Ukrainian resistance poisoned 17 Russian officers as they celebrated how great their military is, killing at least 2, official says

• Ukrainian resistance reportedly poisoned 17 Russian military officers, a report said.
• The resistance has launched attacks deep behind Russian lines.

Ukrainian resistance forces poisoned 17 Russian military officers at a celebration in the southern Ukrainian port of Mariupol, according to an advisor to the mayor of the city.

Ukrainian partisans used cyanide and pesticides during a Sunday Russian Navy Day event to poison the Russian military service members, killing two, Petro Andriushchenko said on Telegram.

The other 15 were admitted to the hospital in serious condition, he said.

Russian military forces occupied Mariupol in Spring 2022 after a brutal siege that obliterated much of the city and killed thousands of civilians.

City officials fled into exile and were replaced by a Russian puppet government.

The Kremlin has since sought to portray the reconstruction of the historic city as one of the triumphs of its invasion of Ukraine, with Russian President Vladimir Putin making a visit in February, where he inspected a new apartment complex.

It has become an important base for the Russian military as they defend territory they've seized in south Ukraine from a Ukrainian counteroffensive.

Ukraine has a network of resistance fighters operating in territory occupied by Russia, many of whom are ordinary civilians.

In Mariupol, according to reports, civilians have adopted the " Ї " as a symbol of resistance, scrawling the letter around the city in defiance of the Russian occupiers (the letter is not found in the Russian alphabet.)

The city's resistance movement has claimed credit for other attacks, claiming to have set fire to a building housing Russian military personnel last October, Ukrainian media reported.

According to a report by UK think tank The Royal United Services Institute, the Ukrainian resistance's main mission is to collect intelligence on the Russian military or help Ukrainian forces target Russian positions.

It notes that Ukrainian forces have engaged in sabotage missions, but that direct attacks on Russian forces such as the one reported by Andriushchenko are rare as they often require specialist training.