ZAPORIZZHIA, Ukraine (AP) — A Russian drone struck rescue workers during rescue missions in southern Ukraine on Sunday, hit a former school and nearby shelter which had previously been destroyed by several Russian guided bombs as residents waited for humanitarian aid, authorities said.
No one was injured during Sunday’s strike about the village of Komyshuvakhabut specialized rescue equipment was damaged, according to Ukraine’s emergency services.
Ukraine said Monday’s attack at the same location killed at least 55 people, near the front line in the Zaporizhzhia region.
As of Sunday afternoon, 45 people were missing, according to the acting head of the regional military administration, Mykhailo Semikin. Many bodies found have not been identified and DNA analyzes are underway.
Village resident Mykola Krasnov, 72, told The Associated Press on Saturday that he was still looking for his wife but had not heard from rescuers.
“She went to get humanitarian aid and a 3-ton bomb was dropped there. Where is she?” he said. “She didn’t come home and they didn’t find her body there. She’s not in the morgue and she’s not here alive.”
Ukraine regularly accuses Russia of carrying out several successive strikes on the same site in order to target emergency teams responding to the initial attack.
Community bids farewell to police officers and neighbors
On Saturday, police officers and their relatives gathered in Zaporizhzhia for a farewell ceremony in memory of the six police officers killed during Russian strikes on Komyshuvakha, four of whom died near the former school.
Rain fell as families wept beside coffins and officers held portraits of their fallen colleagues.
“They used every skill at their disposal to protect themselves. But when the enemy deliberately gathered civilians in one place and then launched strikes against them, no skill could have helped them,” said Andrii Khomenko, a police lieutenant colonel who had worked alongside the victims.
The community also said goodbye to three residents among the dead. Among the mourners was Yurii Karapetian, whose wife Natalia was killed. He said she was handing out bread to people in the shelter when the Russian bombs hit.
“This pain, I would say, is unbearable,” he said, urging the international community to act.
“The whole world must understand that if (the Russians) are not stopped, they will not stop. They will not stop in Ukraine. They will not stop anywhere,” he said.
President Volodymyr Zelensky called the attack on emergency teams in Komyshuvakha “absolute cynicism and brutality” in a message on X on Sunday.
France to join US-mediated Ukraine peace talks
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said on Sunday that France and other European representatives would participate in the talks between Russia and Ukraine, under American mediation, in Abu Dhabi on November 10 and 11.
“France will be there and will ensure that the voice of Europe is heard,” Barrot said on RTL. He did not specify who would represent France, nor whether European officials would participate directly in the negotiations.
Discussions were previously billed as a trilateral meeting between Washington, Moscow and kyiv, with US President Donald Trump predicting a “very big” deal with Russia extending beyond Ukraine to “all of Europe”. This has raised fears that European countries will be marginalized in negotiations over their own security.
Zelensky calls for sanctions against Russian missile suppliers
Russian strikes in Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region have left more than 600,000 people without power, Zelensky wrote on Other regions of Ukraine also faced outages.
Russia launched 115 missiles, 1,900 guided aerial bombs and more than 3,000 drones against Ukraine last week, Zelensky said on X. Many missiles have been produced this year, he added, calling on Ukraine’s partners to sanction entities involved in their production.
“If the world does not have sufficient anti-ballistic capabilities to protect Ukrainian skies, then the missiles must be stopped on the production lines,” he said.
Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant loses external power supply
The Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, Europe’s largest, lost its external power supply after a damaged power line was disconnected for safety reasons, the plant’s management reported on Sunday.
The plant has been powered by emergency diesel generators since an automatic protection system shut down the damaged Ferosplavna line. Ukraine’s state nuclear operator, Energoatom, also reported on Sunday that the plant was relying on generators.
The plant was decommissioned shortly after being captured by Russia at the start of the war, but it requires electricity to run essential cooling systems. Its external power supply has been periodically cut off, raising fears of a nuclear accident in the event of prolonged outages, with Moscow and kyiv blaming each other for strikes that damaged nearby power lines.
Russia and Ukraine exchange drone strikes
Russia launched 164 drones across Ukraine overnight on Sunday, of which 137 were shot down, the Ukrainian Air Force announced in the morning. Hours later, one person was killed and three others injured when Russian forces struck a residential area of Dnipro, according to local administration head Oleksandr Hanzha.
The Russian Defense Ministry said Sunday that its forces destroyed 142 Ukrainian drones overnight, including over Russia, Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine and the Sea of Azov.
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This story corrects the number of police officers killed during the strike against the old school.
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AP writer Thomas Adamson contributed from Paris.
Follow AP coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
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