KYIV — Russian forces on Monday bombed a school being used as an aid distribution point in the village of Komyshuvakha in Ukraine's southeastern Zaporizhzhia region, killing 26 people, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and Ukraine's emergency services said, in an updated toll that revises the 18 deaths reported earlier in the day as rescue crews worked through the rubble.

Source: Reuters

The emergency services said two members of a rescue crew and four police officers were among the dead. Five people were being treated in hospital, including two rescue workers. Regina Kharchenko, secretary of the Zaporizhzhia City Council, said 27 people were missing in the attack, and regional police said officers and rescue teams were trying to reach residents believed to be trapped under the rubble.

Source: Reuters

Zelenskiy, in his nightly video address, said Russian forces initially dropped aerial bombs on the school, which was used as a shelter and for distributing humanitarian assistance every Monday. There were no classes at the school, he said, because the village — southeast of the regional capital, also called Zaporizhzhia — lies too close to the front line in the four-and-a-half-year-old war. 'The Russians struck first just as people were arriving — a few aerial bombs,' he said. 'Then there was a second strike — more air bombs, this time on the shelter. A vile terrorist strike.' Zelenskiy said the Russians could not have been unaware that residents remaining in Komyshuvakha gathered each week to pick up humanitarian packages.

Source: Reuters

Deutsche Welle, reporting with the AP, AFP and Reuters agencies, said the repeated strikes involved more than 10 glide bombs and hit the village about 35 kilometres (about 22 miles) east of the city of Zaporizhzhia and a dozen kilometres from the front line. In a social media post, Zelenskyy described a first aerial bomb strike followed by what he called a double-tap strike with nine more bombs, 'specifically targeting the shelter where people were taking cover'. These are Ukraine's accounts of the attack; the Russian military had not publicly commented on the strike in the reports available on Monday night.

Source: Deutsche Welle

Awaaz Punjab reported the bombing on Monday afternoon, when Ukrainian officials put the toll at 18 dead and 27 missing and described the same sequence — a first strike on the school and a second on the shelter where residents had gathered. Read the earlier report: 18 killed as Russian bombs hit aid centre in Komyshuvakha

As night fell in Komyshuvakha, emergency responders used flashlights to search through the rubble of the collapsed buildings, according to photos and video posted online by local officials, the PA news agency reported. Rescue efforts on Monday evening were hindered as Russian drones launched additional attacks in the area that had been bombed, according to Mykhailo Semikin, a military official in Zaporizhzhia, PA reported. Photographs posted online showed smouldering rubble strewn across the area, Reuters reported.

Source: PA Media

Semikin, head of the Zaporizhzhia Regional Military Administration, declared November 3 a day of mourning across the region for the victims of the attack, according to reports citing the regional administration and Ukraine's Ukrinform news agency.

Source: Europe Says / Ukrinform reports

The attack came a day after the expiry of a six-day local ceasefire arranged to bring aid into Oleshky, to the southwest in Kherson region, and evacuate residents wishing to leave. Zelenskiy said the bombing showed Moscow was intent on killing people instead of building on the past week's humanitarian mission in Oleshky, which was brokered 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.' Preparations are under way for a new round of three-sided talks with Russia and the United States, Reuters reported, and Zelenskiy said last week he hoped a trilateral meeting of peace negotiators would take place in Abu Dhabi between November 6 and 10.

Source: Reuters