Moscow-based officials in the occupied Kherson region said Monday they were halting plans for a referendum to join Russia amid a Ukrainian counter-offensive.
Kherson and the southern Zaporijia region have been largely under Russian control since the early weeks of the February invasion of Moscow and are now being integrated into the Russian economy.
“We have prepared for the vote, we wanted to hold a referendum in the near future, but because of all the events that are happening, I think we will take a break for the time being,” said Kirill Stremousov, a pro-Moscow official in Kherson. , in a broadcast on Russian state television.
Stremousov said this was an “understandably practical” decision because they “are fulfilling the most important task: feeding and protecting the population”.
His comments come as Ukrainian forces claim gains in a counter-offensive against the Russian military in southern Ukraine, saying they have recaptured several areas and destroyed targets.
Ukraine’s southern command said late on Facebook on Sunday that it had also hit a Russian army munitions depot and control center southeast of Kherson, a city occupied by Moscow in the early days of the war.
In his daily message on Sunday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced the recapture of two villages in the south and one in the east, without naming their names.
Deputy head of the presidential administration, Kyrylo Tymoshenko, also posted on Facebook a photo of a Ukrainian flag being hoisted in the village of Vysokopillia, in the northern part of the Kherson region, which is almost completely controlled by the Russians.
Captured in March, Vysokopillia had been close to the front lines since June, when the Ukrainian army began advancing.
“The Ukrainian counter-offensive is making demonstrable progress in the south and east,” the Institute for the Study of War, a US-based research group, said in a report. “Ukrainian forces are advancing along several axes in the western Kherson Oblast (region) and have secured territory along the Siverskyi Donets River in Donetsk Oblast,” he said.
Ukraine’s southern command said its troops were trying to disrupt the Russian military’s “management of troop movements and logistics” through airstrikes and artillery fire.
Russia’s defense ministry said on Monday it continues to inflict heavy casualties on the Ukrainian military and is “trying to gain a foothold” in some southern areas.
Source: DN
