Aid Site Strike in Ukraine Leaves 29 Dead, 48 Missing

The number of people killed in a Russian strike on a humanitarian aid site in southern Ukraine rose to 29 on Tuesday. Forty-eight residents remain missing as rescuers work through the rubble in Komyushuvakha, a village in the Zaporizhzhia region.

The facility had served as a shelter for locals when the attack struck on Monday. Mykhailo Semikin, the acting head of the regional military administration, called the event one of the worst tragedies in the area since the start of the full-scale war. He noted that the death toll includes four police officers and two rescue workers.

Russian forces used bunker-busting bombs filled with nearly 1.5 tons of explosives in the strike. Three days of mourning have been declared in the region. At least five other people were injured in the attack on the aid site.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia launched 289 attack drones, 17 ballistic missiles, and 59 cruise missiles across nine regions overnight. He stated that the barrage coincided with U.S. elections and argued that Russia believed America would not notice the signal. Zelenskyy urged for continued defense of Ukrainian skies.

In the Kharkiv region, a combined missile and drone attack wounded at least 62 people. The strike damaged a medical facility in the Nemyshlianskyi district, shattered windows in four apartment buildings, and damaged cars. Regional head Oleh Syniehubov said more than 200 patients were transferred to other medical facilities.

In the Dnipro area, rescuers pulled one woman alive from the rubble on Tuesday morning after a strike that killed one person and wounded 17. The attack damaged an outpatient clinic and a hospital, according to regional head Oleksandr Hanzha.

Russia's Ministry of Defense said it shot down 856 Ukrainian drones overnight. Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin reported that 493 drones were fired toward the Russian capital. A Ukrainian drone attack also wounded two employees at an oil refinery in Yaroslavl, while rolling blackouts were instituted in parts of Russian-occupied Crimea following strikes on energy infrastructure.