At least 24 people were killed after Russian bombs hit an aid distribution centre, in an attack that Ukraine’s leader has called “utterly horrific”.

Five people were injured and 27 initially reported missing after at least nine 3,000kg aerial bombs hit the village of Komyshuvakha in the southern Zaporizhzhia region, regional head Mykhailo Semikin said.

President Volodymyr Zelensky said that after the first strike on the local school “used for humanitarian needs”, there was a second attack on the place where people were sheltering.

He posted a video showing a huge crater left after Monday’s attack, and rescuer teams searching through the rubble.

The Russian military has not publicly commented.

Zelensky initially put the death toll at 18, but Ukraine’s state emergencies service DSNS later said 24 people, including two rescuers and four police officers, were confirmed to have been killed.

“The Russians could not have been unaware that the local residents who remained in Komyshuvakha received humanitarian aid there every week,” the Ukrainian president wrote in a post on social media.

“This is yet another proof that Russia does not want any de-escalation.”

He said that after a recent successful joint Russian-Ukrainian operation to evacuate civilians from the Russia-occupied southern city of Oleshky, “there was a moment when the next steps could show that peace is possible”.

“With such killings, Russia is sending the exact opposite signal – Russia is counting on further killings,” Zelensky said.

Meanwhile, Semikin described the Russian attack as a “terrible tragedy” for the village, confirming that “people are still under the rubble”.

He said that rescue teams were working at the scene, but they were forced to halt their operation a number of times because of Russian drone attacks in the area.

Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.