Melitopol Mayor Ivan Fedorov said this during the telethon.
"Last week, the Russians held a meeting and eventually decided to relieve the Crimean Bridge of traffic. So if we used to say that 70% of traffic from the Russian Federation goes through Melitopol towards the temporarily occupied Crimea, now this traffic is growing," the mayor said.
Fedorov noted that the number of Russian troops in and around Melitopol is increasing.
"We can see this by the way they enter houses and apartments. For example, two volunteer battalions - one from Alanya and the other from North Ossetia - entered the village of Obilne near Melitopol and settled there on the territory of one of the factories. Unfortunately, they have a lot of cannon fodder, so they keep bringing more and more of it," Fedorov added.
In June, the Ministry of Defense reported that Russians conducted 'filtration' activities in the temporarily occupied Kyrylivka, Zaporizhzhia region, to identify pro-Ukrainian people. Some of them were detained.
Fedorov also said that in the temporarily occupied Zaporizhzhia region, invading Russian forces have started mining critical infrastructure. This endangers not only the residents but the entire world.