Collaborator Saldo says there are no plans to merge Kherson region with Crimea

UKRAINSKA PRAVDA —  MONDAY, 9 MAY 2022, 19:23

Volodymyr Saldo, head of the Kherson occupation administration, says there are no plans to merge the Kherson region with the Crimean occupation administration, but the peninsula may be incorporated into a federal union.

Source: Saldo, in an interview with the Russian state news agency TASS

Saldo's quote: "These talks are like backstage assumptions. There are no official talks and plans. Maybe this is my assumption - a federal district will be created, which will include Crimea, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia Regions, but the region will remain a region.

There are no plans to change the administrative-territorial structure."

Details: Saldo said that the occupiers plan to create Russian-language schools, as well as force businesses to sell their goods to the occupying forces in Crimea, as well as in the occupied territories of Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

According to Saldo, pensioners in Henichesk have already begun to get their pensions in Russian rubles, but hryvnia [the Ukrainian national currency] are still continuing to circulate in the region. 

The occupier's collaborator is convinced that the majority of the population approved of the restoration of the  Russian Empire emblem of the double-headed eagle.

For reference: 65-year-old Volodymyr Saldo was mayor of Kherson from 2002 to 2012 (three terms), and a People's Deputy of the Party of Regions in the 7th convocation of the Verkhovna Rada. He has supported the Russian occupation of Kherson since the beginning of the full-scale war.

Background:

• The Ukrainian prosecutor's office declared Saldo was suspected of treason. The occupiers "appointed" him as a head of the region on 26 April.
• Leaders of the occupation "administration" in the Kherson region are planning to shut down access to Facebook and Instagram for Ukrainians in the region in order to forcibly broadcast Russian propaganda via the Internet.
• The occupation administration in the Kherson region has brought back the double-headed eagle emblem of the Russian Empire and is trying to force people to obtain Russian citizenship.The Russians are holding hundreds of Ukrainians in basements in the Kherson region, torturing and killing them.
• According to US intelligence, Russia will try to "formalise the annexation" of the Kherson region in mid-May.