Russian bombing kills 26 people at Ukraine aid centre, Kyiv says

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. The Russian strikes left a huge crater where Ukrainian officials say people were sheltering Meanwhile, Semikin described the Russian attack as a “terrible…