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A Russian bomb attack on a humanitarian centre in southeastern Ukraine killed 24 people and injured five others on Monday, Ukraine’s State Emergency Service said, in a strike that President Volodymyr Zelenskyy described as deliberate targeting of civilians who gathered weekly for aid.
The attack destroyed a school serving as a humanitarian distribution point in Komyshuvakha, a village in the Zaporizhia region. Zaporizhia’s regional governor, Mykhailo Semikin, reported on Telegram that those killed included a police officer and two State Emergency Service rescuers. He added that 27 people remain missing.
Zelenskyy said the attack came in two waves. “After the first air strike, there was a repeat strike with nine more bombs, directly on the shelter where people were gathered,” he wrote on Telegram. He said Russian forces could not have been unaware of the site’s purpose. “Every week residents who have remained in Komyshuvakha were receiving assistance aid right there,” he wrote. “This is yet further proof that Russia does not want any kind of de-escalation, any real justice.”
Footage released by Ukrainian emergency services showed the building reduced to smouldering rubble, with rescuers working through the debris.
Zelenskyy linked the strike to what he described as a broader pattern of Russian conduct following a recent humanitarian operation in Oleshky. “After the humanitarian operation in Oleshky, there was a moment when the next steps could have shown that progress toward peace was possible,” he wrote. “With these killings, Russia is sending an entirely opposite signal: Russia is counting on more killings.”
Separately, Ukrainian emergency services reported that overnight drone strikes injured 12 people in the eastern Kharkiv region, damaging a refrigeration facility, greenhouses and residential buildings. Five more people were injured in the Black Sea port city of Odesa, where a warehouse was struck and homes were damaged.
Russia’s Ministry of Defence said its forces shot down 212 Ukrainian drones overnight. The governor of Russia’s Samara region, Vyacheslav Fedorishchev, said local air defences had repelled an aerial attack without providing further details.