Targeting one southern city, Ukraine hints at next front

KYIV, UKRAINE >> Ukraine is stepping up efforts to isolate and degrade Russian forces in and around the strategically vital city of Melitopol, ahead of what is widely expected to be the next major phase of the war, a Ukrainian offensive to drive Russian forces from southern Ukraine.

Kyiv has been using long-range precision missile strikes, sabotage missions and targeted assassinations to hone in on the city, which lies about 40 miles behind the front lines in the Zaporizhzhia region. Melitopol is known as the gateway to Crimea because of its location at the crossroads of two major highways and a crucial rail line linking Russia to that peninsula and other territory it occupies in southern Ukraine.

A bridge in Melitopol across the Molochna River was sabotaged Monday night — an act that both Ukrainian and Russian officials attributed to Kyiv's forces — with video showing that two pillars supporting the span had been blown up. The bridge's destruction compromised a key Russian supply route to Melitopol from the south.

Both Ukrainian and Russian officials have acknowledged the recent Ukrainian strikes and attempts to hit Russian command centers, ammunition depots and supply routes in Melitopol, whose prewar population was about 150,000. The aftermaths of some of the recent attacks have been captured on video broadcast on social media by Russian soldiers.

“All this hangs completely on Melitopol,” Oleksiy Arestovych, a top adviser to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said over the weekend. “If Melitopol falls, the entire Russian defense up to Kherson collapses, and the Ukrainian armed forces jump right to the border with Crimea.”

Last week, the Kremlin appointed deputy head of Melitopol survived an assassination attempt, Russian state media reported — the latest in a string of attacks on Moscow's proxy administrators in occupied Ukraine. An explosive detonated near the Melitopol official, Nikolai Volyk, as he was leaving his home, according to the state-run News agency RIA Novosti.

On Tuesday afternoon, a loud explosion was reported in the center of Melitopol, according to the city's exiled mayor, Ivan Fedorov. The explosion was followed by sustained gunfire, he said. It was not immediately clear what might have been targeted, as Russian forces immediately blocked roads in the area.