Russian drone strikes emergency workers in southern Ukraine

A Russian drone struck emergency workers on rescue missions in southern Ukraine on Sunday, hitting a former school and nearby shelter that had been earlier blasted by multiple Russian guided bombs as residents waited for humanitarian aid, authorities said.

Ukraine said the earlier attack killed at least 55 people in the village of Komyshuvakha, near the front line in the Zaporizhzhia region. No one was injured in Sunday’s strike on the same location, but specialized rescue equipment was damaged, according to Ukraine’s State Emergency Service.

Around 50 people were still listed as missing, Ukraine’s military intelligence agency, HUR, said. Many of the bodies recovered have not been identified and DNA analysis is ongoing.

Village resident Mykola Krasnov, 72, told The Associated Press on Saturday that he was still looking for his wife, but had heard no word from rescuers.

“She went to get humanitarian aid, and a 3-ton bomb was dropped there. Where is she?” he said. “She didn’t come home, and they didn’t find her body there. She isn’t in the morgue, and she isn’t here alive.”

HUR said Saturday that it had identified some of the Russian service members involved in the “double tap” strike with aerial bombs, which destroyed the former school and underground facility used by residents as shelter.

Ukraine has routinely accused Russia of conducting multiple strikes at the same site in quick succession to target emergency crews responding to the initial attack.

On Saturday, police officers and relatives gathered in Zaporizhzhia for a farewell ceremony for six officers killed in Russian strikes on Komyshuvakha, including four who died near the former school.

“They used every skill at their disposal to protect themselves. But when the enemy deliberately gathered civilians in one place and then launched strikes against them, no skills could have helped,” said Andrii Khomenko, a police lieutenant colonel who had worked alongside the victims.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Sunday called the attack on emergency crews in Komyshuvakha “absolute cynicism and brutality.”

The Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, the largest in Europe, has lost its external power supply after a damaged power line was disconnected for safety, the plant’s management reported Sunday. It said the plant was powered by backup diesel generators since an automatic protection system shut down the damaged Ferosplavna line.

Sources

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