MOSCOW, Nov 6, 2024 (BSS/AFP) - Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday appointed a woman official whose son was killed in Ukraine to regional governor, a day after promoting an ex-mayor who fought in Moscow's offensive to lead another region.

Putin has repeatedly said that Russians taking part in the Ukraine offensive and their families will create the country's "new elite", advocating their promotion to influential positions.

The Russian leader named Maria Kostyuk -- an already senior local official from the Far Eastern Jewish Autonomous Region -- to head her local region.

Kostyuk, a high-placed official in the region that borders China, had taken part in meetings with Putin of mothers of soldiers killed in Ukraine.

"I want to thank you for raising a real Russian warrior," Putin told Kostyuk, as he asked her to accept leading the region during a meeting in the Kremlin.

Kostyuk said she will do "everything possible and impossible to justify your trust, to be worthy of the memory of my son."

Her 26-year-old son had died fighting for Moscow in eastern Ukraine.

Kostyuk is now the only serving woman heading one of Russia's 83 regions, after a Siberian female governor stepped down earlier this year.

A day earlier, Putin promoted the ex-mayor of the southern city of Krasnodar, Yeveny Pervyshov, as the head of the central Tambov region.

Pervyshov took part in the Kremlin's "Time of Heroes" programme that aims to place veterans of the offensive into official and bureaucratic roles.

Pervyshov said he had volunteered to fight in Ukraine in November 2022 -- shortly after Putin announced an unpopular military mobilisation drive.