42 bodies recovered from rubble after Russian strike on Komyshuvakha as search continues, police say
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The bodies of 42 Ukrainians have been recovered from the rubble in the village of Komyshuvakha in Zaporizhzhia Oblast, with 33 more people still missing as of Nov. 5, three days after Russian forces attacked the settlement with heavy aerial bombs, the National Police said.
With the final death toll yet to be officially established, the strike on the front-line village is already one of the deadliest single Russian attacks since the start of the full-scale invasion four and a half years ago.
Russian forces struck Komyshuvakha several times with aerial bombs on the morning of Nov. 2, initially hitting a school building where local residents had gathered to receive humanitarian aid. One of the bombs was a 3-ton FAB-3000, which contains more than 1,000 kilograms of explosives and has a blast radius of up to 250 meters.
Following the first strike, Russian forces dropped another nine aerial bombs on a shelter where people were taking refuge, President Volodymyr Zelensky said.
The president called it an "exceptionally horrific strike," saying it was proof Russia did not want to de-escalate the situation.
"Russian forces could not have been unaware that local residents who remained in Komyshuvakha received humanitarian aid there every week," Zelensky said.
According to Ukraine's State Emergency Service, rescue workers and police officers had arrived at the scene when the threat of another Russian strike emerged. The rescuers took shelter, but Russian forces carried out further strikes on the same site.
Two rescue workers, Denys Konovalenko and Oleksii Sushchevskyi, both 44, were among those killed, the State Emergency Service said.
The attack destroyed a gymnasium, an outbuilding and a fire truck, and damaged the school building.
