AFP – Ukraine stepped up attacks behind Russian lines on Wednesday, killing a Russian election official with a car bomb and carrying out a drone attack on a metal factory.
The strike also rocked the Ukrainian port city of Odesa during a visit by Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, who was meeting in the city with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
Both Russia and Ukraine have stepped up airstrikes as Moscow’s forces advance to the front and Kiev faces shortages of personnel and weapons.
“We heard sirens and explosions near us. We didn’t have time to go to the evacuation center. It’s a very intense experience,” Mitsotakis said through an interpreter in Odesa.
President Zelenskiy said the airstrikes had caused “dead and injured people” but did not give figures.
“You know who we’re up against. They don’t care where they attack,” he said at a joint press conference.
The apparent blow came days after a Russian drone crashed into an apartment complex in the Black Sea city, killing 12 people, including five children. It was one of the worst attacks on civilians in recent weeks.
Ukraine claims responsibility for car bomb killing of Russia-backed politician https://t.co/kTAnERJSAb
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) November 9, 2023
– Car bomb –
Authorities in the Russian-occupied city of Berdyansk in southern Ukraine announced that a local election official had been killed in a car bombing that Kiev blamed.
In a statement, the investigation committee said, “A homemade explosive device was placed under the vehicle of a member of the electoral district election commission.”
“The victim died from his injuries,” he added, showing a video of a small beige car parked on a dirt track being blown away.
The attack came as early voting was already underway across occupied Ukraine for this month’s Russian presidential election.
Evgeny Balitsky, the head of Moscow’s Zaporizhzhya region, blamed Ukrainian authorities for the attack, saying they were trying to “intimidate” residents ahead of the vote.
Since the Russian government launched a full-scale military operation in Ukraine two years ago, a number of Russian-appointed officials have been targeted.
Russia also announced that Ukraine had struck a fuel tank at a metal factory in the Kursk region in an early morning drone strike.
“Drones attacked a fuel and lubricant warehouse” at the Mikhailovsky mining and processing plant in the city of Zheleznogorsk, about 90 kilometers from the border with Ukraine, Kursk Oblast Governor Roman Starovoit said.
Video posted on Russian social media showed a fire breaking out inside a cylindrical fuel storage tank, sending plumes of dark gray smoke rising.
Ukraine assassinates former politician who criticized Zelenskiy, calling him ‘traitor and collaborator’https://t.co/MRCbeMDRGI
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) December 6, 2023
– Fortress –
Ukraine’s military has launched a spate of drone attacks on Russian energy facilities in recent months, seeking to target the country’s vital energy and gas sector, which it says is facilitating the invasion.
Meanwhile, Russian-appointed officials announced that two people were killed in Ukrainian military shelling of the town of Kremina in Ukraine’s Lugansk region.
The Moscow-appointed head of the region said five more people were killed when a bus drove over a mine in Kirovsk, also in Lugansk.
Lugansk is one of four regions of Ukraine that Russia claims to annex in 2022, along with Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia.
The region has been at war since 2014, when Russian-backed separatists attempted to break away following a pro-EU revolution in Kiev.
On the front, the Ukrainian military announced on Wednesday that it had built an “extensive system” of fortifications near the town of Advivka, which was captured by Russia last month, to deter further Russian advances.
Hold-ups on Western aid, including a critical $60 billion in aid primarily from the United States, have left Ukraine’s military in a vulnerable position, forced to ration ammunition and unable to mount large-scale attacks. There is.
– “Active Combat Zone” –
Russian President Vladimir Putin also met with International Atomic Energy Agency Director-General Rafael Grossi in Sochi to discuss the situation at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.
The facility is Europe’s largest nuclear energy facility and was captured by Russian forces early in the war.
In an interview with AFP ahead of the meeting, Grossi rejected Russian proposals to potentially open the factory.
“It’s not imminent,” he told AFP in response to suggestions by Russian carriers that he could switch it back on.
“First of all, this is an active combat zone and we cannot forget this. Secondly, this factory has been down for a long time,” he added.
