A Renault Duster exploded in the center of Russian-occupied Melitopol, reports city mayor Ivan Fedorov. “A car is ablaze, burning to ashes in the central avenue of Melitopol. Meanwhile, Ruscist cronies have their butts on fire, fearing they will be next,” he wrote, adding that eyewitness reports suggest there were Russians in the vehicle.
Ukrainian Telegram channels report that a makeshift bomb went off in the car, with two FSB officers on board. One of them lost a limb in the explosion. The data is pending official confirmation.
Early in December, Melitopol saw an assassination attempt on a Russian appointee, deputy head of the occupation administration Nikolai Volyk. The attack took place at 6:40 a.m., as he was leaving home. An explosion shook his entrance hall, shattering windows from the first to the ninth floor. The collaborator was unscathed. A couple of weeks before that, unknown individuals tried to kill Andrei Boyko, the “deputy minister for culture, sport, and tourism” of the Zaporizhzhia Region.
Meanwhile, the victim of the latest targeted Ukrainian attack, former Roscosmos head Dmitry Rogozin, who sustained several wounds during a hotel shelling in Donetsk on December 22, is being transferred to Moscow for surgery.