Russia says it fully controls Ukraine's Kherson region

Konashenkov said the Javelins and other foreign weapons were being handed to fighters from two breakaway regions in east Ukraine that have been controlled by Russia-backed separatists since 2014.

Russia said on Tuesday its armed forces had taken full control of Ukraine's southern region of Kherson, although Reuters could not independently verify the statement by Defence Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov.

The city of Kherson, a provincial capital of about 250,000 people, was the first key urban centre to fall into the hands of Russian troops after Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24. U.S. defence officials have said Russia could use Kherson as part of a strategy for potentially moving to Mykolaiv and then on to Odessa, other strategic cities in the country's south.

Russia calls its actions in Ukraine a "special military operation" to "denazify" its neighbour and prevent genocide, a claim Ukraine and its Western allies reject as a pretext for an unjustified and illegal attack. "The armed forces of the Russian Federation have taken full control of all the territory of Kherson region," Konashenkov told a briefing, without elaborating.

On Monday, Russian forces seized 10 American-made Javelin anti-tank missile systems and a number of other weapons supplied by Western countries to Ukraine, he added in a clip of the briefing the ministry posted on its YouTube page. Konashenkov said the Javelins and other foreign weapons were being handed to fighters from two breakaway regions in east Ukraine that have been controlled by Russia-backed separatists since 2014.

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