Two Ukrainian brothers helped Russia orchestrate a missile attack on a shop and a café in the village of Hroza, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) said in a statement Wednesday.
The SBU named the brothers as Volodymyr, 30, and Dmytro Mamon, 23, both former police officers.
Russia attacked the village in Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region as people were gathering to commemorate a slain local soldier. It was originally believed that 50 people were killed but that has since been revised up to 55, as local prosecutors identified more bodies. Hroza had a population of 350, meaning one in seven residents was killed.
During a U.N. Security Council meeting Monday, the attack was condemned as a war crime. Russia’s U.N. ambassador Vasilii Nebendzya at first said Russia does not strike civilian targets but later said that an “influential Ukrainian nationalist funeral was held in Hroza with many Nazis attending.”
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The people of Hroza had gathered to commemorate Ukrainian soldier Andriy Kozyr, who was killed in 2022. His son Denys Kozyr, 24, organized a dinner after deciding that his father should be buried in his home village. Local police published the list of identified victims during a press briefing on Tuesday. The youngest was Ivan Kozyr, aged 8.
Among the victims was Natalia Mamon, who shares a surname with the Mamon brothers and who, according to a Ukrainian citizens’ registry, lived at the same address as at least one of the brothers.
Volodymyr and Dmytro Mamon formerly worked for the Russian police during the occupation of the Kharkiv region. They fled to Russia last year as Ukrainian forces were liberating the Kharkiv region, SBU spokesman Artem Dehtiarenko said in a statement.
The brothers “began to form their own network of informants in the territory controlled by Ukraine. They involved their relatives, neighbors, and acquaintances from the de-occupied towns and villages,” Dehtiarenko said. “Under the guise of friendly conversations in the messenger apps, the traitors asked people for information about the deployment of the Defense Forces and mass events in the region.”
“They knew that civilians, many of whom were their friends and acquaintances, would be killed in the attack, including their own informants,” the SBU said.
After Volodymyr Mamon learned about the exact address and time of the funeral dinner, he gave this information to the Russian occupiers.
If arrested and found guilty, the brothers face life in prison for treason.
“Since both criminals are hiding on the territory of the Russian Federation, comprehensive measures are being taken to locate them and punish them,” SBU said.