At least three Russian officers have been killed in the Moscow-controlled Ukrainian city of Melitopol in a blast Ukraine’s intelligence said was an “act of revenge” by local resistance groups.
Key points:
- Melitopol, in the Zaporizhzhia region, has become key to Russia’s defence of the lands it controls in Ukraine’s south
- Ukraine’s intelligence service says three Russian officers were killed by a blast caused by a local resistance group
- Russia’s defence ministry did not immediately responded to request to comment
The blast occurred during a meeting on Saturday of Russian officers in Melitopol, a town in south-western Ukraine that has become a hub of Russian forces after they captured it in the early days of the war.
“This act of revenge, carried out by representatives of the local resistance movement, took place in the (post) offices seized by the Russians,” the Ukrainian Defence Ministry’s intelligence department said on the Telegram messaging app.
Reuters could not independently verify the Ukrainian intelligence claim.
Russia’s defence ministry did not immediately responded to request to comment.
The Ukraine intelligence statement said the Saturday meeting was attended by Russian National Guard and FSB intelligence service officers.
“As a result of the explosion at least three National Guard officers were killed at the headquarters,” the statement said.
“Information of other enemy losses is being clarified.”
Both Russia and Ukraine have often underestimated their military casualties in the 20-month-long war, while exaggerated the losses they claim to have inflicted upon each other.
Ukraine has carried out a number of attacks on Melitopol, a town in the Zaporizhzhia region which had a pre-war population of about 150,000, which has become key to Moscow’s defence of the lands it now controls in Ukraine’s south.
“The enemy does not learn anything and continues to organise its headquarters there,” Ivan Fedorov, the exiled mayor of Melitopol, told Ukrainian public television.
Ukraine, which launched a slow and gruelling counteroffensive in the south and east in early June, has retaken only a handful of small villages along the front.
Kyiv said retaking Melitopol would open a route to the Crimea Peninsula for Ukrainian forces.
Ukrainian forces staged a missile attack on the Black Sea Fleet headquarters in Russian-annexed Crimea in September.
Ukrainian media said an attack last week on the occupied town of Skadovsk in Kherson region also targeted Russian officers.
The Melitopol bombing came just over a day after more than a dozen freight cars carrying cargo in Russia’s western Ryazan region were derailed by an improvised explosive device, according to Russian law enforcement.
Nineteen carriages travelling from the town of Rybnoye were thrown from the tracks and 15 were damaged, investigators wrote in a statement on social media. They said they would be opening a criminal investigation on terrorism charges.
A regional branch of Ukraine’s public broadcaster, Suspilne, on Saturday cited anonymous sources from Ukraine’s GUR as claiming that the intelligence agency was behind the blast.
A spokesman for the GUR, Andriy Yusov, that same day refused to confirm or deny the agency’s involvement, but said that similar strikes within Russia “will continue”.
Mr Yusov made the remarks in an interview with the Ukrainian armed forces’ official news service, ArmyInform.
Russian officials have previously blamed pro-Ukrainian saboteurs for several attacks on the country’s railway system since Moscow invaded the country in February 2022, although no group has claimed responsibility for the damage.
Reuters/AP