Vladimir Leontyev. Photo: RusNews, Telegram
The Kremlin-installed head of Nova Kakhovka, a city in the occupied part of Ukraine’s southern Kherson region, has been killed in a Ukrainian drone strike, Russian occupation authorities in the region announced on Wednesday.
Vladimir Leontyev, 61, died in hospital after being wounded on Wednesday morning in a Ukrainian drone strike on Nova Kakhovka in which two elderly women were also injured, Russian-installed Kherson Governor Vladimir Saldo wrote on Telegram.
“The doctors fought until the end, but could not save him”, Saldo said, adding that Ukrainian forces had carried out the strike using a Baba Yaga heavy bomber drone, typically deployed in nighttime raids on Russian military targets.
Saldo described Leontyev as “one of the first supporters” of the ruling United Russia party in the region who had “guided the people of Nova Kakhovka through the most difficult times”, as well as a “true patriot who loved Russia and Kherson” and had been killed “in the line of duty by a cowardly enemy attack”.
Leontyev was appointed to head the Russian administration in Nova Kakhovka in April 2022, shortly after Moscow’s forces occupied part of the Kherson region. He later served as the head of the city’s Russian-installed Council of Deputies.
The Ukrainian authorities formally charged Leontyev for his collaboration with Russian occupation forces the same month he was installed, accusing him of encouraging Nova Kakhovka residents to cooperate with the Russian military and promoting the “need to establish ties with the aggressor state”.
In March, a Ukrainian court sentenced him to 15 years in prison in absentia for ordering the kidnapping and torture of Oleksandr Shapovalov, the mayor of the nearby city of Beryslav, in March 2022.
