Kyiv, Ukraine
Reuters
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said a Russian guided aerial bomb hit a blood transfusion centre in the town of Kupiansk in eastern Kharkiv region late on Saturday.
“There are dead and wounded,” he said on his Telegram channel. Reuters could not immediately verify the report. Kupiansk is a railway hub fewer than 10 miles from the front.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy discusses a restoration of the Black Sea grain initiative with Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan via a phone line, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine, on 21st July, 2023. PICTURE: Ukrainian Presidential Press Service/Handout via Reuters/File photo
Zelenskiy said rescue workers were extinguishing a fire at the scene and described the strike as a “war crime.” He did not say how many people were killed or wounded.
Russia denies deliberately targeting civilians in a full-scale invasion that has killed thousands of people, uprooted millions and destroyed cities.
Firefighters extinguish a fire in the university building following a reported shelling in the course of Russia-Ukraine conflict in Donetsk, Russian-controlled Ukraine, on 5th August, 2023. PICTURE: Reuters/Alexander Ermochenko
RUSSIA OFFICIAL BLAMES UKRAINE CLUSTER SHELLS FOR DONETSK FIRE
A university building in Donetsk in eastern Ukraine was in flames late on Saturday following Ukrainian shelling, the Russian-installed mayor of the city said.
“As a result of the latest attack on Donetsk, the first building of the university of economics and trade is on fire,” Alexei Kulemzin, the Russian-installed mayor, said on Telegram.
He said preliminary information indicated the cause of the fire was an attack by Ukrainian forces using cluster munitions. Reuters could not verify details of his account.
Ukraine, which received supplies of cluster munitions from the United States last month, has vowed to use them only to dislodge concentrations of enemy soldiers.
– NICK STARKOV in Kyiv, Ukraine, and ELAINE MONAGHAN in Washington DC, US/Reuters
Earlier, a Ukrainian sea drone full of explosives struck a Russian fuel tanker overnight near a bridge linking Russia to annexed Crimea, the second such attack in 24 hours, both sides said on Saturday.
No-one was hurt, but the Crimean Bridge and ferry transport were suspended for several hours, according to Russian-installed officials in Crimea, which Moscow seized from Ukraine in 2014.
A Ukrainian intelligence source told Reuters that the drone with 450 kilograms of explosives hit the SIG vessel as it transported fuel for the Russian military in Ukrainian territorial waters.
“The tanker was well loaded with fuel, so the ‘fireworks’ were seen from afar,” the source said, of the joint operation by Ukraine’s navy and security service.
Kyiv says destroying Russia’s military infrastructure inside Russia or on Russian-controlled territory in Ukraine is crucial to its counteroffensive after the February 2022 invasion.
Another sea drone attack on Russia’s navy base at Novorossiysk damaged a warship on Friday, the first time the Ukrainian navy had projected its power so far from its shores.
And a Ukrainian Government agency warned on Saturday that six Russian Black Sea ports – Anapa, Novorossiysk, Gelendzhik, Tuapse, Sochi, and Taman – were in “war risk area”.
Moscow has bombed Ukrainian ports since its withdrawal last month from a UN-brokered deal to let Ukraine export grain.
Fuel for troops
The SIG tanker had been supplying oil to Russian troops in Syria, according to Vladimir Rogov, a Russian-appointed official in Ukraine’s southeastern region of Zaporizhzhia.
The United States imposed sanctions on the tanker and its owner, St Petersburg-based Transpetrochart, in 2019 for helping provide jet fuel in Syria.
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Vasyl Malyuk, head of Ukraine’s SBU security service, did not directly confirm the latest attack but said any incident with Russian ships or the Crimean bridge was “an absolutely logical and efficient step towards the enemy”.
“Moreover, such special operations are conducted in the territorial waters of Ukraine and are completely legal,” Malyuk said on the Telegram messaging app.
Russia’s Novorossiysk Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre was quoted by the RIA news agency as saying there was no fuel spill from the SIG, as the ship had been carrying only technical ballast. Recovery work was underway with two tugboats nearby.
Rogov posted an audio clip on Telegram in which the SIG requested a tow. He also posted pictures of what he described as shattered fixtures and equipment inside the vessel.
“The SIG tanker…received a hole in the engine room near the waterline on the starboard side, preliminarily as a result of a sea drone attack,” Russia’s Federal Marine and River Transport agency said in a statement on Telegram.
The Moscow-installed authorities in Crimea said the bridge, which was completed by Russia in 2018 and has come under serious attack twice in the war, was not targeted.
– With reporting by TOM BALMFORTH, LIDIA KELLY and RON POPESKI
