Putin’s puppet governor in Ukraine ‘poisoned by a cook’ and flown to Moscow in coma weeks after ‘foiled bomb attack’

A PUPPET governor of a Ukrainian city occupied by Putin has been hospitalized after suspected poisoning.

Kherson boss Vladimir Saldo was hit by a second assassination attempt less than a month after previously surviving a bombing.

4

4

Saldo was poisoned after a chef was brought into his home to cook for the Kremlin’s mate, Russian opposition media reported.

The latest attempt on his life came when the Putin-appointed mayor of Kherson was targeted amid a Ukrainian uprising in the city.

After eating the meal prepared by the chef, Saldo reportedly “became ill, his mind began to cloud and his fingertips went numb.”

He was taken to the hospital in Simferopol, Crimea, 270 kilometers south of Kherson, where Ukrainian forces have tried to launch an offensive against Russian occupiers.

The mayor was put into a coma and flown to Moscow, where he is now fighting for his life on a ventilator.

Regional officials have denied he was poisoned, but doctors are still awaiting his toxicology reports.

Saldo’s deputy in Kherson, Kirill Stremousov, said: “Five straight months among bullets and graduates. The man was just tired.

“The diagnosis is fatigue.”

The poisoning came less than a month after Russian-appointed officials in Kherson claimed they had prevented a bomb attack intended for Saldo.

Russia’s state news agency RIA Novosti quoted officials as saying a bomb was planted on a road waiting for Saldo to drive through.

But the explosives were “discovered and defused” in good time before Putin’s sidekick got there.

He previously served as mayor of Kherson between 2002 and 2012 and had claimed that “Kherson is Ukraine” just weeks after Putin’s invasion.

But less than a month later, he was installed as head of the city under Russian rule and has supported Putin’s brutal invasion ever since.

Saldo was appointed Kherson’s puppet mayor after Russian troops stormed through the city in February, becoming the first Ukrainian territory to be taken from Moscow.

Kherson, some 280 miles from the capital Kyiv, has been under Russian control since the invasion began, but a Ukrainian campaign to retake the city has gained momentum in recent weeks.

Saldo’s rule over the city has led to courageous Kherson residents protesting the Kremlin’s attack through the streets.

4

4