Ivan Fedorov, mayor of occupied Melitopol, said the weekend destruction of a railway bridge southwest of the city further complicated Russian supply routes. Fedorov told Ukrainian TV that “the enemy uses Melitopol as a logistics center for the transportation, transshipment of ammunition and heavy weapons. The enemy transports most of the ammunition by rail. On the night of August 13-14, a railway bridge O an enemy cannot yet restore it; the ruins are falling apart.’ Fedorov, who is not in Melitopol, also claimed: “We are seeing the migration of military personnel from Kherson to Melitopol. Military personnel are taking their families out of Melitopol.” He said the Russians have stepped up security in Melitopol, which is in the Zaporizhia region, by controlling the local population. “Mass filtering of local citizens continues in Melitopolis, in people’s homes, on the streets,” he said. Fedorov added that the Russian Security Service (FSB), Russian reserve guards and special Chechen units were present in Melitopol. He said up to 6,000 people were waiting in line to evacuate. “People wait five to seven days, spend the night on the sides of the roads. It’s faster to leave via Crimea, people use that route too,” he said. Meanwhile, Serhii Khlan, an adviser to the head of the Kherson Civil Military Command, told Ukrainian television on Monday that continued attacks by Ukrainian forces on Dnipro River bridges had caused serious difficulties for Russian forces. “The inability (of the Russians) to supply ammunition allows us to say that if they cannot resolve the issue of the crossing on the right bank of the Dnipro in the next two weeks, then they will have no other option than to abandon their positions.” A significant part of the Russian occupation force is located on the right (north) bank of the Dnipro, in the city of Kherson and further upstream. Khlan claimed that the Russians had moved their command headquarters to the south bank of the Dnipro. The Southern Operations Command said Sunday that the highway’s main link — the Antonievsky Bridge — was hit again. Video on social media showed a series of explosions at one end of the bridge, which connects southern Kherson with the regional capital. Khlan said Ukrainian civilians continue to leave Kherson, even as travel has become more difficult. He said that 40% of Ukrainians trying to cross through the only official crossing point into Ukrainian territory (at Vasilivka) were residents of the Kherson region. “Every day, between 700 and 2,000 people leave the occupied territories,” he said.
