A Russian-installed official in Ukraine's southern Kherson region was killed in a pinpoint strike by Ukraine using the U.S.-supplied High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS), local officials said.
Alexei Katerinichev, who served as the first deputy head for security of the Kremlin-appointed administration of the Kherson region, was killed on Friday, Kirill Stremousov, the deputy head of the Moscow-controlled region, said.
"[Alexei] Katerinichev died as a result of a pinpoint strike from HIMARS. Two rockets hit the house in which he was," Stremousov was cited by Russia's state-run news agency Tass as saying.
Alexander Malkevich, a member of the Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation, an oversight committee, also confirmed Katerinichev's death in a statement on his Telegram channel.
"Tonight, as a result of a terrorist strike by a guided missile of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the center of Kherson, Alexei Katerinichev, the first deputy head of the Kherson regional military administration for security, was killed," Malkevich wrote.
Katerinichev had held the position in occupied Kherson for one and a half months, Malkevich noted.
It's not the first HIMARS strike in the region to have killed a Russian-installed official this month.
On September 16, authorities said Ukraine struck government buildings in the occupied Kherson region at least five times using HIMARS, killing at least one person and wounding others.
Ekaterina Gubareva, the deputy head of the Russian-installed administration in Kherson, said that at the time of the strike, a meeting was underway between the heads of the city and municipal districts.
More recently, Alexei Zhuravko, former deputy of Ukraine's Verkhovna Rada, was killed in a HIMARS attack on a hotel in Kherson, Stremousov told Russia's state-run news agency RIA Novosti.
Ukrainian authorities have yet to comment on the incidents.
Kherson has been under Russian control since the beginning of March. However, Ukraine is waging a counteroffensive in the region, and has had major success in another counterattack in the Kharkiv area in the northeast of the country.
The Kremlin has said it intends to annex the region at a ceremony in Moscow on Friday.
A top U.S. general said earlier this month that American-supplied HIMARS have been used for strikes on more than 400 Russian targets in the ongoing war. The U.S. has so far sent Ukraine 16 of the HIMARS weapon systems that have been credited with turning the tide of the war.
Newsweek has contacted Russia's Foreign Ministry and Ukrainian authorities for comment.
Update 9/30/22 6:45 a.m. ET: This article was updated with additional information and context.
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Isabel van Brugen is a Newsweek Reporter based in Kuala Lumpur. Her focus is reporting on the Russia-Ukraine war. Isabel ... Read more
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