At least four missiles are thought to have struck the city which has been occupied by Russian forces since March.
The Melitopol attack came as Ukraine claimed to have also struck a hotel housing members of the notorious Wagner mercenaries. The missile strike in Kadiivka, Luhansk region, resulted in “significant” Russian losses, according to unverified claims from Kyiv.
Russian officials confirmed the missile strike in Melitopol, but gave far lower casualty tolls.
Yevgeny Balitsky, the Russia-installed head of the Zaporizhzhia region, said that Ukraine had used US-supplied Himars long-range rocket launchers, to hit Melitopol at around 9pm on Saturday.
He claimed that the attack had destroyed a “recreation centre” on the outskirts, killing two people and injured another 10. The place was hit when people were eating dinner, he added.
Another Moscow-installed regional official, Vladimir Rogov, released a picture of a major fire ravaging the “recreation centre”.
There was no immediate comment from Ukraine’s armed forces.
Melitopol is expected to be a key objective for Ukrainian forces in the coming months as they try to sever a land corridor of occupied territory from Russia to Crimea.
Himars rocket launchers have become one of the Ukraine military’s most feared weapons. Kyiv has used the mobile launchers in strikes against ammunition dumps and command posts deep behind Russian lines.
Meanwhile, more than 1.5 million people in the southern Odesa region were without power after the latest wave of Russian drone strikes hit two energy facilities, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said.
Odesa’s key port was not operating on Sunday after the attacks, Agriculture Minister Mykola Solsky told Reuters, but he said grain exports were expected to continue.
Two other ports, Chornomorsk and Pivdennyi, authorised to export grain under a deal between Russia and Ukraine were partially operating, he said and traders were using these for shipments.
“There are problems, but none of the traders are talking about any suspension of shipments. Ports use alternative energy sources,” Solsky said.
Russia’s battlefield losses and poor execution of the war had contributed to the growing disillusion of some officers with the top brass and Vladimir Putin, an influential nationalist Russian blogger said.
Igor Girkin, a former Federal Security Service (FSB) officer who helped Russia annex Crimea in 2014, said that in a recent visit to the conflict zone he had seen some discontent with the military leadership.
In a blunt 90-minute video analysing Russia’s execution of the war, Girkin said the “fish’s head is completely rotten” and the Russian military needed reform.
Some mid-level commanders were open about their dissatisfaction with the defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, and even Putin himself.
“It is not just me... people are not blind and deaf at all: people at the mid-level there do not even hide their views which, how do I put it, are not fully complimentary about the president or the defence minister,” Girkin said.
