Russian bombs kill 26 at Ukrainian aid centre, Kyiv says

Komyshuvakha — At least 26 people were killed on Monday when Russian aerial bombs struck a humanitarian aid distribution centre in Komyshuvakha, a village in Ukraine's southern Zaporizhzhia region, Ukrainian authorities said. Five people were injured and 27 were initially reported missing after what President Volodymyr Zelensky called an "utterly horrific" attack.

At least nine 3,000kg aerial bombs hit the village, regional head Mykhailo Semikin said, according to the BBC. Zelensky said the first strike hit the local school, "used for humanitarian needs", and that a second attack followed on the place where people were sheltering. The toll climbed through the day: Zelensky initially reported 18 dead, the state emergencies service DSNS then confirmed 24 — including two rescuers and four police officers — before the president said in his evening address that 26 were known to have died. Semikin confirmed that "people are still under the rubble", and said rescue teams had repeatedly been forced to halt work because of Russian drone attacks in the area.

Zelensky said "the Russians could not have been unaware that the local residents who remained in Komyshuvakha received humanitarian aid there every week". "This is yet another proof that Russia does not want any de-escalation," he added. Al Jazeera reported that footage posted by Ukrainian emergency services showed the building reduced to smouldering rubble.

The strike lands at an awkward moment for diplomacy. Zelensky pointed to the recent joint Russian-Ukrainian operation to evacuate civilians from the occupied city of Oleshky, carried out during a temporary ceasefire brokered by US First Lady Melania Trump, and said "there was a moment when the next steps could show that peace is possible". "With such killings, Russia is sending the exact opposite signal," he said. That ceasefire has since collapsed, with fighting resuming in the neighbouring Kherson region.

Russia's military has not publicly commented on the strike, the BBC said. Moscow continues to deny taking aim at Ukrainian civilian targets; its Defence Ministry said it shot down 212 Ukrainian drones overnight, and the governor of Russia's Samara region, Vyacheslav Fedorishchev, reported that local air defences had repelled an aerial attack, without giving details. Elsewhere in Ukraine, drone strikes injured 12 people in the Kharkiv region and five in Odesa, where a warehouse was hit, South China Morning Post and Al Jazeera reported.

A day of mourning has been declared for Tuesday across the whole of Zaporizhzhia region. The immediate thing to watch is the rescue operation itself: with 27 people unaccounted for and work repeatedly interrupted, officials have warned the confirmed death toll will rise.