Ukraine Says Bodycam Video Shows Russian Double-Tap Strike on Village
Ukraine says at least 40 people died when Russian glide bombs hit an aid point and a shelter in Komyshuvakha. Dozens are still missing.
Ukraine’s national police on Wednesday released body camera footage they say shows a Russian “double-tap” bombing of an underground shelter in the village of Komyshuvakha, in the southern Zaporizhzhia region. Ukrainian officials say the attack on Monday killed at least 40 people, and dozens more are missing. Reuters described it as one of the deadliest strikes on civilians this year. The footage was recorded by one of four police officers killed in the attack.
What happened
Volodymyr Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, said Russian forces first dropped aerial bombs on a school building that was being used as a distribution point. Classes there had been suspended, but residents came every Monday to collect humanitarian aid. According to Ukraine, Russia then hit an underground shelter nearby after people had gathered inside it. The BBC reported that the shelter was at least two floors below ground.
A double-tap attack is a second strike on the same spot shortly after the first, which can hit survivors, rescuers and people who have fled to shelter. Ukrainian officials have repeatedly accused Moscow of using the tactic during the war.
Zelensky wrote on social media that “nine aerial bombs were dropped by the Russians,” the BBC reported. Ukraine’s national police said the munitions included a FAB bomb weighing about 3 tonnes and fitted with a glide kit, according to Reuters. A glide kit adds wings and guidance to a heavy Soviet-era bomb, so aircraft can release it from far away, beyond the reach of many air defenses. Reuters said the village is about 17 kilometers (roughly 10 miles) from the nearest Russian positions.
The video and the casualty count
The police say the footage comes from a camera worn by an officer who died in the attack. The BBC described the recording: it shows rubble from the earlier strikes, and then residents heading into the shelter after a military official warns over the radio that more glide bombs are coming. An officer can be heard urging people to get to the shelter quickly. Then a blast is heard, flames appear, and the recording stops.
Reuters said it had verified the video. BBC Verify, the broadcaster’s fact-checking unit, said the footage was filmed at the same place as aftermath video released by Ukraine’s State Emergency Service.
The casualty figures come from Ukrainian officials and have changed as the search went on:
- Zelensky put the death toll at 33 on Tuesday and raised it to 40 on Wednesday, Agence France-Presse reported. He said some bodies had not yet been identified.
- Zelensky also said more than 30 people may still be under the rubble.
- Ivan Fedorov, a senior regional official who co-heads the Zaporizhzhia Regional Defence Council, said on the messaging app Telegram that 59 people were missing, according to Reuters.
- Emergency services said two rescue workers and four police officers were among the dead.
These numbers have not been independently confirmed. By Wednesday, search teams had been working at the site for three days, the BBC said.
Competing accounts
The two sides tell very different stories about the strike. Reuters reported that Russia’s defense ministry said it had targeted Ukrainian military units around Komyshuvakha and two other settlements and had killed up to 25 Ukrainian servicemen. The BBC reported that the Russian military had not publicly commented on the attack. Reuters noted that Russia and Ukraine both deny deliberately targeting civilians.
The United Nations human rights monitoring mission in Ukraine condemned the attack on Tuesday and said the bombing likely violated international law, AFP reported. Zelensky called the strike one of “thousands” of war crimes he says Russia has committed. He also complained that “there has been very little reaction from the world to this insane attack,” according to the BBC.
Background and what comes next
Russian President Vladimir Putin launched the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and the war is now in its fifth year. Russian forces control parts of Zaporizhzhia region, and frontline villages there are often shelled and bombed from the air.
The strike came a day after a six-day ceasefire ended, Reuters reported. During the truce, civilians were evacuated from Oleshky, a Russian-occupied town in the Kherson region. According to US First Lady Melania Trump, who brokered the arrangement, nearly 800 people were evacuated. Zelensky gave her a state award for her role.
Diplomatic efforts are still going on. Steve Witkoff, a US special envoy, said on Monday that Washington would bring Ukrainian and Russian delegations together in Abu Dhabi on November 10 and 11, Reuters reported. The talks are set to cover ending the war, security arrangements after the fighting stops, and steps to reduce hostilities. Whether the Komyshuvakha attack affects those talks remains to be seen.
