On December 10, the media and Telegram channels reported about the attack on the hotel and restaurant complex "Hunter's Halt" in Melitopol. This, after analyzing the photos, was confirmed by the Intel Crab OSINT project. Pro-Russian publications and channels immediately began to spread statements that civilians were resting in the complex that Ukraine attacked with the help of the HIMARS complex, and the Ukrainian military killed many civilians. According to the head of the occupation administration of the Zaporozhye region, Yevgeny Balitsky, “on Saturday evening, people, civilians, were having dinner at the base, the base staff was working.”
Ukraine claims that there could not be just civilians in the occupied Melitopol at the recreation center, including because of the curfew. In addition, it is in the sanatoriums in the occupied territories that the Russian military is located, says political scientist, and now an employee of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Kirill Sazonov.
“Anyone who lives in the occupied territories and is related to intelligence will tell you that the occupiers place personnel in hotels, hotels, hostels, boarding houses, sanatoriums, rest homes. This is much easier and more reliable than putting them in apartments, because in which case they are under control, they don’t get drunk, they won’t get out of combat, they can always be assembled in a second and put forward somewhere. And we understand that not "mobilized" people lived in a good restaurant complex, but some of the "serious" ones, who just won't be accommodated there. And in the restaurant, civilians in the occupied territory very rarely sit, because there is neither money nor desire to sit next to an armed occupier, to whom the law is not written. Plus, the curfew. There were certainly Russian soldiers there and they fell under this powerful blow.”
Ukrainian media report that Kadyrov's men were stationed at the recreation center. The Ukrainian mayor of the city, Ivan Fedorov, said that 200 people died as a result of the impact. According to him, there were so many wounded that Melitopol hospitals could not cope with the load, and many had to be sent to the Crimea. The Agency Telegram channel reports that, judging by the Ukrainian side’s data on those killed during other strikes on Mariupol, this one was the largest in terms of the number of victims. Also, the Ukrainian media write that "with a high degree of probability" during the strike on the base, Murad Saidov, an ally of Ramzan Kadyrov, was there and died. This information has not yet been confirmed by the Russian side or the Kadyrov administration.