INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Ukraine stepped up attacks behind Russian lines on Wednesday with the apparent killing of a Russian election official in a car bomb and a
drone assault on a metals plant.Deadly Russian strikes also rocked the Ukrainian port city of Odesa during a visit by Greek Prime Minister
Kyriakos Mitsotakis, who was holding talks there with President Volodymyr Zelensky.Russia and Ukraine have increased their aerial attacks as
Moscow's troops advance on the front lines and Kyiv faces a shortage of manpower and weapons."We heard the sound of sirens and explosions
We did not have time to get to a shelter
It is a very intense experience," Mitsotakis said through a translator in Odesa.Ukraine's navy told AFP the attack on port infrastructure
killed five people and left an unspecified number wounded.Spokesman Dmytro Pletenchuk confirmed the strike came as the Greek delegation was
visiting the port with Zelensky.Russian forces "don't care whether [targets] are military or civilians, whoever they are, whether they are
international guests, these people don't care," Zelensky said.The Russian Defense Ministry claimed a strike on a "hangar in a commercial
port area of Odesa in which crewless cutters were being prepared for combat use by the Ukrainian armed forces."The hit comes just days after
12 people, including five children, were killed when a Russian drone hit an apartment block in the Black Sea city, one of the deadliest
attacks on civilians for weeks.Car bombAuthorities in the Russian-occupied city of Berdiansk in southern Ukraine said a local election
official had been killed in a car bombing it blamed on Kyiv."A homemade explosive device was planted under the vehicle of a member of the
precinct election commission," the Investigative Committee said in a statement."The victim died from her injuries," it added, publishing a
video of a blown-out small beige car parked on a dirt track.The attack came with early voting already underway across occupied Ukraine for
this month's Russian presidential election.The Moscow-installed head of the Zaporizhzhia region, Yevgeny Balitsky, blamed Ukrainian
authorities for the attack and said they were trying to "intimidate" residents ahead of the ballot.A number of Russian-installed officials
have been targeted since Moscow launched its full-scale military operation in Ukraine two years ago.Russia also said Ukraine hit a fuel tank
at a metals plant in the Kursk region in an early-morning drone strike."A drone attacked a fuel and lubricants warehouse" at the
Mikhailovsky Mining and Processing Plant in the city of Zheleznogorsk, some 90 kilometers (55 miles) from the border with Ukraine, Kursk
governor Roman Starovoit said.Videos posted on Russian social media showed thick grey smoke billowing as a fire raged inside a cylindrical
to target the country's vital energy and gas sector that it says fuels the invasion.Meanwhile, Russian-installed officials said a
Ukrainian artillery strike on Kreminna, a town in Ukraine's Luhansk region, killed two people.Five more were killed when a bus drove over
separatists tried to secede following a pro-EU revolution in Kyiv.On the front lines, the Ukrainian army said Wednesday it had built an
advances.Hold-ups to Western aid, mainly a crucial $60-billion package from the United States, have left Ukraine's troops in a vulnerable
position, forced to ration ammunition and unable to mount large-scale offensives.'Active combat zone'Russian President Vladimir Putin also
held talks with the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Grossi, in Sochi to discuss the situation at the Zaporizhzhia
nuclear power plant.The facility, Europe's largest nuclear energy site, was seized by Russian troops in the first days of the war.Speaking
to AFP ahead of the meeting, Grossi rejected Russian suggestions that the plant could be put back online."That is not imminent," he told AFP
in response to suggestions by the Russian operator that it could be switched back on."First of all, this is an active combat zone, and this
Secondly, this plant has been in shutdown for a prolonged period of time," he added.
