Deadly Russian strike hits Ukraine blood transfusion center: Zelenskyy

Russian forces struck a blood transfusion center in the Kharkiv region of northeast Ukraine, the country’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Saturday, 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, Zelenskyy said on social media.

“Rescuers are extinguishing the fire,” he said, adding: “This war crime alone says everything about Russian aggression.”

The reported strike came shortly after Zelenskyy said Russian missiles had hit a facility of the Ukrainian aeronautics group Motor Sich, one of several companies requisitioned by the government since Moscow’s invasion.

The Motor Sich site was near Khmelnytskyi in western Ukraine, around 300 kilometers (190 miles) southwest of Kyiv.

The Khmelnytskyi region, hundreds of kilometers from the front lines of the fighting and home to a major Ukrainian airbase, has been regularly targeted by Russian strikes in recent months.

The Russian attacks came after Ukraine carried out a drone strike overnight on a Russian tanker in the Kerch Strait, a day after another Russian ship was hit in the Black Sea.