KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian attacks triggered power and water outages for hours Wednesday across Kyiv and surrounding regions while President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the death toll in a stricken village in southern Ukraine rose to 40 in one of the deadliest strikes there in nearly five years of war.
On Monday, multiple Russian guided bombs had slammed into a former school and nearby shelter in the village of Komyshuvakha, near the front line in the Zaporizhzhia
region as residents waited for humanitarian aid.
In addition to those killed, Zelenskyy said 30 more people could still be buried in the rubble.
“Unfortunately, there has been very little reaction from the world to this insane attack," he said in a post on X. "But it, like thousands upon thousands of other war crimes Russia has committed against Ukraine and Ukrainians, demands a strong response. Evil always goes further if it is left unanswered.”
Elsewhere, Moscow showed no signs of letting up its aerial assaults.
Residents in the capital of Kyiv were urged to use public drinking water fountains, and emergency centers were set up hastily in the worst-hit areas, offering hot tea and power for people seeking to charge electrical devices.
Kyiv's water utility said the city's supplies later were restored, while Ukraine’s largest private energy company, DTEK, said emergency shutdowns in Kyiv ended after repairs.
Russia attacked overnight with 310 drones, including 81 of them powered by jets, according to Ukraine’s air force. In its daily social media report, the air force said it downed or suppressed 272 drones of various types.
Such attacks are a regular feature of wartime life in Ukraine despite arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court in 2024 for two senior Russian officers whom prosecutors accuse of overseeing strikes on civilian infrastructure.
Officials from the United States, Germany, France, Britain, NATO and the European Union were to meet later Wednesday at the European Commission’s headquarters in Brussels. The discussions are expected to focus on security arrangements for postwar Ukraine, the massive reconstruction effort that will be required and also various “economic opportunities” that peace could bring.
Those talks come ahead of a new round of U.S.-brokered peace negotiations next week, more than 4 1/2 years after Russia’s all-out invasion of its neighbor.
The death toll from Monday’s strike on the site in the village of Komyshuvakha rose to 37, according to Mykhailo Semikin, acting head of the regional military administration. He had said earlier that Russian drones were hampering the search but that operations would continue.
Ivan Fedorov, co-chair of the regional defense council, said 12 bodies pulled from the rubble were identified so far.
The National Police of Ukraine said in a Telegram post that visual identification of some bodies was not possible and that specialists were working with relatives of the dead to collect DNA samples.
Body camera footage recovered from a police officer killed in the attack shows the devastating impact of the Russian guided bomb. The video was recorded Monday as the officer descended stairs into the shelter after the nearby aid distribution center was struck.
According to the video, the officer speaks to survivors of the initial attack, urging them to seek shelter. “Go down! Why are you gathering here?” he is heard saying.
Moments after entering a low-ceilinged underground room, a rumble is briefly heard as the video cuts to black.
On Tuesday, Baptist pastor Vladyslav Makhovskyi had joined the search for survivors. But as the day wore on, bodies wrapped in white plastic sheets were carried from the ruins and laid in rows as smoke drifted across the shattered landscape.
“When the bombs hit, people could no longer get out," Makhovskyi told The Associated Press. “I understand that many were killed immediately. Even if some were still alive, they probably couldn’t breathe."
The attack followed the end of a six-day ceasefire in the Russian-occupied city of Oleshky in the southwestern Ukrainian region of Kherson. It was the most significant truce between Kyiv and Moscow since 2022, and allowed the evacuation of residents from the shattered city.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy awarded U.S. first lady Melania Trump the Order of Princess Olga, 1st class — an honor for women who have made an outstanding contribution to the Ukrainian state.
She was recognized for her humanitarian support, including human rights and charitable activities aimed at helping Ukrainian children, according to the presidential website.
She was credited with brokering the ceasefire to allow those trapped in Oleshky to leave.
The Kremlin, meanwhile, expressed hope that U.S. President Donald Trump will continue his efforts to end the war in Ukraine regardless of the outcome of the midterm elections that saw Democrats take control of Congress, spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
Meanwhile, Russia’s Ministry of Defense said that it shot down 709 Ukrainian drones overnight.
The major online retailer Ozon said that a drone attack caused a fire to break out at its logistics center in Adygeysk, in Russia’s Adygea region, but that there were no casualties.
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Corder reported from The Hague, Netherlands. Associated Press writers Derek Gatopoulos in Kyiv, Elise Morton in London and Lorne Cook in Brussels contributed.
