<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cAir defence systems destroyed two missiles, four reached their targets,\u201d Yevgeny Balitsky, the Moscow-appointed governor of the occupied part of the Zaporizhzhia region, said on the Telegram messaging app.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He said a \u201crecreation centre\u201d where people were dining was destroyed in the Ukrainian attack with Himars missiles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The exiled mayor, Ivan Fedorov, said on his Telegram channel that the attack hit a church that Russians had turned into a gathering place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Vladimir Rogov, another Moscow-installed official in the Russian-controlled part of Zaporizhzhia, said a fire caused by the strike engulfed the recreation centre. He posted a video of a structure in flames.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Himars multiple rocket launchers have been among Ukraine\u2019s most effective weapons in the war, delivering precision fire on hundreds of targets, including Russian command posts. On Friday, the United States said it was sending more aid to Kyiv to strengthen its air defences and defeat drones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The city of Melitopol is seen as the next major objective for Ukrainian forces in the south of the country since Ukraine retook the major city of Kherson.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With Ukrainian forces now operating on the east bank of the Dnieper River, opposite Kherson, and with their forces now able to place Himars rocket systems on the west bank, Russian forces in the city have come under an increasing threat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Oleksiy Arestovych, an adviser to the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said Melitopol, a major industrial and transport centre occupied by Russia since March, was the key to south.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAll logistics linking the Russian forces on the eastern part of the Kherson region and all the way to the Russian border near Mariupol is carried out through it,\u201d Arestovych said in a video interview on social media.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIf Melitopol falls, the entire [Russian] defence line all the way to Kherson collapses. Ukrainian forces gain a direct route to Crimea.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There was no immediate comment from the Ukrainian army about the attacks. Earlier in the day, the central command of Ukraine\u2019s armed forces said it had been conducting strikes on Melitopol.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ukraine has attacked a barracks in the Russian-occupied city of Melitopol with some Ukrainian sources claiming scores of Russian casualties. According to witnesses 10 explosions were heard, although some of those may have been from Russian anti-aircraft systems. Ukrainian officials claimed scores of Russian dead and injured while Russia conceded a handful of casualties. Video […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":28360,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_post_source_name":"","_post_source_url":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[6850,11363,11830,8217,5304,11394,7358,9204,6537,9331,6623,5262,6083,7445,5800,5494,9567,6159,5184,9225,8995,11111,11493,7601,9515,5342,5657,5331,10433,5254,12985,5340,6072,7370,11973,11082,3805,6627,9110,7639,3457,5217,9634,3852,8905,8904,5349,5818,5180,5555,8828,9262,8033,6886,9318,5251,5724,5570,8280,6874],"class_list":["post-28359","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-news","tag-aid","tag-aircraft","tag-armed-forces","tag-army","tag-attack","tag-attacks","tag-bank","tag-border","tag-church","tag-city","tag-crimea","tag-cut","tag-dead","tag-drones","tag-electricity","tag-energy","tag-explosions","tag-fire","tag-flames","tag-himars","tag-infrastructure","tag-injured","tag-interview","tag-kherson","tag-killed","tag-kyiv","tag-mariupol","tag-mayor","tag-melitopol","tag-missile","tag-missiles","tag-moscow","tag-odesa","tag-oleksiy-arestovych","tag-one","tag-port","tag-president","tag-ria-melitopol","tag-river","tag-rocket","tag-russia","tag-russian","tag-russian-border","tag-russians","tag-sevastopol","tag-simferopol","tag-social-media","tag-strike","tag-ukraine","tag-ukrainian","tag-ukrane","tag-united-states","tag-video","tag-volodymyr-zelenskiy","tag-wagner","tag-war","tag-weapons","tag-west-bank","tag-zaporizhzhia","tag-zelenskiy"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28359","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28359"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28359\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28360"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28359"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28359"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28359"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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