In The Midst Of Atrocity Crimes In Ukraine, Will Russia Be Allowed To Rejoin U.N. Human Rights Council?

On October 5, 2023, Russia attacked the village of Hroza near Kupiansk in the Kharkiv region, killing at least 51 people, including a child, and making it one of the deadliest attacks in Putin’s war on Ukraine. The strike wiped out around one-fifth of the entire village. The attack comes only a day after the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine published its report into the very cost of Putin’s war. According to the U.N. nearly 10,000 have been killed and tens of thousands injured since the war began in February 2022. The deadly attack and the new report come only a week before the United Nations is to vote on Russia rejoining the United Nations’ top human rights body, the U.N. Human Rights Council, on October 10, 2023.

According to reports, the missile struck a cafe where Hroza’s residents were attending a memorial service for another villager, a fallen soldier. The village was home to around 330 people. The attack is yet another example of Russian missile attacks against residential areas.