Aid Strike Kills 29

Twenty-nine people died in a Russian attack on an aid distribution site in southern Ukraine.

The strike hit a facility and shelter in the village of Komyushuvakha, located in the Zaporizhzhia region. Authorities confirmed the death toll rose to 29 on Tuesday, with 48 people still listed as missing. Rescuers and volunteers spent the day searching the cratered blast site. They worked through the rubble hoping to find survivors. Instead, they pulled out more bodies wrapped in white plastic sheeting.

Mykhailo Semikin, acting head of the region's military administration, described the event as one of the worst tragedies for civilian victims in the area since the full-scale war began. He stated that the scale of the tragedy is terrifying. Three days of mourning were declared in Zaporizhzhia following the use of Russian bunker-busting bombs. These weapons contained nearly 1.5 tons of explosives. The dead included four police officers and two rescue workers. At least five other people were injured.

The attack occurred during a wave of overnight strikes that targeted power plants across the country. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia launched 289 attack drones, 17 ballistic missiles, and 59 cruise missiles across nine regions. The barrage caused emergency power cuts. Zelenskyy noted that the strikes coincided with U.S. elections. He said the Russians think America will not notice the signal. He called for help to defend Ukraine's skies to stop the terror.

Other regions reported significant damage from the combined missile and drone attacks. In the Kharkiv region, at least 62 people were wounded. A strike damaged a medical facility in the Nemyshlianskyi district. Windows shattered in four apartment buildings, and cars were damaged. Head of the regional military administration Oleh Syniehubov said more than 200 patients were transferred to other facilities. In the Dnipro area, rescuers pulled a woman alive from the rubble on Tuesday morning. One person died and 17 were wounded in that attack, which damaged an outpatient clinic and a hospital.

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. Regional Governor Mikhail Yevrayev said the refinery's infrastructure sustained damage. Rolling blackouts were instituted in the south, west, and east of Russian-occupied Crimea following attacks on energy infrastructure.