The strategically important city, which borders the illegally annexed Crimean peninsula, is seen as the ultimate target for southern Ukraine’s counterattack. Russia’s puppet authorities in Kherson earlier this month scrapped plans to hold a mock referendum on annexing the city as Ukraine’s counteroffensive loomed. Around the same time as the Kherson strike, a bomb killed Sergei Gorenko, the LPR’s general prosecutor, in his office along with his deputy. Mykhailo Podolyak, one of Volodymyr Zelensky’s closest aides, said Ukraine was not behind the explosion, instead blaming an internal mafia dispute. The Russian-appointed deputy mayor of Berdyansk, in the southern Zaporizhzhia region, and his wife, who was responsible for organizing a referendum on joining the Russian Federation, were also killed near their home. Oleg Boyko and his wife, Lyudmila, became the fourth and fifth pro-Russian victims when they were killed Friday in an explosion near their garage, local officials said. The attacks are likely to anger Russia’s local proxies in the war-torn country as pro-Kremlin officials are increasingly targeted by Ukraine’s armed forces and pro-Kiev rebels.
