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The Russian authorities began the process of handing out passports to the residents living in the occupied city of Kherson in southern Ukraine, as per news agency Reuters report citing state-owned local media.
So far, a total of twenty-three Kherson residents have reportedly received their Russian passport at a special event. The move comes as Russia attempts to tighten its hold over the besieged Kherson in a war that has been raging since February. Kherson was one of the first cities that it conquered in the initial days of the war.
This development comes on the back of reports suggesting that the Russian forces are relying on weapons able to cause mass casualties as they try to make headway in capturing eastern Ukraine and fierce, as prolonged fighting depletes resources on both sides.
Russian bombers have likely been launching heavy 1960s-era anti-ship missiles in Ukraine, the UK Defence Ministry said. The Kh-22 missiles were primarily designed to destroy aircraft carriers using a nuclear warhead. When used in ground attacks with conventional warheads, they “are highly inaccurate and therefore can cause severe collateral damage and casualties," the ministry said.
Both sides have expended large amounts of weaponry in what has become a grinding war of attrition for the eastern region of coal mines and factories known as the Donbas, placing huge strains on their resources and stockpiles.
Russia is likely using the 5.5-tonne (6.1-ton) anti-ship missiles because it is running short of more precise modern missiles, the British ministry said. It gave no details of where exactly such missiles are thought to have been deployed.
As Russia also sought to consolidate its hold over territory seized so far in the 108-day war, the U.S. defense secretary said Moscow's invasion of Ukraine “is what happens when oppressors trample the rules that protect us all."
Meanwhile another BBC report citing Russia's Tass news agency, in Melitopol city, the decree was signed by Russian president Vladimir Putin in May which facilitated the passports authorisation. It also concerned the nearby Zaporizhzhya region, which is partly controlled by Moscow's forces.
"All our Kherson residents want to obtain a passport and (Russian) citizenship as soon as possible, " the regional administration's pro-Moscow chief Vladimir Saldo was quoted as saying by TASS, the Russian state-owned news agency.
"It's a new era that is beginning for us... It's the most important document a person can possess in their life," Saldo was quoted in another report by the RIA Novosti agency -- also based in Russia, and run by the state. Meanwhile, the Kherson authorities said the timing of the passport distribution was chosen with Russia Day in mind.
Additionally, on Saturday, Ukraine president Volodomyr Zelenskyy said that while "fierce street fights continue in Severodonetsk," Ukraine's military was gradually liberating territory further west in the Kherson region and had had some successes in Zaporizhzhya too.
Sievierodonetsk and neighboring Lysychansk are the last major areas of Luhansk remaining under Ukrainian control. Haidai said Russian forces destroyed railway depots, a brick factory and a glass factory.
The Ukrainian army said Saturday that Russian forces also were to launch an offensive on the city of Sloviansk in Donetsk province, which together with Luhansk makes up the Donbas. Moscow-backed rebels have controlled self-proclaimed republics in both provinces since 2014.