The Ukrainian military’s Southern Command said Thursday that it had struck an ammunition depot in the village of Bilohirka, near the front line of fighting in the Kherson region. The rocket strike is the latest in a series of attacks that have targeted logistics in the Russian-occupied south—part of a strategy to starve Russian troops in the region of supplies and force them to withdraw from the territory they are holding west of the Dnipro River.
A day earlier, the Ukrainian military posted video to social media that appeared to show the aftermath of a long-range rocket strike on Nova Kakhovka, also in the Kherson region. And on Tuesday, pro-Ukrainian saboteurs destroyed an ammunition depot in Crimea, which Russia seized in 2014. Video on social media Thursday also showed large explosions overnight in Russian-occupied Amvrosiivka, in the eastern Donetsk region; Ukrainian officials didn’t immediately comment on the cause.
As Ukrainian strikes inside Russian-held territory increase, Russian forces are attempting to crack down on pro-Ukrainian insurgents. A Ukrainian army veteran was arrested in the Kherson region on suspicion of sending locations of Russian troops and bases to Ukrainian forces, Russian state-run news agencies reported on Thursday. In addition, Russia’s FSB intelligence agency on Wednesday said it had detained six Russian citizens in Crimea who belonged to a cell that spread what it called terrorist ideology with the support of Ukrainian emissaries, according to Russian state news agency RIA Novosti.
Meanwhile, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres were in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv on Thursday for meetings about the deal Ankara helped broker with the U.N. to lift a Russian naval blockade on Ukrainian exports, which had led to food shortages throughout the Middle East and Africa. Four more ships loaded with agricultural products sailed from Ukrainian ports on Wednesday under the deal, according to Turkish officials.
Mr. Guterres was also expected to discuss the standoff at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant with Mr. Zelensky. Explosions in and around the plant, which Russian forces are occupying, have knocked one reactor off the power grid, injured at least one plant employee and led to fears of another nuclear catastrophe like the 1986 meltdown at the Chernobyl nuclear plant in northern Ukraine.
“Only absolute transparency and controlled situation at and around [the plant] can guarantee a gradual return to normal nuclear safety for the Ukrainian state, the international community” and the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mr. Zelensky said in an address posted online late Wednesday night. “The Russian army must withdraw from the territory of the nuclear power plant and all neighboring areas, and take away its military equipment from the plant.”