At least 31 killed in Russian strike on Ukraine aid site; dozens missing under rubble

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — The death toll from a Russian attack in southern Ukraine on a site where people had gathered to receive humanitarian aid rose to 31 on Tuesday, with dozens still missing, as a wave of overnight strikes targeted power plants across the country, damaged hospitals and wounded scores of people.

Dozens of rescuers and volunteers continued to search the cratered blast site of a destroyed aid facility and shelter in Komyushuvakha, a village in Ukraine’s southern Zaporizhzhia region, hoping to find some 45 missing residents alive under the rubble. Instead, more bodies were pulled out and carried away in white plastic sheeting.

“The scale of the tragedy is terrifying,” Mykhailo Semikin, acting head of the region’s military administration, wrote in an online post. “This is one of the worst tragedies in terms of the number of civilian victims in our region since the start of the full-scale war.”

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Russia launched 289 attack drones, 17 ballistic missiles and 59 cruise missiles across nine regions, triggering emergency power cuts, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in an online post that noted the barrage coincided with US elections.

“The Russians think America won’t notice this signal of theirs,” he said. “But we need to notice and stop such terror. We need to help Ukraine defend its skies; otherwise, Russia will never stop its missile strikes.”

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Three days of mourning were declared in Zaporizhzhia where Russian bunker-busting bombs, filled with nearly 1.5 tons of explosives, were used in Monday’s attack.

The dead included four police officers and two rescue workers, Semikin said Tuesday. At least five people were hurt.

In the northeast region of Kharkiv, a combined Russian missile and drone attack wounded at least 62 people, local authorities said.

A strike damaged a medical facility in the Nemyshlianskyi district, shattered windows in four apartment buildings and damaged cars. More than 200 patients were transferred to other medical facilities, head of the regional military administration Oleh Syniehubov said.

In the Dnipro area, rescuers pulled a woman alive from the rubble Tuesday morning, after a Russian attack killed one person and wounded 17, local authorities said.

The attack damaged an outpatient clinic and a hospital. Patients were transferred to other hospitals, Oleksandr Hanzha, head of the regional military administration, said.

Russia’s Ministry of Defense said Tuesday that it had shot down 856 Ukrainian drones overnight. Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin said 493 drones were fired toward the Russian capital.

A Ukrainian drone attack wounded two employees at an oil refinery in the Russian city of Yaroslavl, regional Gov. Mikhail Yevrayev said Tuesday. He added that there was damage to the refinery’s infrastructure.

Rolling blackouts have been instituted in the south, west and east of Russian-occupied Crimea following attacks on energy infrastructure, Moscow-installed officials said Tuesday.

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