Vladimir Putin received bad news when two Russian paratrooper colonels died in Ukraine around the same time.
Colonel Andrei Kondrashkin, who is 44 years old, was in charge of the 31st Separate Guards Airborne Assault Brigade, which is a group of soldiers who jump out of planes and fight on the ground.
Kondrashkin passed away during a fight with the Ukrainian forces near Andriivka, a village that was badly damaged by the war. Kyiv recently took control of this village.
The person named Alexander Khodakovsky, who is the deputy head of Russia’s national guard in annexed Donetsk, was the first to announce that he died yesterday.
Today, we felt a lot of pain and sadness when we heard that he had died. We send our sympathy and support to his family, friends, and comrades, Khodakovsky wrote on a messaging app called Telegram.
Khodakovsky said that he and the colonel became close while they fought together during the long siege of Mariupol last year.
Khodakovsky said, “I’m sure his soul will go to heaven and he’ll wait for us there. ”
Ukrainian journalist Yuriy Butusov said on Telegram that Kondrashkin’s group, which fought in all the big fights of the war, had to stop Ukrainian soldiers from catching a Russian rifle brigade.
Butusov said that Kondrashkin couldn’t finish the job and that the 31st Airborne Assault Brigade had many areas destroyed. Ukrainian attack planes entered the village through Kondrashkin’s defense area.
We do not know the specific details of how Kondrashkin was destroyed in these battles.
However, it is a big accomplishment to kill the leader of one of the Russian military groups.
Kondrashkin is now the most recent person on a growing list of important military officials from Russia who have either been removed from their position, passed away, or completely vanished since the war.
According to Top Cargo 200, a source that keeps track of the deaths of Russian senior military officers, there have been over 450 majors, almost 250 lieutenant colonels, and around 100 colonels who have passed away.
On September 14, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a research organization in the United States, reported that a high-ranking commander in the Russian airborne forces had passed away.
According to pro-Russian military Telegram channels and the Russian independent outlet Mediazona, a Colonel named Vasily Popov, aged 38, was killed while fighting in Ukraine. The specific location was not mentioned.
Mediazona said they checked military records and found that Popov had died. The records said he was 38 years old when he died.
According to the ISW, Popov became the leader of the 247th Guards Air Assault Regiment in either August or September.
A former leader of the regiment, Colonel Konstantin Zizevsky, died in the spring of 2022.
Blogger Egor Guzenko, from the pro-war channel Thirteenth on Telegram, said on September 10 that Popov was an amazing person and a hero.
‘I don’t have any other words, and I feel bad for him,’ he said. ‘Three more men passed away with him, and I feel sad for them. ‘