Russia launches missile and drone blitz; Ukraine blood transfusion center hit: Live updates

Russia bombarded western Ukraine on Sunday with missiles and drones in an apparent response to a Ukrainian attack on a Russian tanker in the Black Sea near Crimea two days ago.

Moscow launched 70 attack drones and missiles, including cruise missiles from aircraft over the Caspian Sea and Iranian-made, Shahed-136/131 strike UAVs, according to Ukraine’s air force.

Three waves of missiles hit the Starokostiantyniv area, said Serhiy Tyurin, deputy head of Ukraine’s Khmelnytsky region military administration. Several buildings were damaged and a fire broke out at a warehouse, Tyurin said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said aircraft engine manufacturer Motor Sich’s facilities in the Zaporizhzhia region were also hit.

The barrage appeared to be retaliation for Friday’s tanker attack. Ukraine also struck a major Russian port with drones earlier that day. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova blasted what she called a Ukrainian “terrorist attack” on a civilian vessel in the Kerch Strait.

“There can be no justification for such barbaric actions, they will not go unanswered and their authors and perpetrators will inevitably be punished,” Zakharova posted on the Telegram messaging app.

The drone cut a hole in the tanker’s engine room, but there were no casualties among the 11 crewmembers, Russia’s Federal Agency for Marine and River Transport posted on Telegram.

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Zelenskyy says bomb strikes blood transfusion center

Zelenskyy said a guided bomb that hit a blood transfusion center in the Kupyan district in eastern Kharkiv late Saturday left people dead and wounded.

The Ukrainian president condemned the attack. “This war crime alone says everything about Russian aggression,” he wrote on social media. “Defeating terrorists is a matter of honor for everyone who values life.”

Also in Kharkiv, two people were killed and four were injured after intense shelling overnight Saturday into Sunday, said the head of the local regional military administration, Oleh Syniehubov.

Air traffic briefly halted after drone strike

Moscow’s Vnukovo airport, one of the largest in Russia, briefly suspended flights early Sunday after a drone attack near the Russian capital. Air traffic at the facility about 9 miles southwest of Moscow was halted after a drone was shot down in the airspace around the city.

The drone was destroyed by air defense systems in the Podolsk region of the Moscow suburbs, the Russian defense ministry said.

Ukraine has stepped up drone attacks in the past month, and the airport strike was one of four targeting Moscow in recent weeks.

Contributing: The Associated Press