A Russian airstrike on a building in the village of Komyshuvakha, in southeastern Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region, has left at least 33 people dead, while another 50 are missing.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the bombing ranked among the deadliest attacks since the war began. According to him, Russia dropped at least nine bombs on the building, where civilians had taken shelter and were receiving humanitarian aid.
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Local governor Mykhailo Semikin explained that the building served both as a civilian shelter and an aid distribution point. Its reinforced basement, funded by the European Union, had been designed to withstand multiple attacks.
The explosions nevertheless brought down the concrete structure and caused a fire, trapping the people inside. The building had been constructed last year so classes could continue during the war. As the fighting drew closer, civilians had gradually left the area, and the building no longer operated as a school; it was being used as an administrative and humanitarian center.
The United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine noted that the bombing occurred while civilians had gathered to receive aid. The mission’s head, Danielle Bell, said the place and time of the distribution had been made public.
According to Bell, the Russian military either knew about the humanitarian aid distribution or had failed to take even the most basic steps to understand what was happening in the village it intended to strike. In either case, she said, the attack appeared to violate the most fundamental principles of international humanitarian law.
Reports of the attack in Komyshuvakha also describe a second strike after emergency crews had arrived to rescue survivors. The incident occurred as Russian bombardment of Ukrainian cities and populated areas was intensifying.
Denys Konovalenko and Oleksiy Sushchevsky, two emergency workers who were both 44, were killed after going to the site of the first strike. Ukrainian police also confirmed the deaths of four officers: Mykhailo Buzhenko, Mykola Balanda, Mykhailo Romanov and Dmytro Besedin. According to police, they were helping residents enter an underground school when the second strike hit people trying to escape.
Semikin said KAB-500 and FAB-3000 aerial bombs were used in the bombardment. He explained that the FAB-3000 weighs about three tons and carries approximately 1.5 tons of explosives; it is designed to destroy bunkers and heavily fortified concrete structures.
Zelensky said another wave of massive Russian attacks followed the strike on the humanitarian center. Hundreds of drones and dozens of cruise and ballistic missiles were aimed primarily at Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.
Ukrainian Energy Minister Denys Shmyhal announced that three drones had targeted an electrical substation of strategic importance to the operation of the Khmelnytskyi nuclear power plant. He warned that such actions endangered nuclear safety across Europe and said Ukraine had notified the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
The Ukrainian president also linked the increase in attacks to political events in the United States. He called it significant that they were taking place on the day of the U.S. congressional elections, saying the Russians believed America would not notice their signal. Zelensky called for this terror to be noticed and stopped.
He asked Washington for help defending Ukraine’s airspace. According to Zelensky, without that support Russia would not stop its missile attacks; he added that America could help build an honest and lasting peace.
The latest attacks come as U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration intensifies efforts to restart negotiations between Moscow and Kyiv. U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff recently met Zelensky in Norway before traveling to St. Petersburg for a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Melania Trump’s office, meanwhile, announced that the U.S. president’s wife had helped secure a ceasefire in the occupied Ukrainian city of Oleshky. This enabled the evacuation of hundreds of civilians over the weekend.
According to her office, Russian and Ukrainian representatives were due to meet on Thursday at the White House, a development she described as an extraordinary moment in American history.
