Zelensky Puts Komyshuvakha Aid Site Toll at 43 as Kyiv Region Is Hit Again Before Nov. 10-11 Talks

The damage count from Russia's latest strikes keeps climbing. Zelensky said Thursday that 43 people have been confirmed killed in Monday's bombing of a school building in Komyshuvakha, in the Zaporizhzhia region, where people had gathered for humanitarian aid. More than 30 are still unaccounted for.

Outlets have reported different tolls as the search continued. The toll was 31 on Tuesday, according to officials, with more than 45 residents missing at that point. Ukrainian police put it at 42 on Thursday, while CNN reported Zelensky's figure of 43 the same day.

Komyshuvakha: a reinforced basement that collapsed

Zelensky called the attack "one of the deadliest attacks of this war." He said Russia dropped at least nine bombs on a school building where people had gathered.

Mykhailo Semikin, acting head of the Zaporizhzhia military administration, said the victims were in a newly built, EU-funded reinforced basement. It was designed to withstand most strikes. The force of the bombs collapsed the concrete and a fire broke out.

The shelter was built last year so classes could continue in wartime. Many civilians have since left as the fighting got closer to the village, and it is not currently used as a school. Local authorities were using it as an administrative center and humanitarian hub.

Semikin said the dead include four police officers and two rescue workers. Only some of the bodies recovered from the rubble had been identified as of Wednesday, and local authorities say further identification will likely require DNA testing. Zaporizhzhia declared three days of mourning.

Danielle Bell, head of the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, said the timing and location of the aid distribution "was well publicized." She said: "Either the Russian armed forces knew that there was a humanitarian distribution taking place, or they failed to take the most basic steps to find out what was happening in this village they were planning to attack. In either case, this attack seems to have violated the most fundamental principles of international humanitarian law."

Kyiv's worst water outage of the war

A Russian mass attack on Tuesday left Kyiv residents without water for more than 24 hours. Kyivvodokanal, the city water company, said the attack effectively cut off all supply on Tuesday. It said the system was fully restored by early afternoon Wednesday.

Mykhailo Yatsuk, director of the Institute of Water Problems and Land Reclamation, told the Kyiv Independent: "this is the most serious water outage in Kyiv since the war began." Previous outages lasted only a few hours.

Oleksandr Kharchenko, director of the Energy Industry Research Center, explained why. Russian strikes in January crippled generation at three of Kyiv's combined heat and power plants. "We used to always have the option to power water supply from one of the CHPs, but as of now, we have lost this opportunity," he said.

Yatsuk and an unnamed manager at a water pump company warned of more disruptions and told residents to stockpile water before winter.

This was not the first hit on the system. Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said three drones struck one critical infrastructure facility on Oct. 30. That strike left large parts of the capital without water and cut power to installations that support water distribution.

DTEK, Ukraine's largest private energy provider, said the Nov. 3 barrage completely halted generation at three of its thermal power plants. In Kryvyi Rih, Yuriy Boyechko, CEO of the nonprofit Hope for Ukraine, said strikes on local thermal plants have left the city rationed to three hours of electricity a day.

Overnight raids continue

Debris from intercepted drones set a house roof on fire in Kyiv's Sviatoshynskyi district on Nov. 4, Klitschko said. Another blaze started in the Holosiivskyi district. Russian forces launched 193 drones that night, 81 of them jet-powered.

The most recent overnight raid hit a facility in the Kyiv region. Footage showed flames engulfing parts of the complex, and an injured man was reported. The State Emergency Service said the blaze was contained by morning, with preliminary information indicating no fatalities. Officials did not identify the facility. It sits in a district holding warehouses, depots and transport hubs that supply Kyiv.

Ukraine's air force said Russia launched 128 attack drones, 65 of them jet-powered, plus two Kh-35 missiles from the Black Sea. Air defenses shot down or suppressed 105 drones. Impacts were recorded at 18 locations, with debris falling at nine more. The air force did not report intercepting either missile.

Energy Minister Denys Shmyhal said three drones were directed at a substation crucial for the operation of the Khmelnytskyi Nuclear Power Plant. He said such actions threaten the nuclear safety of all of Europe and that Ukraine has informed the IAEA, the UN nuclear watchdog.

Moscow's stated aims

The Russian Defense Ministry claimed strikes on electrical substations in the Kyiv and Zhytomyr regions. The Kremlin-affiliated Telegram channel Rybar said Russian forces have shifted to "more systematic and rational" strikes on substations and smaller facilities. The aim, it said, is to directly affect electricity flows and weaken Ukraine over the winter.

The strikes of Nov. 3 hit Ukraine's energy system. Russia launched 289 attack drones, 17 ballistic missiles and 59 cruise missiles, according to Zelensky, who noted the barrage coincided with the U.S. midterm elections. "The Russians think America won't notice this signal of theirs," he said. The strikes also came despite President Trump's repeated calls for an energy ceasefire.

The Komyshuvakha attack followed the expiration of a six-day ceasefire in Russian-occupied Oleshky that allowed trapped residents to evacuate. It was the most significant truce between Kyiv and Moscow since 2022. Speaking in Berlin alongside Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Zelensky said Ukraine offered to extend it and the answer was "new attacks, new strikes, new killings of our people."

Talks and the Patriot request

U.S.-brokered talks are scheduled for Nov. 10-11 in Abu Dhabi. Kyiv wants Patriot interceptors to protect its grid and repair crews. Kyiv Post reported that the Pentagon says Ukraine's request to manufacture Patriot missiles domestically requires "further review." Ukraine still lacks U.S. authorization to produce them.

Zelensky said Ukraine's priorities for the talks are halting strikes on energy and critical infrastructure, unblocking Black Sea grain shipments and expanding prisoner exchanges.