Russia Kills Dozens in Deadly Double-Tap Bombing of Ukraine Aid Center

The death toll from a Russian bombing of a humanitarian aid distribution point in southeastern Ukraine has reached 37, with dozens more still missing, according to RTE.ie — making it one of the deadliest single strikes on civilians this year. The attack hit the village of Komyshuvakha in the Zaporizhzhia region on Monday, when a former school building was handing out aid, the BBC reported, and Ukraine says bodycam video shows Russian forces carried out a “double-tap” bombing.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russian forces first dropped aerial bombs on the school as people arrived to collect aid, then struck the shelter with more bombs — ten guided bombs in all, according to The Journal’s account of his post. Rescue crews and police were among the dead: emergency services said two rescue workers and four police officers were killed. Ivan Fedorov, co-head of the Zaporizhzhia Regional Defence Council, wrote on Telegram that 59 people were missing, while The Irish Times reported officials hoping to find more than 45 residents alive under the rubble.

The Numbers Differ — and May Still Rise

News outlets tracking the same strike report different casualty figures, and all of them warn the count could climb. RTE.ie put the confirmed dead at 37 with dozens missing. The Irish Times and The Guardian both reported 33 killed, with The Guardian adding that Zelenskyy said more than 50 could still be trapped. The Journal initially reported 26 dead, and the Guardian’s live blog noted Zelenskyy later put confirmed deaths at 40 after calling the attack “insane.” Classes had long been suspended at the school because of its proximity to the front line, but it served as a shelter and distributed humanitarian aid every Monday, Zelenskyy said.

Search and rescue operations have now been underway for three days at the site of the Russian strike on a school in the settlement of Komyshuvakha in the Zaporizhzhia region. The Russians used nine aerial bombs. They first struck people who had come to receive humanitarian aid,… pic.twitter.com/KaFinOorVy

— https://x.com/ZelenskyyUa/status/2117972980319866932

Three days of mourning were declared in Zaporizhzhia. The Irish Times reported that Russian bunker-busting bombs filled with nearly 1.5 tons of explosives were used in the Monday attack, and that rescuers continued searching the cratered blast site as more bodies were pulled out.

Moscow Says It Hit Soldiers, Not Civilians

Russia’s Defence Ministry offered a sharply different account, saying the attack targeted Ukrainian military units around Komyshuvakha and two other settlements and that up to 25 Ukrainian servicemen were killed. Both Russia and Ukraine deny deliberately targeting civilians — a claim that sits uneasily beside the fact that the dead included police officers and rescue workers at a site distributing food and shelter to people arriving on a routine Monday.

Russia Kills Dozens in Deadly Double-Tap Bombing of Ukraine Aid Center — Photo: RTE.ie

One Day After a Ceasefire Expired

The strike landed a day after a six-day ceasefire expired in the Russian-occupied southern town of Oleshky, in the neighboring Kherson region. That truce, brokered by US First Lady Melania Trump, allowed nearly 800 people to be evacuated, and Zelenskyy awarded her a state honour for her role, RTE.ie reported.

The Wider Barrage: Hundreds of Drones and Missiles Overnight

The Komyshuvakha strike was part of a much larger wave. Zelenskyy said Russia launched 289 attack drones, 17 ballistic missiles and 59 cruise missiles overnight — 365 weapons in total — hitting power plants and substations from the Black Sea port of Odesa to Rivne in the west, The Guardian reported. Ukraine’s energy ministry said Moscow carried out 20 strikes across 10 regions. DTEK, the country’s largest private generating company, said three of its five thermal power plants were knocked offline. In Kharkiv, a combined missile and drone attack wounded at least 62 people and damaged a medical facility, The Irish Times reported. The attacks come as Ukraine braces for winter, with Kyiv’s mayor Vitali Klitschko describing power in the capital as “extremely difficult.”