At least 24 dead in a Russian attack against a school in Ukraine

BarcelonaAt least 24 people have died this Monday in a Russian attack on the town of Komyshuvakha, near the front, in the Ukrainian region of Zaporizhzhia. The aerial bombardment hit a school, where the civilian population was receiving humanitarian aid, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Kyiv has detailed that Russian forces have launched about ten aerial bombs. These are high-power explosives with their own navigation systems, which are dropped from aircraft.

In addition to the school, Moscow also attacked "the shelter where people were taking cover," Zelensky remarked in a message on X. This is a common technique in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, which Moscow has used on repeated occasions: a few minutes after launching the first attack, it fires another either against the same place, when emergency services are assisting the wounded, or against a nearby area where the civilians present in the area have headed.

Zelensky remarked that the attacked area was known to be a place for the distribution of humanitarian aid. "The Russians could not have not known that every week the neighbors who have stayed in Komyshuvakha receive humanitarian aid in this same place," he wrote. In the same post, the Ukrainian leader asserts that the attack shatters the hopes for "progress towards peace" generated after the humanitarian operation in Oleshky. In this town, located near Kherson in an area occupied by Russia, Moscow and Kyiv have agreed to a local truce that came into force last week, with the aim of evacuating the population and delivering humanitarian aid to the civilians who have decided not to leave their homes despite the pressure of the war.

The meeting between Russia and Ukraine cools down

The bombing comes after Ukraine attacked Russian oil facilities again on Friday, despite Moscow's warning that bombing oil infrastructure could affect the meeting to address how to move towards a peace agreement, which does not yet have a scheduled date but could take place during these first days of November. The movements for this meeting to occur have been happening in recent weeks. At the end of October, Finland and Norway positioned themselves as potential mediators in a conversation with Putin, who viewed it favorably.

Meanwhile, attacks against oil infrastructure like the one last Friday have become almost routine. A few weeks ago, amidst the rapprochement between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, the United States announced that it would buy 300,000 tons of Russian diesel. The American president was thus seeking to lower fuel prices, which are skyrocketing in the US and are one of the reasons for his popularity being in free fall. A few days later, Zelensky responded with one of the largest drone attacks of the entire war, which targeted St. Petersburg, Russia's second most important city. The locality was left almost at a standstill for several hours, and the port's oil terminal was widely affected.