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.

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.

Vows more work to fight graft, names no targets

Zelenskiy also promised a fresh round of institutional “cleaning,” a reference to his ongoing campaign to impress Western partners by showing Kyiv has moved on from a history of deep-rooted graft.

“Next week will be a continuation of our work on cleaning state institutions of those who tried to drag from the past all those old habits, old schemes that weakened Ukraine for a very long time, for decades,” he said in his nightly address.

Zelenskiy gave no details about who might be a target. He has recently expressed indignation at corruption uncovered during an audit of Ukraine’s military recruitment centres but is anxious to root out graft in general as he presses to join NATO and the European Union.

On Saturday he vowed “no more old formats” in Ukraine, where he said some sought to reap rewards by putting the state and others at their own service. “Whoever a person is, a military commissar, a deputy, or an official, everyone must work only for the interests of the state,” he said.