The death toll after the Russian air strike on the village of Komyshuvakha in the Zaporizhzhia region has risen to 53. This was announced by Yuriia Barysheva, spokesperson for the Main Directorate of the State Emergency Service (DSNS) in the Zaporizhzhia region, at a cross-departmental press conference on Friday, as reported by the news agency Ukrinform. “The rescue workers have so far recovered 53 bodies. Around 50 more people are still considered missing. The search work continues,” Barysheva said.
The governor of the region, Mykhailo Semikin, confirmed the figure on Friday at 10.51 a.m. on Telegram, as reported by the news agency Interfax-Ukraine. According to this, the emergency service’s figure stood at 50 dead at 10.49 a.m.; during the search work the rescue workers then recovered eight more bodies from the rubble. On Thursday, 5 November, the death toll had still been 43.
Five days of searching under constant fire
The rescue workers have been deployed for five days. In addition to teams and search dogs from the Zaporizhzhia region, units from other regions are also working at the scene of the disaster, according to Ukrinform; the emergency workers are brought to the site in armoured vehicles. The work is being made more difficult by constant danger, shelling and attacks, which is why the rescue workers have to interrupt their deployment at times. The dog handler Roman Zamolenko said, according to Ukrinform, that the large amount of dust is also hampering the search.
The attack occurred on Monday, 2 November. According to the authorities, Russian troops attacked Komyshuvakha with aerial bombs and deliberately hit an underground school building in which people were receiving humanitarian aid. According to President Volodymyr Zelensky, the first hit was followed by a second attack with nine more aerial bombs directly on the shelter to which the people had fled. The co-chair of the Defence Council of the Zaporizhzhia region, Ivan Fedorov, said according to NV that Russian troops had hit the shelter with three-tonne FAB-3000 bombs, which are about three times as effective as a ballistic missile. According to the Kyiv Independent of 4 November, around 100 people may have been at the site at the time of the attack.
According to the emergency service, among the dead are two rescue workers and four police officers. The two rescue workers Denys Konovalenko and Oleksii Sushtschevskyi were both 44 years old, according to the DSNS. Seven people previously reported missing were found alive and unharmed, according to NV.
A village 20 kilometres from the front
According to the Zaporizhzhia Investigative Centre, Komyshuvakha is about 20 kilometres from the front line and has been considered a frontline settlement since November 2025. Russian aircraft repeatedly use glide bombs there, which are equipped with wing kits and can hit targets dozens of kilometres away without coming within range of air defence.
Semikin had already described the scale of the attack on Wednesday: “The scale of the tragedy is terrible. Behind every number is a human life, a family that has lost its relatives or is still waiting for news,” he said, according to the Kyiv Independent. Zelensky spoke of a “mad attack” and lamented the weak international response. Ukraine now needs support with air defence, he said.
The search in Komyshuvakha is likely to continue. As long as rubble and dust hamper the work and further attacks threaten, the authorities expect further finds. The death toll has risen continuously since Wednesday: from 40 on Wednesday to 43 on Thursday and now 53 – evidence of how slowly the rescue is proceeding under these conditions.
Earlier coverage: Death toll in Komyshuvakha school strike rises to 43
