Zelensky blasts Russia over Zaporizhzhia strikes as death toll climbs to 26

Volodymyr Zelensky did not mince words Monday, accusing Russia of aiming squarely at civilian structures in its latest barrage on southern Ukraine. The Ukrainian president said the number killed in strikes on the Zaporizhzhia region has grown to 26, up from the 18 he reported earlier the same day in a Telegram post. Five of the wounded are being treated in hospitals.

Rescuers are still pulling through the wreckage. In a video address posted to Telegram, Zelensky said others remain trapped under the debris and that search operations will keep running as long as it takes to reach every person. He pressed the international community to answer the attack, and cautioned that Russia may have more assaults queued up in the days ahead.

The earlier Telegram update filled in the grim details: the bombs fell on the village of Komyshuvakha, according to the president, striking a school that had been repurposed for humanitarian work and a shelter where people had taken cover. Zelensky called the strikes extremely terrible and said they prove Moscow has no interest in de-escalating, only in continuing what he described as further killings.

The strikes landed alongside a flurry of other overnight violence. Serhiy Lysak, who heads Odesa's military administration, said an attack there injured four people and damaged infrastructure, two residential buildings and a garage, with the blast wave shattering windows in nearby homes, according to his Telegram account.

Russia's Defense Ministry framed its own overnight operation as a drone campaign against Ukrainian port facilities and military sea vessels. It claimed to have hit a shelter and storage site for Neptune anti-ship missile launchers near the village of Tuzly in the Odesa region, and said a dry cargo vessel carrying supplies bound for Ukraine's armed forces was struck south of Odesa.

Meanwhile, the Kremlin pushed back on the idea that it misused a pause in the fighting. Press secretary Dmitry Peskov said Monday that Ukraine could have used the ceasefire in Oleshky to regroup, calling it normal practice and adding that no similar truce is currently in the works. Russia has said the Oleshky ceasefire ended without incident.