Updated November 2, 2026, evening ET — The confirmed death toll from the Komyshuvakha strikes has risen to 26, according to President Zelenskyy’s nightly address and Ukraine’s State Emergency Service. The toll remains provisional, with people still reported missing.
KYIV, Ukraine — Russian guided bombs struck a school used to hand out humanitarian aid and a nearby shelter in the village of Komyshuvakha in southeastern Ukraine on Monday, killing 26 people, Ukraine’s State Emergency Service said.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the first bombs hit the school, where residents who have stayed in the front-line village receive aid every week. A second wave of bombs followed, aimed at the shelter.
“After the first air strike, there was a repeat strike with nine more bombs, directly on the shelter where people were gathered,” Zelenskyy wrote on Telegram. “The Russians could not have been unaware that every week residents who have remained in Komyshuvakha were receiving assistance right there.”
Zelenskyy said 10 guided bombs were dropped in all. Regional officials said the bombs included 3,000-kilogram guided aerial bombs.
The emergency service said the dead included two of its own rescue workers, whom it named as Denis Konovalenko and Oleksiy Sushchevsky, and four police officers. Five people were injured, including two more rescue workers.
The toll has moved as the day went on and is still provisional. Zelenskyy first reported 18 people killed. The confirmed count later rose to 24 as emergency crews reached the site, and in his nightly video address Zelenskyy put the toll at 26. Officials said it could rise again.
The number of missing is also unsettled. Mykhailo Semikin, the head of the Zaporizhzhia regional military administration, and Regina Kharchenko, secretary of the Zaporizhzhia City Council, put the missing at 27. Other local officials said about 20 people were unaccounted for.
Zaporizhzhia regional police said officers and rescue teams were still trying to reach residents believed to be trapped under rubble. Semikin said Russian drones carried out further attacks around the bombed area on Monday evening, slowing the rescue work.
Komyshuvakha lies about 25 kilometres (15 miles) east of the city of Zaporizhzhia, close to the front line. Ukrainian officials said the school no longer held classes and had become the village’s aid distribution point and shelter. Photos and video posted by Ukrainian officials showed the buildings reduced to smouldering rubble.
Zelenskyy called the attack “utterly horrific” and said it was further proof Russia does not want de-escalation. He called for a strong international response.
Russia’s military had not commented on the Komyshuvakha strike. Russia’s Defence Ministry said on Monday that its air defences had shot down 212 Ukrainian drones overnight, but it did not mention the village. Moscow has repeatedly denied deliberately targeting civilians in Ukraine.
The strike came as a six-day local ceasefire expired in the neighbouring Kherson region. The truce, brokered by U.S. first lady Melania Trump, had allowed aid deliveries and evacuations in the Russian-occupied city of Oleshky, to the southwest. Zelenskyy said that after that humanitarian operation, there had been a moment when progress toward peace seemed possible — and that the bombing sent the opposite signal: “Russia is counting on more killings.”
