Free Republic

The Russian-installed deputy governor of Kherson, Kirill Stremousov, has been killed, Russian state media say. They quoted the regional governor's press service as saying he died in a car crash. Mr Stremousov, 45, was appointed to his job two months after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

A Russian-installed official in Ukraine on Thursday suggested President Vladimir Putin's defence minister should consider killing himself due to the shame of the defeats in the Ukraine war, an astonishing public insult to Russia's top brass. -snip- Kirill Stremousov, the Russian-installed deputy head of the annexed Kherson region, followed suit, publicly lambasting the "generals and ministers" in Moscow for failing to understand the problems on the front. "Indeed, many say: if they were a defence minister who had allowed such a state of affairs, they could, as officers, have shot themselves," Stremousov, 45, said. "But you know the word 'officer'...

Russian-backed separatists in the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson said Ukrainian forces had bombarded government buildings on Friday, killing at least one person and wounding others. Kirill Stremousov, the Russian-installed deputy head of the Kherson region, told Russian state TV that one wing of the administration's building in Kherson had been practically destroyed in the strike, which he said involved U.S.-made HIMARS rockets. Separately, the prosecutor general of the Russian-backed self-proclaimed Luhansk People's Republic (LPR) in eastern Ukraine and his deputy were killed by a bomb blast at their offices, Russian news agencies reported, citing Russian-backed officials and emergency services....