The Kremlin-appointed authorities in Melitopol confirm the explosion in the city center. According to local media, Ukrainian resistance fighters are behind it.
Updated less than 20 minutes ago
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The explosion allegedly took place at an administration building in the city. The pro-Russian authorities in Melitopol have classified the explosion as a terrorist attack, according to RIA Novosti.
– This morning, a terrorist attack took place in Melitopol, with the aim of destabilizing the peaceful life in the city, local Kremlin-appointed authorities claim in a statement. They write that a car with explosives exploded in the center of the city at 08.00 in the morning.
Two people were injured in the explosion, which was first described as a car bomb.
The news agency Nexta writes that the pro-Russian collaborator Ievhen Balykij, who the Kremlin has appointed as leader of the occupied territory, is said to have been nearby when the car exploded.
Melitopol ended up under Russian control early on:
according to the local newspaper Dyaloh bor Balykij in the area where the explosion took place. The newspaper claims Ukrainian resistance fighters are behind the explosion.
However, the Russian news agency Tass writes that the local Kremlin-designated authorities deny that Balyki lives in the area, or that the attack was directed at him.
In the pictures you can see dark smoke rising from the place.
Ria-Melitopol – a Ukrainian local newspaper not to be confused with Russian Ria Novosti – writes Facebook that the area around the explosion is cordoned off. The news agency has published a picture of an injured woman who is being carried away in a stretcher shortly after the explosion.
The news agency claims Balykij’s cousin was injured in the attack.
The mayor of Melitopol, Ivan Federov, was abducted by Russian forces early in the invasion:
In the city, which is located in the province of Zaporizhia, a resistance movement has recently carried out several attacks on the Russian forces that have occupied the city since February.
On May 18, they must according BBC have carried out a sabotage operation that derailed an armored Russian military train. Russian soldiers have been found dead in the streets of Melitopol, and bridges into the city have been blown up to cut Russia’s supply lines.
– This is our guerrilla soldiers, intelligence services and soldiers’ work. They are doing this job together, said Ukrainian Melitopol mayor Ivan Fedorov to the BBC last week. Earlier in the war, Fedorov was abducted by Russian forces and released during a prisoner exchange.
Ukrainian forces have carried out several sabotage operations during the war, in particular by destroying their own infrastructure:
It has also been speculated whether Ukrainian sabotage groups have been active on the Russian side of the border since explosions and fires in a number of strategically important places in Russia.
The governor of the Russian province of Kursk, Roman Starovojt, has previously claimed that Ukraine sabotaged a railway bridge on Russian territory.
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