KYIV: Ukraine stepped up attacks behind Russian lines on Wednesday with the apparent killing of a Russian election official in a car bomb and a drone assault on a metals plant.
Strikes also rocked the Ukrainian port city of Odesa during a visit by Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, who was holding talks in the city with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Both Russia and Ukraine have increased their aerial attacks as Moscow’s troops advance on the frontlines and Kyiv faces a shortage of manpower and weapons.
‘We heard the sound of sirens and explosions that took place near us. We did not have time to get to a shelter. It is a very intense experience,’ Mitsotakis said through a translator in Odesa. Zelensky said the strike had left ‘dead and wounded’, but he did not have figures. ‘You can see who we are facing. They don’t care where they strike,’ he he told the joint press conference.
The apparent hit comes just days after 12 people, including five children, were killed when a Russian drone hit an apartment block in the Black Sea city, one of the deadliest attacks on civilians for weeks.
Authorities in the Russian-occupied city of Berdyansk in southern Ukraine said a local election official had been killed in a car bombing it blamed on Kyiv.
‘A homemade explosive device was planted under the vehicle of a member of the precinct election commission,’ the Investigative Committee said in a statement.
‘The victim died from her injuries,’ it added, publishing a video of a blown-out small beige car parked on a dirt track. The attack came with early voting already underway across occupied Ukraine for this month’s Russian presidentialelection.
The Moscow-installed head of the Zaporizhzhia region Yevgeny Balitsky blamed Ukrainian authorities for the attack and said they were trying to ‘intimidate’ residents ahead of the ballot. A number of Russianinstalled officials have been targeted since Moscow launched its full-scale military operation in Ukraine two years ago.-AFP