(Reuters) – Russian President Vladimir Putin appointed Alexander Khinshtein acting governor of southern Kursk region on Thursday, saying “crisis management” was needed in the area, which has been partly occupied by Ukrainian forces since August.
Putin was shown in a clip posted on the Kremlin website offering the post to Khinshtein, a journalist and veteran member of the State Duma, Russia’s lower house of parliament.
“I would like to offer you the position of acting governor of Kursk region, as at this time crisis management is needed there, in view of the situation occurring there,” Putin told Khinstein.
“And as the territory is being liberated from the enemy, of course much will have to be done to restore housing and communal services and to restore the economy of the territory as a whole as well as that area now being liberated by our troops.”
Putin said Khinshtein, in addition to his experience in the legislature, had acted for two years as an adviser to Russia’s National Guard and that experience in the security forces “will have to be used to achieve the tasks that lie before you.”
Khinstein told Putin that everything had to be done “so that residents of Kursk region feel that they are part of the country”.
A post on the Kremlin website said the region’s current governor, Alexei Smirmnov, had resigned.
Ukrainian troops made a large-scale incursion into the border region of Kursk in August. Russia’s military says some of the territory initially seized has been recaptured by Moscow’s troops.
(Reporting by Ron Popeski; editing by Jonathan Oatis)
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