Russian bombing of aid centre in Zaporizhzhia region kills at least 26 people
Russian air-dropped bombs struck the village of Komyshuvakha in south-eastern Ukraine, killing at least 26 people. The strike hit a school used as a shelter and humanitarian aid distribution point.
Russian forces on Monday, 3 November, bombed an aid distribution centre and a neighbouring shelter in the village of Komyshuvakha, in Ukraine's south-eastern Zaporizhzhia region. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the country's emergency services said at least 26 people were killed. The attack came in the fifth year of the war and shortly before a new round of talks aimed at ending it.
What happened
In his nightly video address, Zelenskyy said Russian aircraft first dropped several bombs on the village school, which served as a shelter and a place to hand out humanitarian assistance. No classes were being held there because the village is too close to the front line. The first strike, he said, came just as people were arriving. A second strike with more bombs then hit the shelter. He called it a vile terrorist strike.
Among the dead are two members of a rescue crew and four police officers. Five people are being treated in hospital, including two rescue workers. Regina Kharchenko, secretary of the Zaporizhzhia city council, said 27 people were missing. Rescue efforts in the evening were hampered when Russian drones launched further attacks on the same area, according to Mykhailo Semikin, a military official in Zaporizhzhia. Emergency responders searched the rubble of collapsed buildings with torches.
Political context
Zelenskyy said Russia could not have been unaware that the remaining residents gathered weekly to collect humanitarian packages at the site. In his view, the attack showed Moscow wanted to kill people rather than build on last week's ceasefire in the southern city of Oleshky, brokered by US first lady Melania Trump. That truce allowed an evacuation of Russian-occupied Oleshky and was the longest pause in fighting between the two countries in the war. The Kremlin has said no similar missions are planned at the moment.
US special envoy Steve Witkoff said on Monday that US-led talks between Russia and Ukraine will resume on 10 and 11 November in Abu Dhabi. President Donald Trump has pushed for a settlement, but there has been no breakthrough. Kyiv and its European allies worry that Trump has increasingly sided with Moscow.
