Russia accuses Ukraine of targeting proMoscow officials
Russia has accused Ukraine of carrying out targeted strikes in the cities of Kherson and Luhansk against local officials who have been collaborating with Moscow.
At least five Himars missiles crashed into the central administration building in Kherson, which Russian troops have occupied since March after arriving from Crimea. Video from the scene showed smoke pouring out of the complex and debris.
On the other side of the country, in the eastern city of Luhansk, a proRussia prosecutor and his deputy died when their office was blown up. The cause of the explosion was not immediately clear.
The Kremlin news agency ItarTass said Sergey Gorenko, the prosecutor general for the so-called Luhansk
People’s Republic, a puppet regime established by Russia in 2014, died at the scene.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s senior adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said Ukraine was not behind Friday’s mysterious explosion in Luhansk. It was caused by an internal mafia dispute or was an attempt to get rid of witnesses, he suggested.
“Elimination of so-called ‘LNR prosecutor general’ and his deputy should be considered as showdowns of local organised criminal groups that could not share looted property before a large-scale escape,” Podolyak posted on Twitter. He added: “Or as Russian Federation’s purge of witnesses to war crimes. Investigation will show …”
The Ukrainian mayor of occupied Melitopol, Ivan Fedorov, said explosions were seen in the southern city on Friday. “I hope the Russian fascists have suffered losses, among their personnel and equipment. Awaiting good news from the armed forces of Ukraine,” he said.
There were also unconfirmed reports from the port city of Berdiansk that Oleg Boyko, deputy head of the administration of the port town of Berdiansk, and his wife, Lyudmilla, who headed a commission preparing a referendum on the Zaporizhzhia province joining Russia, were killed in their garage overnight on Friday.
These seemingly coordinated attacks are likely to unnerve local collaborators across Ukraine. The Kremlin had been planning to stage referendums in Kherson and the neighbouring Zaporizhzhia region, as well as in Donetsk and Luhansk, which Moscow has in effect part-controlled for eight years.
But these state-building measures, in which occupied areas would be folded into Russia, have been dropped as a result of military defeats. Ukraine’s armed forces have recaptured almost all of the Kharkiv region in a stunning counteroffensive.
They have advanced close to the border of the Luhansk region, which Russia fully occupied in June. Devastated Russian units have been desperately building new defences in anticipation of a further Ukrainian push.
Queues of cars were meanwhile spotted at the Russian border as some of those who feared they would be accused of collaboration with occupying forces left Ukraine. Several complained the occupying Russian forces promised to stay “forever” in cities such as Izium and Kupiansk – a claim that turned out to be untrue.
The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, was on Friday in Uzbekistan for a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, where the Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, directly challenged him on the conflict that began with Russia’s 24 February invasion. “I know that today’s era is not an era of war, and I have spoken to you on the phone about this,” he told the Kremlin leader.
Putin told Modi he understood his position and “the concerns you constantly express”.
Speaking to reporters at the end of the summit, the Russian leader accused the west of wanting to break up Russia, and said his “special military operation” was launched to prevent this.
He said he saw no need to change plan on the battlefield despite Ukraine’s counter offensive. “We are not in a hurry,” he said.
The Kherson missile strike happened as the pro-Russia heads of occupation administrations in the Kherson region met inside the city’s
main government building and court. Attenders included Kremlin-approved military-civilian representatives of villages and towns.
It appears to have been the work of precise intelligence combined with devastating US-supplied Himars longrange rockets, which are accurate to within four metres.
Eketerina Gubareva, the deputy head of Kherson’s Russian-controlled city hall, said she initially “did not understand” what had happened. Writing on Telegram, she added: “There was smoke and ringing in my ears. I came round when someone pulled me out. A young guy dragged me from the ruins. I’m alive, and back at work. We are tallying our staff.”
She blamed what she called a “terror attack” in broad daylight on Ukrainian “bandits”. The driver of one official died, she added, with another person injured.
The Ukrainian head of the Kherson
regional administration, Volodymyr
Saldo, was poisoned last month.
It was unclear who was responsible. He was transferred to a clinic in Moscow where he appears to have died last week.
His deputy, Kirill Stremousov, claimed that Saldo had died but later deleted the post. Stremousov, a former journalist known for his extreme rightwing views, may have been the target of Friday’s Himars strike. He recently claimed the situation in Kherson was under control, in a video geolocated to a hotel in Russia.
Ukraine’s military declined to comment on the explosions. Natalia Humeniuk, a spokesperson for Kyiv’s operation command south, said Kyiv was keen to avoid “informational chaos”. “Happiness loves silence,” she remarked.
She said Ukraine’s offensive to take back the Kherson region continued. Russian troops were “keeping their distance” and had dug in behind “reinforced concrete constructions”. They were attacking Ukrainian positions with counter-battery fire, she said.