A village betrayed Ukrainians grieve in aftermath of strike 'aided by local defectors'

The funeral procession began at midday. Four coffins were taken out of a cottage and loaded into the of two white vans back The vehicles trundled along a dirt track.

- Luke Harding

Mourners - 30 of them, a few clutching carnations - followed. They walked past a grassy football pitch and a pair of chained-up goats, before turning right along an alley of poplars.

Their destination was the village cemetery in Hroza, a tiny community of 300 people, in the rustic north-east of Ukraine. Once the cemetery was small. Over the past few days it has grown, as gravediggers have chopped down trees and dug fresh plots. They were still working as the cortege arrived, led by a priest, under a flawless blue sky.

The funerals were for four members of the same family: Anatoliy Kozyr, his daughter Olha, son Ihor, and grandson Ivan. Ivan was eight. They were killed last week when Russia hit the cafe where they were sitting with an Iskander missile. Fifty-nine people died. Six were wounded. It was one of the worst episodes in Moscow's bloody war. According to Kyiv's SBU intelligence agency, it was also a story of treason and betrayal.

For seven months last year, Russian soldiers occupied Hroza.

They moved into private houses, looted cars and demanded vodka. Most villagers resented their new foreign overlords. A few welcomed them. They included two brothers, Volodymyr and Dmytro Mamon, who grew up in the village and served as police officers. Both, it is alleged, defected to the Russian side.

When Ukraine seized back Kharkiv province last November, the brothers are said to have left with departing troops and escaped to Russia. According to the SBU, they began building a network of informants inside Ukraine. "Under the guise of friendly conversations and correspondence in chat groups, the traitors asked people for information about the deployment of Ukraine's armed forces and group events in the region," the SBU said on Wednesday.