Russia strikes blood center: Zelenskiy

NO SLOWING DOWN:
The strike came just after Zelenskiy said Russia had hit an aeronautics facility and hours after Kyiv struck a Russian tanker in the Kerch Strait

Moscow on Saturday escalated its attacks in Ukraine, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy denouncing a deadly strike on a blood transfusion center as a “war crime.”

A separate strike hit a key factory, both attacks coming just hours after Kyiv hit a Russian tanker in the Kerch Strait.

The attacks were the latest since Moscow exited a deal last month that had ensured Ukrainian grain exports despite the conflict.

Russian forces struck the blood transfusion center in the Kharkiv region of northeast Ukraine, Zelenskiy said, adding that “dead and wounded are reported.”

A “guided air bomb” hit the center in Kupiansk, a city a few dozen kilometers from the Russian border, he said.

“Rescuers are extinguishing the fire,” Zelenskiy wrote on social media. “This war crime alone says everything about Russian aggression.”

The strike came shortly after Zelenskiy said Russian missiles had hit a facility of the Ukrainian aeronautics group Motor Sich, a maker of plane and helicopter engines and other components.

It is one of several companies requisitioned by the government since Moscow’s invasion. The Motor Sich site is near Khmelnytskyi in western Ukraine, about 300km southwest of Kyiv.

The region, home to a major Ukrainian airbase, has been regularly targeted by Russian strikes over the past few months.

In his evening address, Zelenskiy remained defiant, saying that “no matter how many such Russian attacks there are, they will still do nothing for the enemy.”

Earlier, Ukraine said it “blew up” a Russian tanker that was transporting fuel for Russian troops, a Ukrainian security source said.

The tanker was hit at abotu 11:20pm on Friday south of the Kerch Strait, the Russian Federal Agency for Sea and Inland Water Transport said.

The ship was holed at the waterline in the area of the engine room, but was still afloat, the agency said.

In a video obtained by Agence France-Presse purporting to show the attack, a vessel is seen approaching a large ship before the connection cuts off.

The Ukrainian source said the “successful special operation,” which involved a naval drone and explosives, was carried out jointly with the navy in Ukrainian territorial waters.

The oil and chemical tanker is under US sanctions for supplying jet fuel to Russian forces in Syria, who are supporting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned the attack on a “civilian vessel,” adding that the crew had not been injured.

Traffic on a key bridge across the Kerch Strait linking the Moscow-annexed Crimea peninsula to Russia’s mainland resumed early on Saturday after a three-hour halt, the Russian highways information center’s Telegram channel said.

Crimea has been disrupted by several strikes throughout the war, but it has seen more frequent attacks over the past few weeks.

Russian forces on Saturday downed a drone over the sea near Sevastopol, city governor Mikhail Razvozhayev said.

Tensions have risen on the Black Sea overall since Russia pulled out of the agreement protecting grain exports via the shipping hub during the conflict.

On Friday, Ukraine on Friday struck the Olenegorsky Gornyak vessel at the Novorossiysk base in southern Russia “to show that Ukraine can attack any Russian warship in that zone,” a Ukrainian security source said,

Russia said it had repelled the attempted attack.

On the front line, Russia on Saturday said it had captured the settlement of Novoselivske in northeastern Ukraine, where Kyiv said it was confronted with a growing number of attacks.

Footage from the Russian army showed Novoselivske completely destroyed, with white smoke billowing over crumbling buildings.

Ukrainian army spokeswoman Ganna Malyar on Friday said that Russian troops were aiming to draw Ukrainian resources to the east, as Ukraine pursues its counter-offensive in the south.