KOMYSHUVAKHA, Ukraine.- At least 24 people were killed on Monday, November 2, 2026, when Russian forces bombed a school in Komyshuvakha, in the Zaporizhzhia region of southeastern Ukraine, where residents gathered every Monday to receive humanitarian aid, Ukraine's State Emergency Service said, in one of the deadliest strikes on civilians in recent weeks. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russian forces first dropped aerial bombs on the school and then, in a second strike, dropped nine more bombs directly on the shelter where people had taken cover, in what he called an utterly horrific attack. Later reports put the death toll at 26, with 27 people missing and at least five injured, as rescuers searched the rubble of a building reduced to smouldering debris.
Among the dead were two rescue workers, Denys Konovalenko and Oleksii Sushchevskyi, both 44, and four police officers, according to the State Emergency Service, which said the strikes destroyed a gymnasium and an outbuilding, damaged the school building and destroyed a fire and rescue vehicle. "Every Monday humanitarian aid was distributed to people there. The Russians carried out the first strike just as people arrived," Zelenskyy said, adding that Russian forces could not have been unaware that the residents who remained in Komyshuvakha collected aid at that school every week. Komyshuvakha lies about 20 kilometres from the front line, southeast of the city of Zaporizhzhia, in a region repeatedly hit by heavy guided aerial bombs.
The attack came hours after a rare local ceasefire expired
The strike came a day after the expiry of a six-day local ceasefire in the neighbouring Kherson region, brokered with the help of United States First Lady Melania Trump, which allowed aid into the besieged city of Oleshky and the evacuation of hundreds of civilians. Ukraine said the truce, the longest local truce of the war since Russia's 2022 invasion, ended on the night of November 1 without violations in Oleshky, and that Russia then resumed strikes in the south. Kyiv said the Komyshuvakha attack dashed fragile hopes of progress toward peace, while Moscow has not, in the reports reviewed, accepted the Ukrainian account of a deliberate strike on an aid site. The death toll was still rising on Monday evening, with many people reported trapped under the rubble and more than 20 still missing.
Read more on The Wire Post: Melania Trump-Brokered Ceasefire Takes Effect in Russian-Occupied Oleshky as Missiles Hit Kyiv and "We Are Coming From Hell": Oleshky Evacuees Reach Ukraine as Rare Six-Day Ceasefire Nears Its End.
Fuentes: Reuters vía Channel News Asia, Deccan Herald, Qatar Tribune y Report, 2 y 3 de noviembre de 2026.