Russian strikes kill 38 across Ukraine, hitting hospice, hospital and aid centre

At least 38 civilians were killed across Ukraine in the past 24 hours, with scores more wounded, after a wave of Russian glide bomb, missile and drone attacks. The heaviest blow landed Monday night in the southern Zaporizhzhia region, where an assault on Komyshuvakha village killed at least 33 people. President Volodymyr Zelensky warned the toll would climb, saying more than 50 people could still be trapped under the rubble. He called it ``one of the largest mass killings committed by Russia during this war.''

Nine aerial bombs weighing 3,000kg each slammed into Komyshuvakha as residents lined up for humanitarian aid at a distribution point, authorities said. Local media reported that people fled underground when the strike began, but the roof caved in and buried many of them. ``The scale of the tragedy is difficult to comprehend,'' said regional head Mykhailo Semikin. Russia's defence ministry claimed it had targeted Ukrainian military units and killed 25 servicemen, but BBC News Russian defence correspondent Ilya Abishev reported there was no credible evidence the site was used by the military and no major military or industrial facilities exist in the settlement. The UN's human rights monitoring mission said the aid distribution at the local school had been heavily publicised and the attack ``seems to have violated the most fundamental principles of international humanitarian law.''

The strikes reached far beyond Zaporizhzhia. In the central city of Dnipro, a Russian missile destroyed a hospice, forcing nearly 50 terminally ill patients — the oldest aged 90 — to be moved to other facilities. Mayor Boris Filatov posted Telegram photos of elderly patients lying in beds beside blown-out windows, rubble and shattered glass, writing that he knew he was breaching ethics but wanted politicians and diplomats abroad to see them. A separate strike in Dnipro killed two people and wounded 18, while five more died in aerial bomb and drone attacks on the eastern Donetsk region. In the north-eastern city of Kharkiv, a hospital was hit and Zelensky said 73 people were wounded, most of them elderly patients.

Russia also pounded energy infrastructure across nine regions, disrupting water and heating supplies. Kyivvodokanal, the capital's main water supplier, said the city's water supply was cut off entirely because of attacks and damage to its energy network, and the entire metro system shut down on Tuesday. Mayor Vitali Klitschko said the situation around the city's power supply was becoming ``very difficult.''

As Ukraine counted its dead, the Kremlin announced it would join three-way peace talks with Ukraine brokered by the US in Abu Dhabi on 10-11 November — the first trilateral meeting since February. Speaking in Berlin on Tuesday, Zelensky said Russia needed to engage seriously on a ceasefire and a peaceful settlement, but that he had seen no indication of it so far. Melania Trump, credited with brokering last week's truce in the besieged town of Oleshky, is set to host Russian and Ukrainian representatives at the White House on Thursday, though the White House did not say who would attend. US President Donald Trump has also announced a deal to import Russian diesel.

The diplomacy unfolds against a grim backdrop. The UN said last month that civilian casualties in Ukraine had hit a ``record level'' as Russian forces resumed systematic attacks on energy infrastructure. Moscow launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022, and while its front-line advances have stalled, its missile and drone barrages on Ukrainian cities have only intensified. Zelensky acknowledged in Berlin that while the front line was stable, ``the situation in the air was not as positive,'' pointing to a critical air defence shortage driven by stalled Western weapons deliveries and a lack of American Patriot interceptor missiles.