Ukraine war: ‘powerful’ blasts heard in occupied city of Melitopol

There have reportedly been “powerful” blasts overnight in the Russian-occupied city of Melitopol.

“Several powerful explosions have just been recorded in the city,” Ivan Fedorov, exiled mayor of Melitopol in the Zaporizhzhia region, wrote on Telegram.

Melitopol, about 100km south of the front line, is strategically important for Moscow as a rail and road hub, linking Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014, with land that Russia occupies in eastern Ukraine.

Should Ukraine recapture the city, it would effectively divide Russian territory, making resupply much more difficult.

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Ukraine has made what the Financial Times calls its “most explicit statement of Ukraine’s interest in negotiations” since cutting off peace talks last year in April, saying that it is willing to discuss the future of Crimea.

In an interview with the publication, Andriy Sybiha, deputy head of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s office, said “If we will succeed in achieving our strategic goals on the battlefield and when we will be on the administrative border with Crimea, we are ready to open [a] diplomatic page to discuss this issue”, adding: “it doesn’t mean that we exclude the way of liberation [of Crimea] by our army”.

The FT report continues: “Sybiha’s remarks may relieve western officials who are sceptical about Ukraine’s ability to reclaim the peninsula and worry that any attempt to do so militarily could lead President Vladimir Putin to escalate his war, possibly with nuclear weapons”.

To date Mr Zelenskiy has ruled out peace talks until Russian forces leave all of Ukraine, including Crimea.

Mr Sybiha said the president and his aides were now talking specifically about Crimea, as Ukraine’s army gets closer to launching its counteroffensive to regain territory.

Mr Zelenskiy said Poland may help form a coalition of western powers to supply warplanes to Kyiv.

During a visit to Warsaw on Wednesday, Mr Zelenskiy said Poland had been instrumental in getting western allies to send battle tanks to Ukraine and he believed it could play the same role in a “planes coalition”.

The Polish government said it would send 10 more MiG fighter jets on top of four provided earlier, but so far there has been no agreement from the United States or Ukraine’s other major military backers to send the F-16 fighters Kyiv has requested. – Guardian