‘Russia is here till November’
Russia currently only controls the capitals of two of the four Ukrainian regions it now claims as part of its territory — the cities of Donetsk and Luhansk. Russian forces retreated from the city of Kherson last autumn in the face of a rapid Ukrainian counteroffensive, while they never even made it as far as the city of Zaporizhzhia.
Kherson has been one of the Kremlin’s chief targets in southern Ukraine ever since the invasion began. Among other things, controlling it would allow Russia to gain a foothold on the right bank of the Dnipro River, opening a path to Mykolaiv and other key cities. The city of Kherson was captured by Russian forces on 2 March 2022, only a week after the invasion began, and immediately became a significant Russian propaganda tool.
Once Russian forces took the city over, a former Ukrainian MP, Vladimir Saldo, was appointed by Moscow to lead the regional administration. Despite this, the leading voice of the occupation in the region quickly became that of Saldo’s deputy, the pro-Russian activist and Covid-19 denier Kirill Stremousov.