Zelensky Says the Komyshuvakha Aid Centre Toll Has Reached 40 as Russia Hits Power in Nine Regions

The school in Komyshuvakha was a Monday fixture. Classes had stopped because the village sits close to the front line in the Zaporizhzhia region, and the building and its shelter were used once a week to hand out humanitarian aid. On Monday 2 November Russian aircraft bombed it, then bombed it again as people ran for the shelter. On Wednesday President Volodymyr Zelensky said the death toll had risen to 40, with more than 30 people possibly still under the rubble, CBS News reported.

The figure has climbed in steps. The Kyiv Post, which has followed the search since Monday, carried a Tuesday update from the acting head of the regional military administration, Mykhailo Semikin, of 31 dead, five injured and nearly 50 missing, with at least four police officers and two rescuers from the State Emergency Service among the dead. Zelensky later put it at 33, the Kyiv Post said, describing a double-tap strike with nine more bombs aimed at the shelter where people were taking cover. Russia's Defence Ministry says the strike targeted Ukrainian military personnel and killed as many as 25 service members, a claim CBS reported alongside Moscow's standing denial that it deliberately targets civilians.

Zelensky called it an insane attack and said the world had shown very little reaction. His ask was specific: more air defence and more interceptor missiles, now.

What did Russia hit overnight on 4 November?

The aid centre is the worst single event of the week, but the broader picture on Wednesday morning was the grid. Zelensky said overnight attacks damaged generation and substations in nine regions, listing Odesa, Cherkasy, Zhytomyr, Vinnytsia, Kharkiv, Dnipro, Chernivtsi, Chernihiv and Rivne, and that emergency and unscheduled outages were running in many cities, ABC News reported. Ukraine's air force said it shot down 272 Russian drones with 20 still in the air when it reported. Russia's Defence Ministry confirmed on Telegram that it had struck two power stations, naming the Nalivaikovka substation in the Kyiv region and Chizhovka in Zhytomyr.