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Russia seems to take it for granted that the Ukrainian region of Kherson, located north of Crimea and whose withering occupation was possible as soon as the war began thanks to the rapid advance of Russian troops stationed on the annexed peninsula in 2014, will never belong again to Ukraine. This is estimated by the deputy head of the administration installed there provisionally by Russia, Kirill Stremoúsov.
Speaking to the Russian agency RIA-Nóvosti, Stremoúsov announced on Thursday that the ruble, the Russian currency, will enter into circulation in Kherson as of May 1. In his words, “the Ukrainian hryvnia will remain in circulation, along with the ruble, but only for four months.” From then on, payments can be made only in Russian currency.
According to this Russian official, “the question of returning control of Kherson to Nazi Ukraine is excluded, it is already impossible.” “The Kherson region will develop economically without kyiv being able to impose its Nazi policies aimed at destroying the people and their identity,” he added. Stremoúsov assured that “now the main task is to restore the economy of the region (…) no referendum is planned”, like those organized in 2014 in Crimea, Donetsk and Lugansk, to provoke their secession.
Faced with the strong opposition of the population of Kherson to the Russian occupation, which is manifested almost daily with constant protest demonstrations, it seems that it has been decided to postpone the idea of holding a “popular consultation” that would justify the support of Moscow, even with weapons, to a population supposedly oppressed and in conflict with kyiv. On Wednesday, according to Ukrainian media, Russian troops had to use tear gas and sound bombs again to break up protesters in the city of Kherson.
On April 22, the Ukrainian president, Volodímir Zelenski, asked the inhabitants of Kherson not to provide any personal data to the invading troops. “It is not only to make a census (…) it is not to give you humanitarian aid, but to falsify a supposed referendum on your land, if the order to mount this parody comes from Moscow.” “There will be no Kherson People’s Republic. If someone wants a new annexation, much stronger sanctions will hit Russia,” Zelensky warned.
In the Duma (Lower House of the Russian Parliament) they believe that Ukraine may end up disintegrating into various “independent republics”. The deputy chairman of one of the parliamentary committees, Konstantin Zatulin, a deputy from the United Russia Kremlin party, estimates that “the regions liberated by the Russian Federation will definitely not come back under the control of kyiv. These territories can proclaim themselves as new independent republics, partially form an alliance with the Donetsk or Luhansk People’s Republics, or become part of Russia.’ In the Rada (Ukrainian Parliament) they consider that the introduction of the ruble as a compulsory currency in Kherson is “an act of annexation, a serious violation of the Charter of the United Nations.”
Yesterday, on the other hand, the Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s Office charged ten Russian soldiers for the atrocities committed in Bucha, a town located on the northwestern outskirts of kyiv. “Ten soldiers of the 64th Motorized Rifle Brigade are being investigated for the cruelty of their actions towards civilians and other violations of the code and customs in times of war,” the prosecution said in a statement.
This brigade, precisely, accused of having committed war crimes, was decorated a few days ago by President Vladimir Putin.
Ukraine’s Prosecutor General, Irina Venedíktova, considers it “proven” that soldiers from that unit tortured and killed civilians and 10 of them have been formally charged for it. Russian troops withdrew from Bucha on April 1, and the next day journalists found its streets littered with corpses. They also found dead people inside the houses and many with their hands tied and obvious signs of torture. Other bodies were found in mass graves. Ukraine and other countries have filed lawsuits with the International Criminal Court (ICC) for war crimes. In Bucha, more than 350 bodies have already been recovered and autopsies are being carried out to determine the specifics of their deaths. Moscow, however, maintains that it was all a “setup” to discredit the Russian Army while US President Joe Biden, other world leaders and Zelensky have described it as “genocide.”
“Remove responsibilities”
The UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, was in Bucha on Thursday, where he declared that “when we see this horrible place, I understand how important it is to undertake a full investigation and purge responsibilities.” Guterres urged Russia to cooperate with the CPI to clarify possible war crimes.
The Secretary General of the United Nations, who on Tuesday met with Putin in Moscow and asked him to urgently open a corridor to get civilians out of besieged Mariupol, was received this Thursday in kyiv by Zelensky while Russian forces, according to the General Staff of the Ukrainian Army, bombarded the city. After the talks, Guterres said that “at this moment I can only tell you that we are doing everything possible for the evacuation of Mariúpol to take place. I am not going to enter into any comment that could undermine that possibility.” The Ukrainian president declared in turn that “I trust and believe, like many relatives of the people who are blocked in the Azovstal steelworks, that the general secretary and we will be able to obtain a successful result in this matter.”
In another order of things, the Russian media continued this Thursday to echo how the vice president of Gazprombank, Igor Volobuev, left Russia on March 2 to move to Ukraine and join what he has called the “territorial defense” to «wash my Russian past». The bank manager, of Ukrainian origin, called Russia’s war against Ukraine a “crime perpetrated by Putin and the Russian people.” “It is not Putin who kills Ukrainians, it is not Putin who steals toilets, it is not Putin who rapes women. It is the Russian people who do all this », he added in statements to the publication The Insider.
Volobuev also referred to the recent death of his Gazprombank colleague Vladislav Avaev and his family. In his opinion, “I don’t think he could kill his wife and daughter, I think this was staged. Why? It’s hard to say. Maybe he knew something and represented some kind of danger. Volobuev is now the fourth Russian senior executive or official to decide to leave the country since the beginning of the invasion of Ukraine.
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