Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov compared the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson to Stalingrad when asked by journalists in Moscow why Russian troops are shelling the capital of the region, which, according to them, is part of Russian territory, Meduza reports.

“Well, we have an example that the city of Stalingrad was our territory. And we beat the Germans there, and we beat them so hard that they ran away from there,” he replied, referring to the famous battle that, according to some historians, turned the tide of World War II.

He was asked this question by Russian journalists after the Ukrainian authorities reported on Thursday morning that Kherson was left without electricity due to powerful Russian bombings.

The city, Ukraine’s only regional capital, which was captured by Russian forces after the start of a “special operation” on February 24, was without utilities for weeks, but electricity was partially restored last week.

Kherson was liberated by Ukrainian troops on November 11, the same day that the Russian Ministry of Defense announced the completion of the withdrawal of its troops from the western bank of the Dnieper.

Russia says that Kherson belongs to it by right

On the same day, the Kremlin insisted that the city of Kherson belonged to Russia, despite the fact that it had been abandoned by the Russian military.

“This is a subject of the Russian Federation. It is legally established and defined. There are no changes and there cannot be,” Kremlin press secretary Dmytro Peskov said at the time when asked by Russian journalists on this topic.

At the time, Peskov also said that the Kremlin does not regret the announcement of the annexation of Kherson Oblast and the other three Ukrainian regions where its armed forces occupied the territories during the triumphal ceremony organized in Moscow on September 30.

At his own press conference this Thursday, Sergey Lavrov also stated that Russia is striking Ukraine’s energy infrastructure to prevent Ukraine from “pumping up” lethal weapons to kill Russians.

Lavrov, in a series of delusional statements, comparing Russia’s “special military operation” with the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Yugoslavia, insisted that the Russian military did not strike civilians, but only “disabled energy facilities that allow Western countries to pump deadly weapons into Ukraine to kill Russians.”

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