Ukraine Situation Report: Strategic City Of Melitopol Could Be Kyiv's Next Target
Howard Altman

Ukraine Situation Report: Strategic City Of Melitopol Could Be Kyiv's Next Target
Russian troops are beginning to reinforce the key city of Melitopol in Zaporizhzhia Oblast ahead of what could be the next major front in this nearly 10-month-old all-out war. The oblast, where battles are taking place less than 50 miles north of that city, is considered a likely route for any Ukrainian attempt to liberate the Crimean peninsula, illegally occupied by Russia since 2014.

“This week we’re witnessing the concentration of Russian forces in the city,” Ivan Fedorov, the Ukrainian mayor of occupied Melitopol, said during a Friday press briefing. “Troops are riding around the town in their trucks with the machine guns. My native city is turning into a fortress.”


The Russians are “building fortifications inside Melitopol,” Fedorov said. “There are dragon’s teeth and they cover the whole city.”

Though the shortest route for a Ukrainian attack on Crimea would be through Kherson Oblast, that would require crossing the Dnipro River, a daunting type of operation that has already been proven dangerous in this fight. As a result, Ukraine’s best and quickest option to attack Crimea could be through Zaporizhzhia Oblast, even though a large number of Russia’s 30,000 former Kherson City troops likely wound up there as well.

Melitopol, at the heart of that route about 60 miles northeast of Crimea, “would be a significant fight,” if Ukraine decides it must attack there, Ben Hodges, a retired Army lieutenant general who commanded U.S. Army Europe, told The War Zone on Thursday. “Protecting the ‘land bridge’ [to Crimea] will be very important for the Russians. Of course, Ukraine can deny the land bridge through long-range precision fires, not only through actual ‘boots on the ground.’”


Melitopol, some 60 miles north of the Russian-occupied Crimean peninsula, could be a key battleground. (Google Earth image)
Currently, outside of any stock of shadowy long-range drones, Ukraine’s longest-range weapons are the M30A1 and M31A1 227mm Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System (GMLRS) munitions fired by M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, or HIMARS and M270 Multiple Launch Rocket Systems donated to Ukraine. Both of those types of munitions have a stated maximum range of approximately 43.5 miles.

But a hopeful sign, said Fedorov, is that the Russian buildup in Melitopol reminds him of what took place in Kherson City, where Russians seemed to be digging in only to escape across the Dnipro River in early November without putting up a fight.

“They were trying to defend themselves but then they fled,” he said. “We all pray that they flee from Melitopol so our residents don’t suffer and our military has less work. But now we see more concentration of the Russian forces in Melitopol and they’re building fortifications there.”

Ukrainian troops and partisans, meanwhile, appear to be shaping the Zaporizhzhia Oblast battlefield south of where the current fighting is taking place.

On Friday, two Russian intelligence agents were badly injured when a bomb planted in a Renault Duster exploded in Gorky Park, according to the Telegram channel of Russian milblogger Semen Pegov, who goes by the name WarGonzo.