Ukraine has said multiple Russian strikes on a school where humanitarian aid was distributed killed at least 26 people and dashed fragile hopes of "progress toward peace" after a local ceasefire in the south expired without violations.
Russia resumed its strikes on the southern region of Kherson after the end of a local ceasefire in the area, the longest truce in the war, Kiev said on Monday.
A rare pause in the fighting, brokered by US First Lady Melania Trump to enable a mission to the Russian-occupied city of Oleshky, ended on Sunday after starting on Tuesday, with neither side reporting breaches.
But hours after the truce, Russia targeted a village in Zaporizhzhia, adjacent to Kherson, with repeated strikes that killed at least 26 people, the acting regional governor said. Some of the dead had come to collect aid at a local school.
Footage posted by the Ukrainian emergency services showed the building reduced to piles of smouldering rubble and rescuers working at the site.
"Every Monday humanitarian aid was distributed to people there. The Russians carried out the first strike just as people arrived — several aerial bombs. Then there was a repeat strike — more aerial bombs, this time targeting the shelter," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his daily address.
Zelensky said that after the Oleshky truce, "there was a moment when the next steps could have shown that progress toward peace was possible."
Russia fortifies positions
The ceasefire last week enabled an evacuation of the Russian-controlled city of Oleshky.
The Kremlin did not deny the accusations, with its spokesman Dmitry Peskov telling reporters Monday: "This is a completely normal practice in such situations."
He said the Ukrainian army had also used pauses in fighting in the past to regroup.
Moscow saw the Oleshky humanitarian mission as "successful", Peskov added, praising the "good cooperation between all sides" and singling out the role of its human rights commissioner Yana Lantratova.
Lantratova oversaw the ceasefire alongside her Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Lubinets in one of the most substantial instances of Russian-Ukrainian cooperation since the start of the war.
The mission saw people taken both to Ukraine-controlled territory and to Moscow-annexed Crimea.
The Kremlin said that no other similar missions were being planned "at the moment".
US-led talks between Russia and Ukraine are set to resume this month.
