At Least 31 Killed in Russian Bomb Attack in Zaporizhzhia
Russian forces on Monday bombed a school being used as an aid distribution point in a village in Ukraine’s southeastern Zaporizhzhia region, killing at least 31 people, regional officials said Tuesday.
Mykhailo Semikin, acting head of the regional military administration of Zaporizhzhia, said during a live broadcast on national TV that five people were also injured and almost 50 people were still missing after the attack in the village of Komyshuvakha.
Two members of a rescue crew and four police officers were among those killed, emergency services said, after Russia launched a double-tap strike in the wake of the initial attack. Two more rescue workers were among those being treated for their wounds at the hospital.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, in his nightly video address on Monday, said Russian forces initially dropped aerial bombs on a school in the village, used as a shelter and for distributing humanitarian assistance each Monday.
“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.”
Zelensky claimed the Russian military would have known that residents remaining in Komyshuvakha gathered each week to pick up humanitarian packages at the school.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said the attack had targeted Ukrainian military units in areas around Komyshuvakha and two other settlements in the Zaporizhzhia region.
It claimed in a statement on Tuesday that up to 25 Ukrainian servicemen had been killed, with 15 vehicles and an electronic warfare station also destroyed.
Zaporizhzhia region police said officers and rescue teams in Komyshuvakha were trying to reach residents believed to be trapped under rubble. Photos posted online showed smouldering rubble strewn throughout the area.
The attack took place 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 who wished to leave.
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