Mayor: Russians turn occupied Melitopol into military base

Exiled Melitopol Mayor Ivan Fedorov said that Russian troops began to arrive in the city both from Kherson Oblast and from another Russian-occupied town of Tokmak, located in the Zaporizhzhia Oblast.

The mayor said that Russians are building fortifications inside the city and deploying military equipment in residential areas. He added that civilians were warned not to approach the area close to the Melitopol airfield. 

Melitopol, the city of some 150,000 people in Zaporizhzhia Oblast, was occupied by Russia in late February, a few days after the all-out invasion began. It is located between Kherson and Mariupol, several kilometers north of the Black Sea coast.