Ukrainian Deputy Head of Kherson Murdered at Home

The Russian-appointed deputy head of Kherson, Oleksiy Kovalev, was killed in the occupied Kherson region. His body, with a gunshot wound to the head, was reportedly found in his house in Golya Prystan. Nearby lay the Mossberg pump-action shotgun, officially registered to Kovalev. His wife is hospitalized with a stab wound in the neck.

On August 28, the information about the assassination of the deputy, a collaborator with the Russian occupation, appeared in the Russian media.

Ukrainian journalist Andriy Tsaplienko reported that the deputy from the Servant of the People party was killed in his own home. He noted that Kovalev was stabbed in the neck.

“There are a lot of occupation policemen near his house. Oleksiy Kovalev, a rich Kherson agrarian, went to the parliament from the Servant of the People party and unexpectedly offered his services to the Russian occupiers at the beginning of the invasion. He arranged the supply of his products to Russia through Crimea,” Tsaplienko said.

Earlier, the adviser to the head of the Kherson regional military administration, Serhii Khlan, reported on the murder of the former member of parliament:

“We obtained information that a former member of parliament and traitor, Oleksii Kovalov, has been killed in Zaliznyi Port. The information has yet to be confirmed, but it’s worth noting that [Russian] propaganda media also wrote about the death of their ‘minister’, though they almost instantly deleted [those posts].”

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In April, the State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) opened a criminal case against the people’s deputy, and in July, he was charged with treason.

Later, the court seized the collaborator’s property, and the deputy’s TV channel office was searched. Law enforcement officers are also investigating whether Kovalev is involved in illegally exporting Ukrainian grain and salt to the Russian Federation.

In early April 2022, Kovalev wrote that he was in Golya Prystan, Kherson Oblast, despite the Russian occupation, to “work in his district.”

On May 3, Kovalev was expelled from the Servant of the People faction. When Kovalev admitted on June 8 that he was cooperating with the Russian occupiers in the Kherson region, the Servant of the People faction called on the parliament to revoke his mandate.

On June 22, the head of Ukrainian intelligence, Kyrylo Budanov, confirmed that Kovalev’s car was blown up in the Kherson area. On June 30, in an interview with Russian propagandists, Kovalev said that he survived the assassination attempt.

According to the SBI, at the beginning of July, Kovalev assumed the position of deputy head of the government of the Kherson region, illegally created by the Russian occupying administration.