Zelenskyy says bomb hit blood transfusion center, while shelling kills 3 overnight

KYIV, Ukraine — Three people have died during a night of air strikes and intense shelling across Ukraine, officials said Sunday, as Kyiv’s military exchanged fire with Russian occupation forces.

Two people were killed and four more were injured following a Russian air strike in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region, said the head of the local regional military administration, Oleh Syniehubov.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that a guided bomb had hit a blood transfusion center in the area’s Kupyan district late on August 5.

“This war crime alone says everything about Russian aggression,” Zelenskyy wrote on social media. “Defeating terrorists is a matter of honor for everyone who values life.”

A woman in her eighties was also killed by Ukrainian shelling in the Russian-held Donetsk, the city’s Moscow-appointed mayor Alexei Kulemzin said Sunday.

The attack also set alight the main building of the M. Tugan-Baranovsky University of Economics and Trade, said the Moscow-installed head of the illegally annexed Donetsk People’s Republic, Denis Pushilin.

Russia’s Emergency Situations Ministry said that the blaze caused the building’s roof to collapse, but that there were no casualties.

Alongside shelling in the country’s east, the Ukrainian air force reported Sunday that Russian forces had launched 70 attack drones and air and sea missiles overnight.

The bombardment reportedly included cruise missiles launched from aircraft over the Caspian Sea and Iranian-made Shahed-136/131 strike UAVs.

Serhiy Tyurin, deputy head of Ukraine’s Khmelnytsky region military administration, said Sunday that Russian missiles had damaged several buildings in the area, injuring one and sparking a fire in a warehouse.