At least 26 people were killed after Russian bombs hit an aid distribution centre, in an attack that Ukraine’s leader has called “utterly horrific”.
Five people were injured and 27 initially reported missing after at least nine 3,000kg aerial bombs hit the village of Komyshuvakha in the southern Zaporizhzhia region, regional head Mykhailo Semikin said.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said that after the first strike on the local school “used for humanitarian needs”, there was a second attack on the place where people were sheltering.
He posteda video showing a huge crater left after Monday’s attack, and rescuer teams searching through the rubble.
The Russian military has not publicly commented.Zelensky initially put the death toll at 18, but Ukraine’s state emergencies service DSNS later said 24 people, including two rescuers and four police officers, were confirmed to have been killed.
In his video address late on Monday, Zelensky said 26 people were now known to have died.
He earlier said that “the Russians could not have been unaware that the local residents who remained in Komyshuvakha received humanitarian aid there every week” on Monday.
“This is yet another proof that Russia does not want any de-escalation.”
He said that after a recent successful joint Russian-Ukrainian operation to evacuate civilians from the Russia-occupied southern city of Oleshky during a temporary ceasefire brokered by US First Lady Melania Trump,”there was a moment when the next steps could show that peace is possible”.
“With such killings, Russia is sending the exact opposite signal – Russia is counting on further killings,” Zelensky said.
Meanwhile, Semikin described the Russian attack as a “terrible tragedy” for the village, confirming that “people are still under the rubble”.
He said rescue teams were working at the scene, but they had been forced to halt their operation a number of times because of Russian drone attacks in the area.
A day of mourning has been declared for Tuesday across the entire Zaporizhzhia region.
Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Teams from Ukraine, Russia and the US are due to resume peace talks in the next few days after negotiations were suspended in February, with Moscow stepping up attacks as Kyiv virtually ran out of Western-supplied interceptors to defend against missiles.
However, no major breakthrough is expected at the talks that are likely to be held in Abu Dhabi, the United Arab Emirates.
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