Head of occupying administration of Kherson Volodymyr Saldo’s home raided

Ukraine’s State Bureau of Investigation and the Kherson regional prosecutor’s office conducted a joint search of the home of Volodymyr Saldo, head of the Russian-appointed administration of the annexed Kherson region. The Bureau posted about the search on Telegram.

According to the Bureau’s announcement, law enforcement officers discovered documents, in Saldo’s home and those of his associates, with direct instructions from Russian managers to commit crimes against Ukraine.

Investigators also uncovered information about the structure of the occupying administration in the city of Kherson, data about salaries paid in rubles, and lists of local activists and Kherson residents holding pro-Ukrainian views.

The Bureau specifically noted Saldo’s library, where officers found literature about Russian history, including a volume about Empress Catherine the Great. “There is also a lot of Soviet heraldry, awards, and St. George ribbons,” the Bureau’s statement says.

In early January, the Kherson prosecutor’s office sent indictments against three representatives of the occupying authorities, including Volodymyr Saldo, to court. They were accused of treason, collaboration, both justifying and denying a Russian war of aggression against Ukraine, and glorifying the war’s participants.

Volodymyr Saldo was appointed to the post of head of the Kherson region by Russian authorities in late April 2022. In August, it was reported that he had been hospitalized in Moscow. The Russian Defense Ministry then reported that Saldo may have been poisoned with chemical warfare agents. In the second half of September, Saldo returned to Kherson, just in time for a referendum on the “unification” of the region with Russia.

Ukrainian Armed Forces liberated Kherson in the early November. Three days prior the liberation, it became clear that occupying authorities were fleeing the city of Kherson.