Death toll rises in Ukraine after Russia attacks aid centre, hospice and hospital
Russian strikes over 24 hours killed at least 38 civilians and injured scores of others across Ukraine, including at an aid centre, a hospice and a hospital. The deadliest blow came on Monday night in Komyshuvakha, a village south-east of Zaporizhzhia city, where nine 3,000kg glide bombs hit a school used as a humanitarian distribution point as residents gathered for aid. At least 33 people were killed; President Volodymyr Zelensky said more than 50 could still be trapped under rubble and called the attack “one of the largest mass killings committed by Russia during this war.” Local media said people fled underground before the roof collapsed. Regional head Mykhailo Semikin said the scale of the tragedy was hard to comprehend. Russia’s defence ministry claimed it had targeted Ukrainian military units and killed 25 servicemen; BBC correspondent Ilya Abishev reported no credible evidence the site was in military use and no major military or industrial facilities in the settlement, though the village sits on Ukraine’s defensive and transport approaches to the regional capital. The UN’s human rights monitoring mission noted that aid distribution at the school had been widely publicised and said the strike appeared to violate core principles of international humanitarian law. Zelensky said Ukraine had sought to extend last week’s Kherson ceasefire that allowed evacuations from occupied Oleshky, and that Moscow’s strike was the response.
A Russian missile destroyed a hospice in Dnipro, after which nearly 50 terminally ill patients — the oldest 90 — were moved; Mayor Boris Filatov posted images of elderly patients amid shattered windows and rubble. A separate Dnipro strike killed two and wounded 18. Five more people died in bomb and drone attacks in Donetsk. In Kharkiv, a hospital strike wounded 73 people, mostly elderly patients. Energy hits in nine regions disrupted water and heating; Kyivvodokanal said Kyiv’s water supply was cut entirely, the metro was suspended on Tuesday, and Mayor Vitali Klitschko described the capital’s power situation as very difficult.
The Kremlin said it would join US-brokered three-way talks with Ukraine in Abu Dhabi on 10–11 November, the first such meeting since February, as Washington and Moscow have talked more directly and US President Donald Trump announced a deal to import Russian diesel. Speaking in Berlin, Zelensky said Russia had given no sign it would negotiate a ceasefire in earnest; earlier talks late last year failed, and Russian officials have publicly stuck to maximalist terms.
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