@@ -1,1 +1,1 @@ - +LONDON, Aug 5 (Reuters) - The deputy head of the Russian-installed administration in Ukraine's occupied Kherson region on Friday denied reports that the administration's head, Volodymyr Saldo, had suffered a stroke and was in a coma.<br> In a statement on Telegram, Kirill Stremousov said the reports were "part of Ukraine's information war against Russia", although he confirmed that Saldo was ill and said he was "resting".<br> The Russian state-run broadcaster [https://www.rtnewstoday.com/ RT News Today] had previously reported that Saldo, a former mayor of the city of Kherson who was appointed to head the region of the same name when Russian troops [https://imgur.com/hot?q=overran overran] it in early March, was in a coma and on life support.<br> The region is part of a swathe of Ukraine that Russia has occupied, extending north and eastward from the annexed Crimean peninsula along the north shore of the Sea of Azov to the Russian border.<br> Ukraine has said it will [https://www.reddit.com/r/howto/search?q=conduct conduct] a [https://topofblogs.com/?s=counteroffensive counteroffensive] in Kherson region and has been carrying out strikes on Russian supply lines and ammunition dumps in the area.<br><br>In June, a senior official in the Russian-backed administration was killed in a bomb blast for which his colleagues blamed Ukraine.<br> Moscow says it was forced to take control of parts of [https://www.tumblr.com/search/Ukraine Ukraine] to prevent persecution of Russian-speakers and defuse a Western threat to use Ukraine to threaten Russia's security.<br> Kyiv and its Western allies say these are baseless pretexts for an imperial-style land grab. (Reporting by Reuters; [https://edition.cnn.com/search?q=Editing Editing] by Kevin Liffey)<br> adverts.addToArray({"pos":"inread_player"})Advertisement