Dozens of people were killed when Russia dropped at least nine bombs on a school building in southeastern Ukraine where they had taken refuge, President Volodymyr Zelensky said Tuesday, calling it “one of the deadliest attacks of this war.”
At least 33 people have been confirmed dead and 50 others remain missing after the attack on a building in Komyshuvakha, Zaporizhzhia region, which local governor Mykhailo Semikin said served as a shelter and distribution center for humanitarian aid.
Semikin said they were in a newly built, EU-funded reinforced basement designed to withstand most strikes, but the massive force of the bombs caused the concrete structure to collapse and a fire broke out.
The shelter was built last year in an effort to hold classes during wartime, but many civilians have since left the village as the fighting grew closer, and it is currently not used as a school. Instead, local authorities use it as an administrative center and humanitarian center.
The United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine said in a statement on Tuesday that the attack took place just as civilians in the region were gathering to receive humanitarian aid.
“The timing and location of the humanitarian distribution was widely publicized,” said Danielle Bell, head of the mission.
“The Russian armed forces either knew that a humanitarian distribution was underway or they failed to take the most basic steps to find out what was happening in this village they were planning to attack. In either case, this attack appears to have violated the most fundamental principles of international humanitarian law.”
Zelensky said the attack took place just before Russia launched another massive barrage of hundreds of drones and dozens of powerful cruise and ballistic missiles targeting Ukraine’s energy infrastructure – despite repeated calls from US President Donald Trump for an energy ceasefire.
“It is very telling that all this is happening on the day of the elections to the US Congress. The Russians think that America will not notice this signal from them. But such terror must be noticed and stopped,” Zelensky said Tuesday morning.
“We must help Ukraine defend its skies, otherwise Russia will never stop its missile strikes. It is essential to help build peace honestly and reliably, and America can do it,” Zelensky added.
Russia’s latest attacks come amid renewed negotiating efforts by the Trump administration. U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff recently met with Zelensky in Norway before flying to St. Petersburg to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Separately, first lady Melania Trump helped secure a ceasefire in the occupied Ukrainian town of Oleshky, which allowed the evacuation of hundreds of civilians over the weekend. Trump’s office announced Tuesday that the first lady would bring together representatives of Russia and Ukraine at the White House on Thursday, calling it an “extraordinary moment in American history.”
Monday’s strike was among the deadliest since the start of the war, but the past few months have been particularly bloody for Ukrainian civilians.
Russia intensified its air attacks on cities across the country over the summer, striking at all times of the day.
At least 33 people were killed last month when Russia hit two civilian buses in Kramatorsk, Donetsk region. In August, 38 people were killed when a Russian drone strike on a munitions depot near the capital sparked a large fire and multiple explosions that lasted for hours in a residential area near kyiv. And a massive Russian missile attack on kyiv in July killed 33 people across the city in a coordinated barrage.
The assault on Komyshuvakha on Monday followed a familiar scenario in which Russian forces launch the first wave of strikes, wait for emergency services to arrive and then strike again.
At least two first responders, named locally as Denys Konovalenko and Oleksiy Sushchevsky, both 44, were killed after rushing to the scene of the first strike.
Ukrainian police said at least four of their officers were also killed in the attack. They are Mykhailo Buzhenko and Mykola Balanda, both of whom have more than two decades of police service, as well as Mykhailo Romanov and Dmytro Besedin, both community police officers for more than a decade.
“(They) were helping local residents take refuge in an underground school. A treacherous strike that followed trapped all those who tried to escape,” police said in a statement.
Semikin told Ukrainian national television on Tuesday that Russia used KAB-500 and FAB-3000 bombs in the attack.
“To put things in perspective, this is a three-ton aerial bomb containing almost 1.5 tonnes of explosive material; these weapons are primarily designed to destroy heavy concrete fortifications and bunkers,” he explained.
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