MOSCOW (Dispatches) -- A Russian-installed official in Ukraine’s Kherson region said on Monday that plans for a referendum on joining Russia had been “paused” due to the security situation, the Russian state-owned news agency TASS reported.
Kirill Stremousov, deputy head of the Russian-appointed military-civilian regional administration, also said the vital Antonivskyi road bridge, which crosses the Dnipro river near Kherson city, was impassable to cars after weeks of Ukrainian shelling.
Russian-installed officials had previously suggested that referendums on joining Russia would be held in September in Kherson, as well as in neighboring Zaporizhzhia region and the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics, to coincide with local elections in Russia.
Almost all of Kherson region was taken by Russian forces in March, and Kherson city remains the only Ukrainian regional capital captured by Russia since it sent armed forces into Ukraine on Feb. 24.
In recent weeks, Russia’s hold on Kherson, a land-bridge for Russian forces to get to and from Crimea, has appeared increasingly shaky.
A string of assassinations of Russian-installed officials in the region culminated on Aug. 30 with the shooting of Alexei Kovalev, a former lawmaker for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s party who had joined the Russian-backed Kherson administration.
Ukraine said last week that it had launched a counter-offensive aimed at retaking the region after shelling bridges and ammunition depots for weeks.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said Monday that its forces had destroyed one U.S.-supplied HIMARS rocket system in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region, Interfax reported.
The European Union signed a deal with war-torn Ukraine to release a further 500 million euros ($497 million) in planned aid.
The European Commission announced the package as senior officials hosted a meeting of the EU-Ukraine Association Council with Ukraine’s Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal in Brussels.
Ukrainian forces claimed gains in a counter-offensive against the Russian army in southern Ukraine, saying they have re-captured several areas and destroyed targets including a pontoon bridge.
Ukraine’s southern command said on Facebook that it also hit an ammunitions depot and a Russian army control center southeast of Kherson, a city taken by Moscow in the early days of the war.
In his daily message, Zelensky announced the re-capture of two villages in the south and one in the east, without giving their names.