A Russian bomb on a blood transfusion center in Ukraine on Saturday evening caused “deaths and injuries”, announced Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
“There are dead and injured” in this attack in Koupyansk, in the Kharkiv region, in the east of the country, President Zelensky said on Telegram.
“This war crime says it all about Russian aggression. Beasts that destroy everything that simply allows us to live, ”he denounced.
“Our rescuers are putting out the fire,” he said.
Russian missiles also hit Saturday night buildings of the Ukrainian aircraft manufacturer Motor Sich, a company “of strategic importance”, several hours after the attack by a Ukrainian drone of a Russian tanker in the Black Sea.
Growing tensions in the Black Sea
The number of attacks has increased on both sides since Moscow refused in mid-July to renew a UN-brokered agreement that allowed Ukrainian grain exports.
A Russian tanker was hit overnight from Friday to Saturday by a Ukrainian drone in the Kerch Strait, briefly interrupting traffic on the strategic bridge linking Crimea to Russia amid growing tensions in the Black Sea.
A Russian warship had already been hit early Friday by a Ukrainian drone at a Black Sea base and on Saturday Moscow claimed to have launched an Su-30 to intercept a US Reaper drone over the sea.
The number of attacks has increased on both sides since Moscow refused in mid-July to renew a UN-brokered agreement that allowed Ukrainian grain exports.
“During the night, the SBU (Ukrainian security services) blew up the ‘SIG’, an important tanker from Russia which was carrying fuel for the Russian soldiers,” a source from the services told AFP on Saturday. calling the ship “one of Russia’s leading tankers”.
This new “special operation” was carried out “successfully” with a naval drone and explosives, she added, assuring that the ship “was well loaded with fuel so the ‘fireworks’ were visible from afar “.
This source thus confirmed the attack previously announced by the Russian Federal Agency for Maritime Transport on Telegram and the Russian agency RIA Novosti, which had specified that it had not caused any victims.
Russian diplomacy condemned a Ukrainian attack against “a civilian ship”, which “not only put its crew at risk of death, but also raised the threat of a large-scale environmental disaster”.
Attack on a Russian port
According to the Russian maritime agency, the SIG tanker was hit around 11:20 p.m. local time south of the Kerch Strait. It suffered a hole in the waterline in the engine room area, ‘likely the result of a naval drone attack’ but it ‘is afloat’ and preparations are underway to repair the damage.
The ship is under US sanctions for supplying kerosene to Russian forces during the war in Syria.
Traffic on the Crimean Bridge, connecting this peninsula annexed in 2014 to Russia, was suspended for three hours before resuming early Saturday, according to the Russian highway information center.
This bridge, hit twice by deadly Ukrainian operations, is used to transport equipment to the Russian military on the Ukrainian front but is also open to civilian road and rail traffic.
In Crimea itself, the Russian authorities announced on Saturday that they had shot down a Ukrainian drone during a new attempt to attack Sevastopol, a major port and Russian base on this peninsula.
On Friday, a Ukrainian drone strike targeted for the first time a Russian landing ship, the Olenegrorski Gorniak, in a Russian base, Novorossiysk, a major oil port in southwestern Russia and terminus of an oil pipeline which serves in particular for the export of Kazakh oil.
The operation was “successful”, an SBU source told AFP, adding that “the objective was to show that Ukraine could attack any Russian warship in this area”.
Russia assured that it had repelled a Ukrainian attempt involving “two unmanned boats” against this base.
Meeting without Russia in Jeddah
On the diplomatic front, Saudi Arabia, which backed UN Security Council resolutions after the Russian invasion, is hosting a two-day meeting in Jeddah on Saturday to discuss the “Ukrainian crisis”.
About 30 countries have been invited, but not Russia, according to diplomats. Among the emerging powers of the BRICS group, China, India and South Africa have indicated that they will participate.
Several attempts at mediation to achieve peace in Ukraine have already been undertaken without great results, including via the visit of a delegation of African leaders to Kiev and Moscow and that of a Chinese envoy.
Russians and Ukrainians had also held talks in the first months of the war without reaching a cessation of hostilities.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky launched a counter-offensive in early June aimed at retaking territories currently controlled by Russia, including Crimea. This operation has so far met with only modest success.
The Russian army for its part claimed on Saturday the capture of the village of Novoselivské, in the north-east of Ukraine, an area where it has been attacking for several weeks.
