At least a dozen Russian soldiers have been killed and another 30 hospitalized after eating watermelons poisoned by Ukrainian resistance fighters in an occupied town.
According to local media, Putin’s troops in the Russian-occupied city of Mariupol received the melons from unsuspecting Russian residents, who in turn received them from partisan groups in the city.
According to the Ukrainian news agency 24 Kanal, the watermelons were given to local resistance fighters, who passed them on to the Russians, who then sold them to the Russian soldiers.
After the deaths, a Ukrainian resistance group posted the following message: “That’s for you guys! Thank you for protecting us.”
Pyotr Andryushchenko, an adviser to exiled Mariupol Mayor Vadym Boychenko, said: “The resistance movement is actively fighting.”
File photo of Russian soldiers walking down a street in Mariupol on April 12, 2022
He added that Russians who had moved into the occupied territories had been hired to deliver the poisoned fruit.
He said, ‘Our people [Ukrainians] not directly participate in the delivery of such dangerous “gifts” to the Russians.
‘There are always people who come en masse from Russia and want to make money. That is, they want to trade something.
‘The operation was simple. It was clear that watermelons were being purchased for a military base.
“It was clear who was going to supply these watermelons. These people were sold a batch of watermelons for a low price, which then caused the intended damage.”
Mariupol was captured after a three-month battle following Moscow’s attack on Ukraine in 2022.
Since then the city has been in ruins and there are small resistance groups carrying out small acts of sabotage.
Last year, two dozen Russian soldiers reportedly died after drinking poisoned vodka supplied by another resistance group in neighboring occupied Crimea.
The group calling itself the Crimea Combat Seagulls reported on the Telegram channel that they had killed 24 Russian soldiers.
Eleven others were also hospitalized after being given poisoned food and drink in Simferopol, Crimea’s second-largest city.
The group also boasted of tricking dozens of Russian troops into accepting “treats” laced with arsenic and strychnine from “nice girls” at a military checkpoint.