At least 29 people were killed when Russian aerial bombs hit a village school used as an aid distribution centre in southern Ukraine, Ukrainian officials said on Tuesday, in an attack President Volodymyr Zelensky called "utterly horrific".

The strikes hit Komyshuvakha in the Zaporizhzhia region on Monday. The regional head, Mykhailo Semikin, said at least nine 3,000kg aerial bombs landed on the village, and that another 10 people were injured and 48 were reported missing as search and rescue work continued. "The scale of the tragedy is horrific," he wrote on Telegram.

Zelensky said the attack came in two waves: the first strike hit the local school "used for humanitarian needs", and the second hit the place where people had taken shelter. He posted a video showing a large crater and rescuers searching through rubble, and said the Russians could not have been unaware that residents who stayed in the village received aid there every week.

"This is yet another proof that Russia does not want any de-escalation," he said.

A toll that kept rising

The casualty figures have moved repeatedly since the attack. Zelensky initially put the number of dead at 18; Ukraine's state emergencies service later confirmed 24 killed, including two rescuers and four police officers, and in his video address late on Monday the president said 26 people were known to have died.

By Tuesday, Semikin said the toll had reached 29, with people still under the rubble. The Independent, reporting the attack earlier, put the figure at "at least 26" killed and dozens injured, describing a barrage of heavy aerial bombs on the aid centre followed by a second bomb that hit survivors taking cover.

The discrepancy reflects the difficulty of counting casualties at a site where rescue work was continuing and where some of the missing may not yet have been identified. Officials have warned that the number could rise further.

Why the target matters

The village school was not a military site. It was a weekly distribution point for humanitarian aid in a front-line area where many residents have stayed despite repeated strikes and warnings to leave. That is what made the attack politically significant in Kyiv: it is harder to describe as an accident when people were known to gather there on a fixed day.

Ukraine's allies have not yet responded in detail. The strike comes as European governments debate the next stage of support for Kyiv and as a US-brokered arrangement allowed civilians to leave Russian-occupied territory elsewhere in the country, a rare piece of cooperation that the evacuation of Oleshky under a local truce illustrated.

The wider military picture has also been volatile. Earlier this month a missile attack on Kyiv followed a round of talks that had raised hopes of a pause, and the strikes have continued alongside diplomatic contacts that both sides describe as fragile.

What happens next

Local officials say rescue teams are still working, and the missing list is likely to be reconciled with hospital records and body identifications over the coming days. Ukraine's general prosecutor's office is expected to open a war-crimes investigation, as it has after previous strikes on civilian sites.

For the residents of Komyshuvakha, the attack has removed the one regular point of contact with aid agencies. Humanitarian groups that had been distributing food and medicine weekly now have to decide whether to return, and how, in a village that has just been hit twice in the same place.

Zelensky's argument to Western partners is that the strike shows the limits of any arrangement that depends on Russia exercising restraint. The counter-argument, from those who favour negotiations, is that incidents like this are exactly why a ceasefire framework with monitoring is needed. Neither side has changed its position, and the search for bodies continues.

The attack also lands in a week when European capitals are focused on the US midterm elections and on whether Washington's posture towards the war will shift. For Kyiv, that makes the timing of the strike doubly awkward: it is a reminder of the cost of the war at the moment when attention is elsewhere, and the details of the missing and the dead will take days to establish.

The Independent reported that at least 26 people were killed and dozens injured in the barrage, while Ukraine's state emergencies service and the regional administration have given the higher figure of 29. Both accounts agree on the essentials: a school used for aid, a second strike on people who came to help or shelter, and a village that had already been warned it was dangerous.

This piece will be updated if officials confirm a final toll or if Russia responds to the allegations. The Kremlin has not commented on the strike.

The attack also follows the evacuation of Oleshky under a local truce, which showed how narrow the openings for civilians have become, and it comes weeks after the missile attack on Kyiv that followed earlier talks and Putin's comments calling Elon Musk a genius.