MOSCOW, June 16. /TASS/. The Kherson Region’s acting governor, Vladimir Saldo, said the armed forces of Ukraine attempted to kill him on June 9, firing a barrage of guided artillery shells at his presumed location.

"Last Friday, on June 9 <…> the Kiev regime literally tried to hunt me down by firing more than ten M982 Excalibur extended-range guided artillery shells towards my presumed locations in the Kherson Region," Saldo wrote on Telegram.

He said that the attack was carried out on a direct order from Kirill Budanov, the head of the Chief Intelligence Department at the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, who, in turn, acted on instructions from Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky.

In his words, the attack left an unspecified number of civilians injured, while "shelters for evacuees in Zhelezny Port and Arabatskaya Strelka were destroyed."

"This is how the Kiev regime once again exposed its true, neo-Nazi and hate-driven nature," Saldo added.

It was not the Kiev government’s first attempt on the life of a senior regional official. The mayor of the city of Novaya Kakhovka, Vladimir Leontyev, said on June 14 that an attempt on his life, also involving Excalibur guided shells, had taken place a few weeks ago.