A 10-year-old boy died in Spider-Man pajamas after a missile attack on Kharkov

Rescuers carry a bag with the body of 10-year-old Timofey from the rubble of his apartment building. Photo: Vitaly Gnidy/Reuters Oleg Bychko watches as rescuers place his son in a body bag designed for an adult twice his size . Photo: Vitaly Gnidy/Reuters

After the impact, which left a gaping crater in the ground near the apartment building, Timofey's father managed to pull his youngest son and wife out from under the rubble. However, he was unable to contact his eldest son. Local media photographed him standing in torn, bloody sweatpants and a sweatshirt with grief on his face as his son's body was finally brought out. Mr. Bychko was too upset to comment on the situation.

Neighbor Yevgeny Shevchenko, who lives in a nearby nine-story building, described how the explosion sent a wave of tremors through the buildings. “There was a blast wave, a powerful explosion. The windows and doors in the apartment were broken,” he said.

Another rocket tore a 15-foot-deep hole in a street in central Kharkov, damaging a hotel and several nearby buildings. The explosion damaged windows up to six stories high and scattered bricks, broken glass and debris over a wide area. Cars were set on fire, telephone poles were knocked down and water pipes were broken.

Andrey Golub, a Ukrainian businessman from Kiev staying at the hotel, said: “I was sleeping in my room and then at about 6am there was a huge explosion that knocked out all the windows in my room. I was fine, but it was quite scary — the street outside was completely destroyed.»

About 28 more people were injured in the two attacks. Local officials said they believed both missiles were Iskanders, which travel at hypersonic speeds and can deliver nearly a ton of explosives. It is not clear why this or that location was chosen. But Kharkov, which lies in a region close to the Russian border, has suffered from almost constant Russian shelling since the Kremlin's invasion last year. “It’s a common thing,” the hotel owner shrugged.

Injured residents look at the damage caused by a Russian missile strike at their apartment building in Kharkov Photo: Vitaliy Gnidy/Reuters

Carnage in the second in Ukraine's largest city occurred as gravediggers in the village of Groza began clearing additional space at the local cemetery to accommodate some of the 51 killed in Thursday's wake strike.

The man whose funeral they attended turned out to be Andrei Kozyr, 49, a volunteer soldier who died on the third day of the war last year. His body was initially buried in the center of the city of Dnepr, as Groza was under Russian occupation until last fall. However, his wife and son, also a soldier, wanted him to be buried in his native village. They were among 51 people killed in the missile strike.

“Everyone who attended the wake died,” said Valentina Kozienko, 73, who lived opposite the destroyed cafe where the wake took place around lunchtime on Thursday. “The strike happened immediately after people entered there. How did the Russians know that there were so many people there?

Local residents speculate that a pro-Russian collaborator in the village passed on funeral details to the Kremlin. However, comments on Russian social media on Friday evening suggested that Kozir may have been confused with a commander of the same name who previously fought with the Ukrainian Aidar battalion. In 2014, Amnesty International accused Aidar of war crimes and links to the far right. The following year it was disbanded.

President Vladimir Zelensky called the strikes in Kharkov and Groza terrorism and expressed condolences to Bychko over the death of his son.

The Kremlin, meanwhile, denies a deliberate attack on civilians. Answering a question about the attack in Groza, press secretary Dmitry Peskov said: “Strikes are being carried out on military targets, on places where military personnel are concentrated.”