• Harrowing footage from a police body camera shows that Russians were attacking civilians in Komyshuvakha.
  • Monday’s attack is the deadliest in terms of casualties since at least 2023.
  • What Russian propaganda says about the war crime — and why independent Russian analysts also dismiss it as lies.
  • October figures on frontline shifts according to Finland’s Black Bird Group: Russians barely moved.
  • Charts of the day: Russia lost more aircraft than tanks in October.
  • Videos of the day: FPV drones hang from wires like birds; the difficult journey of Russian logistics.

The largest attack on civilians in at least the past two years. World media have focused on the US elections in recent days, and so it has somewhat gone unnoticed that Russia committed one of the largest attacks on civilians in Ukraine since the start of the war.

It happened on Monday morning in the village of Komyshuvakha in Zaporizhzhia oblast, around 15 km from the front line.

Source: DeepState UA

On Monday morning, Russians attacked the school complex, where humanitarian aid was being distributed to local residents.

In total, they dropped at least nine glide bombs, some of them weighing three tonnes. Such a bomb weighs roughly twice as much as a Škoda Octavia car and contains up to 1.4 tonnes of explosives. Russia primarily uses these bombs to destroy underground bunkers.

This time, however, they did not hit Ukrainian soldiers but civilians.

What happened: By Thursday morning, it was known that at least 42 people had been killed in the attack on Komyshuvakha. This alone makes it the worst attack on civilians in Ukraine since 2023.

A further 33 people remained missing, apparently buried beneath the rubble. It is therefore quite possible that the total death toll will rise significantly, making this the worst attack on civilians since the bombing of the theatre bearing the word “Children” in Mariupol in 2022.

It is one of the worst things Russia has done during the war. Russian propaganda, however, has sought to portray the attack differently. It claims that the site of the attack was a base for Ukrainian soldiers or police officers.

On Wednesday, Ukrainians released harrowing footage recorded by a camera attached to a police officer’s body. It suggests that the Russians knew full well whom they were attacking.

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