Russia may set up military base in Ukraine's Kherson region - RIA

The

Russia

appointed administration of

Ukraine

's

Kherson

region will ask Moscow to set up a military base on its territory, Russia's

RIA news

agency quoted a local government official as saying on Tuesday.

Russia invaded Ukraine in February, seizing in particular the Kherson region which is adjacent to

Crimea

, the peninsula which Moscow has controlled since an earlier conflict in 2014.

It has installed a new administration there and started introducing the Russian rouble as a currency.

"There should be a Russian military base in the Kherson region," Kirill Stremousov, the deputy head of what Russia calls the "civil-military regional administration" of Kherson, told RIA.

"We will ask for this and this is what the whole population wants. This is essential and will be a guarantor of security for the region and its inhabitants."

The

Kremlin

calls the invasion a "special military operation" to disarm Ukraine and rid it of radical anti-Russian nationalists. Ukraine and its allies have dismissed that as a baseless pretext for the war, which has killed thousands of people in Ukraine and displaced millions.