Ukraine says army strike hits Russian paramilitary base on target  

The government of Ukraine claimed on Monday the country’s military struck on an army base used by a Russian paramilitary group, including a bridge near the city of Melitopol occupied by Russian forces.

Governor of the Lugansk region in eastern Ukraine, Sergiy Gaiday, stated that the military base of the Wagner group was “destroyed by a precision strike”.

The paramilitary group was identified to be linked to Russian oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin, a close associate of President Vladimir Putin.

The Wagner paramilitaries were said to have been documented in Libya, Mali and Syria, and other countries, particularly in Africa.

Ukraine also said that saboteurs had blown up a railway bridge southwest of the city of Melitopol, held by Russian troops.

The mayor of     Melitopol, Ivan Fyodorov, on Telegram, said that the strike meant there would be “a complete absence of military trains from Crimea”.

The Crimean peninsula, annexed by Russia in 2014, has been an essential base of supply for Russian troops deployed in southern Ukraine.

A senior police official, Sergiy Bolvinov, on Facebook disclosed on Monday that Russian shelling of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second biggest city, killed at least one person and injured six others.