strike on a cafe in the village of Hroza on Oct. 5 was one of the deadliest strikes since the Kremlin’s forces launched a full-scale invasion 20 months ago. Whole families perished while attending a wake for a local soldier who died fighting Russian troops. The blast killed 36 women, 22 men and an 8-year-old boy. Numerous bodies were found torn to pieces, and it took nearly a week to identify all the dead.

The U.N. Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine said in a report published Tuesday it “has reasonable grounds to believe” that a Russian Iskander missile — a short-range precision-guided ballistic weapon — probably caused the blast in Hroza.

The extensive damage and weapon debris at the scene led investigators to that conclusion, the report said.