It was reported that, on August 3, Vladimir Saldo “became ill, his mind became cloudy and his fingers went numb” after eating food prepared by the chef. Mr Saldo was rushed to a hospital in Simferopol, Crimea, 170 miles south of the city of Kherson, where doctors put him in a coma and flew him to Moscow. He is now on a ventilator at the Sklifosovsky Emergency Research Institute. Doctors are awaiting his toxicology reports, although district officials have denied he was poisoned. “Five months non-stop under bullets and Grads. The man was simply too tired. The diagnosis is fatigue,” said Kirill Stremousov, deputy head of the Kherson administration. Ukrainian guerrillas have targeted pro-Russian collaborators in the Kherson region, which Russian forces seized without a fight in the early days of the February invasion of Ukraine. Assassins killed at least three senior regional officials, including the city’s deputy mayor Nova Khakhova, who was shot on Saturday.