Wrapup 1: Ukraine says blood transfusion centre hit in Russian attacks; Crimea bridges hit

Novorossiysk Commercial Sea Port PAO

06/08/2023 08:39

* 
      Zelenskiy says hit on blood transfusion point is 'war
crime'
    

        * 
      No details of dead or wounded from incident
    

        * 
      Russia says it targets military air fields in overnight
attacks
    

        * 
      Two bridges to Russian-occupied Crimea reported hit
    

  
 (Combines items on Russian and Ukrainian attacks, oil pipeline
leak, talks in Saudi Arabia)
    By Pavel Polityuk
       KYIV, Aug 6 (Reuters) - Ukraine said Russia bombed a
blood transfusion centre near the front line in a wave of air
strikes overnight while Moscow reported that it had shot down a
drone heading to the capital on Sunday in the third such attack
in a week.
    Both countries have stepped up attacks on each other's
troops, weaponry and infrastructure supporting the war as
Ukraine seeks to dislodge Russian forces who have dug in across
southern and eastern Ukraine since their invasion last year.
    The Moscow-appointed head of Crimea said the Chonhar bridge
to the peninsula, which was annexed from Ukraine by Moscow in
2014, had been damaged by a missile strike. Another of the three
road links between Crimea and Russian-occupied parts of mainland
Ukraine, near the town of Henichesk, was shelled and a civilian
driver wounded, a Moscow-appointed official said.
    Traffic was halted on a third bridge, linking Russia to
Crimea, after both sides said a Ukrainian naval drone full of
explosives struck a Russian fuel tanker vessel overnight from
Friday to Saturday, the second such attack in 24 hours.
    The attacks are making it increasingly hard to get on and
off the Black Sea peninsula, which is of military importance to
Moscow as well as a popular tourist destination for Russians.
    Inside Russia, Moscow's Vnukovo airport suspended flights on
Sunday, citing unspecified reasons outside its control. Vnukovo
imposed similar suspensions when Moscow was attacked by drones
last week. Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin said a drone had been
shot down on Sunday south of the capital.
    At least 10 Russian missiles appear to have got through
Ukraine's air defences in the overnight attack, which Ukraine's
air force said involved 70 air assault weapons including cruise
and hypersonic missiles as well as Iranian-made drones.
    Local media said a worker at a grain silo had been wounded
and a rescuer died during a rescue operation.
    The attacks followed what President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said
was a bomb attack on a blood transfusion centre in the town of
Kupiansk, a railway hub around 16 km (10 miles) from the front
in the eastern Kharkiv region.
    "There are dead and wounded," he said on his Telegram
channel, adding that rescue workers were extinguishing a fire at
the scene and describing the strike as a "war crime".
    He did not say how many casualties there were or whether
they were military or civilian. Reuters could not immediately
verify the report.
    Russia denies deliberately targeting civilians or military
hospitals in its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which has
killed thousands of people, uprooted millions and destroyed
cities.
    Russia's defence ministry said it had conducted successful
strikes on Ukrainian air bases in the western Rivne and
Khmelnytskyi regions and southern Zaporizhzhia region, without
giving details.
    Ukraine's air force said it destroyed 30 out of 40 cruise
missiles and all 27 of the Shahed drones that Russia launched
overnight. It also said Russia launched three Kinzhal hypersonic
missiles, but did not disclose any further information on them.
    It was not clear what happened to the 10 cruise missiles
that were not shot down.
    The deputy governor of the Khmelnytskyi region, Serhiy
Tiurin, said a military airfield in Starokostiantyniv was among
the targets. He said most of the missiles were shot down, but
explosions had damaged several houses, a cultural institution
and the bus station and a fire had broken out at a grain silo.
    "Now, it is the Starokostiantyniv airfield that haunts the
enemy," Ukrainian Air Force spokesman Yuriy Ihnat said.
    Russia had targeted the airfield at the end of July.
    
    PIPELINE LEAK
    Poland halted oil flows through one part of the Druzhba
pipeline carrying oil from Russia to Europe after detecting a
leak, the latest hitch to energy flows since Russia invaded
Ukraine. There was no indication of the cause and Germany said
oil supplies were secure. Poland said it expected oil to flow
again on Tuesday.
    Ukraine is two months into a gruelling counteroffensive to
try to push out Russian forces occupying almost a fifth of its
territory in the south and east.
    U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said late last month
that while Ukraine had recaptured half the territory that Russia
had initially seized, the Ukrainian counteroffensive was in its
early days and would take shape over "several months".
    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.
    Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev suggested Moscow
would launch more strikes against Ukrainian ports in response to
Kyiv's attacks on Russian ships in the Black Sea, and threatened
to hand Ukraine "an ecological catastrophe".
    Zelenskiy's aide Mykhailo Podoliak characterised the
overnight Russian missile attacks as a response to Ukraine's
overtures to Global South countries that have been reluctant to
take sides in a conflict that has hurt the global economy.
    Senior officials from some 40 countries including the U.S.,
China and India held talks in Saudi Arabia on Saturday and
Sunday that Kyiv and its allies hope will lead to agreement on
key principles for a peaceful end to Russia's war in Ukraine.
    The two-day meeting is part of a diplomatic push by Ukraine
to build support beyond its core Western backers. Zelenskiy's
head of staff, Andriy Yermak, said they had been very productive
discussions but did not give details.
    Russia is not attending, though the Kremlin has said it will
keep an eye on the talks. Ukrainian, Russian and international
officials say there is no prospect of direct peace talks between
Ukraine and Russia at present, with the war raging.
    

 (Additional reporting by Lidia Kelly, Anna Wlodarczak-Semczuk
and Vera Eckhert; writing by Philippa Fletcher; editing by Giles
Elgood)
 ((lidia.kelly@thomsonreuters.com;))