An explosion went off in Melitopol at around 5:20 Kyiv time today, Ivan Fedorov, Ukrainian mayor of the city, said on nationwide TV.
The explosion killed a “police officer”, says Vladimir Rogov, head of Russia’s Zaporizhzhia region occupation administration. The man died in hospital, Rogov says. Another policeman was also injured and hospitalised.
Fedorov said that he wouldn’t reveal the name and the position of the police officer in question, since this data was being “clarified”. Mash Telegram channel says the killed officer is Alexander Mishchenko, 42, a district police chief.
Fedorov later clarified the policeman’s credentials. “He died in hospital,” Fedorov wrote, adding that Mishchenko held the same position before the start of the war but switched sides and joined Russia’s occupation authorities when the invasion began.
The occupation administration reported in its Telegram channel that an improvised explosive device had gone off at around 5:15 in the morning near a residential block.
