Russian bombs kill at least 26 at Ukrainian aid centre
Double strike on Zaporizhzhia shelter breaks war's longest ceasefire, rescue crews targeted by drones as Abu Dhabi talks resume next week
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Rescue crews pull a person from the bomb site in the village of Komyshuvakha. Photograph: Reuters
theguardian.com
Ukrainian soldiers stand among the rubble after a Russian airstrike on the humanitarian aid hub. Photograph: Reuters
theguardian.com
Russian bombs killed at least 26 people at an aid distribution centre and neighbouring shelter in the village of Komyshuvakha in Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia region on Monday, according to Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Ukraine's emergency services. Two rescue crew members and four police officers were among the dead. A city council official said 27 people remained missing.
Zelenskyy said the Russians struck first as residents arrived to collect weekly humanitarian packages, dropping aerial bombs on a school used as a shelter and aid hub — no classes were held there because the village sits too close to the frontline. A second strike then hit the shelter itself. Rescue efforts that evening were hindered as Russian drones launched follow-up attacks on the same area, a local military official said.
The attack breaks what had been the longest pause in fighting of the entire war — the ceasefire that last week allowed an evacuation of the Russian-occupied town of Oleshky, brokered, in Zelenskyy's telling, by US first lady Melania Trump. 'If Russia genuinely wanted de-escalation, there was an opportunity following the situation in Oleshky to continue taking humanitarian steps. We proposed this. But Russia continues to kill people,' Zelenskyy said. The Kremlin said no similar missions were planned 'at the moment.'
Kyiv had already accused Moscow of using the pause to move reinforcements toward Kherson. A ceasefire with no inspections and no penalty for violation is worth whatever the violator chooses to make of it — and Moscow used this one to reposition troops before bombing the people the ceasefire had been meant to protect. Next week's US-led talks in Abu Dhabi, which special envoy Steve Witkoff confirmed for 10 and 11 November, will negotiate agreements of exactly this kind. Kyiv and its European allies worry Trump has increasingly sided with Moscow; the venue, the agenda and the concessions under discussion are being set in Washington and the Gulf.
The war is now in its fifth year. Emergency responders searched the rubble of Komyshuvakha by torchlight.