Kherson occupiers to switch to ruble

A puppet government in Russia-occupied Kherson said it would switch the region’s payments to the ruble from May, in the strongest indication to date that Moscowis planning to occupy parts of Ukraine for the long-term. Russia took over the southern city of Kherson and parts of the surrounding region in the first week of the invasion. RIA Novosti, Russia’s state-owned news agency, on Thursday, local time, quoted a Russiaappointed ‘‘official’’ saying the Kherson region will begin switching to rubles in its payments starting next month before fully discarding the Ukrainian currency in four months. Kirill Stremousov, deputy head of Kherson’s Russiacontrolled ‘‘civilian-military administration’’, also made it clear that Kherson is going to split off from Ukraine for good. ‘‘Reintegrating the Kherson region back into a Nazi Ukraine is out of the question,’’ he said.