CNN
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Ukrainian forces attacked the Russian-occupied city of Melitopol last weekend, opening a new front in the fight to reclaim lands south of Kiev, underscoring the importance of long-range weapons.
According to deposed mayor Ivan Fedorov, the attacks hit various sites, including a church that is being used as a base for Russian troops.
“Fireworks went off east of Melitopol,” he said in a post on the social messaging app Telegram on Saturday, claiming that 200 people were killed and 300 injured in heavy artillery shelling into the city.
In an interview with Ukrainian television the next day, Federov disputed the number, saying that “dozens” had died. He has a restaurant and hotel complex on the outskirts of Melitopol known as “Private Okhotnika” or Hunter’s Rest, a checkpoint 20 km (12 mi) from the city of Novobodahnivka, and his military unit. It added that three sites were attacked. “Completely destroyed” near the village of Semenivka.
Yevgeny Baritsky, the Russian-installed governor of the Zaporizhzhya region, where Melitopol is located, said Ukraine had attacked Melitopol using the HIMARS system, killing two people and wounding ten others, three of them in hospital. He said he received treatment. Reported by Fedorov.
“Ukrainian HIMARS were launched on the outskirts of Melitopol. Two missiles were shot down by anti-aircraft defenses, but four reached their targets,” Baritsky said in a Telegram post on Saturday, adding that the giant shared a video of the emergency services responding to the blaze. He claimed the targets included a “recreation center” where civilians and military personnel were having dinner on Saturday night, but did not name them.
In an interview on Monday, Fedorov claimed that Russian troops in the city were “panicked” and “redeployed” following the attack on the Ukrainian city. Without providing any evidence, he said, “They are busy trying to hide them by moving groups of troops to different locations.”
The southeastern city of Melitopol on the banks of the Morochina River fell to Moscow in March shortly after the invasion.was the mayor kidnapped It was liberated by Russian forces while the pro-Kremlin regime was installed.
Melitopol lies south of the city of Zaporizhia and east of the recently recaptured city of Kherson by Ukrainian forces. This is a major Russian logistics hub that has been in Russian hands for months, but has come under attack from Ukrainian counterattacks in recent weeks.
Oleksiy Arrestovich, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, emphasized the importance of the city in comments sent to local media Fagin Live on Saturday.
“If Melitopol falls, the entire[occupier’s]defense against Kherson will collapse, and Ukrainian forces will rush to the border with Crimea on the isthmus,” Arrestovich said.
Attack on Melitopol Ukrainians also raided the hotelwhich allegedly housed Wagnerian mercenary units in Luhansk.
Heavy artillery, including the use of Grad missiles, was also reported overnight in the Dnipropetrovsk region of southern Ukraine, Dnipropetrovsk regional military chief Valentin Reznichenko told Telegram on Monday.
The attack on Kiev comes as a Russian strike rages on Ukraine’s power grid and warnings are mounting that an energy crisis will hit the country.
Across Ukraine, crews scramble to restore their energy capacity faster than Moscow’s forces can knock them out.
Ukraine’s prime minister said on Sunday that all of Ukraine’s thermal and hydroelectric power plants had been damaged in relentless Russian missile attacks aimed at the country’s power system.
Prime Minister of Ukraine Dennis Schmichal said. [power] This follows eight waves of Russian attacks targeting critical infrastructure.
“All thermal and hydropower plants were affected, and 40% of high-voltage network installations were damaged to varying degrees,” Shmyhal said. “Each of us must realize that we must live this winter with significantly limited electricity consumption.”
A Russian drone struck Odessa, a key port city in southern Ukraine, plunging more than 1.5 million people into darkness over the weekend. Odessa Mayor Hennady Trukhanov said in a Telegram statement that power and water supplies to the city were gradually being restored, but that 300,000 people were still without power on Sunday.
“It’s not easy, but the situation is pretty much under control,” he said, adding that his administration has reopened pumping stations and is delivering water by truck to areas where water shortages persist.
In a speech Sunday evening, President Zelensky said Russian forces shot down 10 of the 15 drones deployed by Russia over Odessa. He called the attack by Russian drones “serious” and suggested it would take days to restore power to the region.
“The power system is far from normal right now, to say the least,” he said.
The port of Odessa is key to exporting important food products for Ukraine, such as through the “Grain from Ukraine” initiative aimed at addressing the global hunger crisis.
Ukrenergo, Ukraine’s state-owned energy provider, reported that there is still a “significant power shortage” in the grid.
“The situation in the Odessa region remains difficult and the restoration of power supplies to consumers continues,” said a Facebook post, noting that the destruction caused by the Russian attack “has reduced the capacity of thermal power plants. We need more time to get them back to work.”
