In the latest hammer blow to the Kremlin, Russia has lost its 50th colonel in the war in Ukraine, bringing the total dead toll to over 31,000.
Lt Col Vladimir Nigmatullin, a 46-year-old father of three from Yekaterinburg, was slain on May 31, according to new information.
Nigmatullin’s death has been verified by his family, adding to the long list of Russian military officers who have died, with one colonel being assassinated every two days.
It comes after a group of independent journalists stated that Vladimir Putin lost two of his most senior officers in a single day in a catastrophic bridge ambush in eastern Ukraine.
‘Eternal memory, darling, dear, much-loved man, you passed away,’ said Nigmatullin’s sister-in-law Marina Konyukhova.
‘We still cannot believe you are gone. You are a father of three children, and an amazing husband to my sister.
‘I am always proud of you, and I will always be proud. You set an example to the Motherland, so that everyone does like you did.
‘You were ordered with the Order of Bravery, posthumously. You went through a lot of conflict areas.’
Russia acknowledged Major-General Roman Kutuzov’s death on Sunday.
Then, yesterday, it was reported that Lieutenant-General Roman Berdnikov was also killed on the same day in a Kyiv-led attack, bringing the total number of generals slain to 12.
Kutuzov was the 29th Combined Arms Army’s chief of staff and received a posthumous rank to Lieutenant-General.
In Donbas, he was killed in an ambush.
‘He calmly walked up the career ladder, successfully commanded the troops, and died as a soldier, fighting on the front lines,’ said a report by Readovka.
One mourner said: ‘I knew him personally, Roman lived a hero and died a hero.
‘My condolences to his loved ones, strength and patience to his subordinates and fellow officers.’
It’s been alleged that Moscow’s unusually quick confirmation of Kutuzov’s death was an attempt to hide the loss of Berdnikov, 47.
Berdnikov was commander of the Russian armed forces task force in Syria until he was transferred to take command of Putin’s forces and those of the Donetsk People’s Republic [DPR] in Donbas less than a month ago.
In a devastating and humiliating blow for Putin, it would mean that two of the most senior Russian commanders in Donetsk were killed out in a single strike.
The Volya Telegram channel, which features independent combat journalists operating on both sides of the fight, claimed that both Berdnikov and Kutuzov had killed.
‘On the morning of June 5, Lt-Gen Roman Berdnikov, who led Russian soldiers and DPR units from Donetsk, went on a working trip with the headquarters,’ according to the article. ‘A Ukrainian sabotage and reconnaissance crew assaulted the headquarters cars on the way, perhaps on a bridge.’
Part of the convoy was ‘destroyed or immobilized,’ while some cars ‘were able to evade the ambush and leave after receiving heavy damage and firing back,’ according to the report.
‘Our sources said Roman Berdnikov killed in this conflict after that,’ the story stated. ‘A few days later, two additional sources verified this, adding that other top officers may have perished in the battle.’
Today, it was revealed that a mercenary who acquired reputation in the Donbas for killing prisoners of war and civilians was also killed.
On June 5, a sniper shot Vladimir Andonov, 44, a fighter for the mysterious Wagner Group, during a reconnaissance mission near Kharkiv, according to Russian media.
Andonov was known to Russians as ‘Vakha,’ or ‘the volunteer from Buryatia,’ after the province from whence he came, but to Ukrainians as ‘the executioner,’ for the killings he assisted in during Russia’s initial invasion of the country in 2014.
Zhambal-Zhamso Zhanaev, the head of the region where Andonov was from, confirmed his death to Russian publication Moskovskij Komsomolets.
Andonov served in the regular Russian military from 1997 to 2005, after which he moved to Ulan-Ude to study at a teacher’s college.
Before responding a call for volunteers to go to Ukraine and join the conflict in 2014, he dropped out of school before finishing his education and took a job in trade.
Andonov was enlisted into the Olkhon special forces company operating in the Donbas in early 2015, and fought in the Battle of Debaltseve, one of the final significant clashes of the original conflict.
He appeared in a video shot in the area at the time, which became one of the first pieces of evidence that Buryatia volunteers were in Ukraine.
Ukraine accused him of personally participating in the post-battle massacre of prisoners of war in Logvinovo, as well as killing civilians elsewhere in Donbas.
Meanwhile, Russia is taking steps to prevent the media from reporting about the deaths of Russian troops in Ukraine.
A court has ruled that lists of killed troops are a “state secret,” and that those that have already been made public must be removed.
The cover-up shows that the Kremlin is worried that the mounting death toll is beginning to erode popular support for Putin’s war.
There are already harsh rules in place, but independent Russian media outlets are now barred from compiling open source details of funerals in order to estimate the size of the casualties, which have been estimated to be in the thousands.
In Russia’s cemeteries, burials tied to the war are becoming more common.
Some have full ‘alleys of the dead’ dedicated to Russian soldiers who died in Putin’s conflict.
A high-ranking double military funeral in Balashikha, Moscow area, and a ‘alley’ of war burials in Ryazan, home to some of the country’s best paratroopers, are seen in videos.
The court judgment could prevent the identities of the slain conscripts on the sunk Moskva cruiser from ever being revealed.
It comes as a parent of a missing sailor, Yegor Shkrebets, 20, calls on Putin to reveal the fate of the Black Sea Fleet flagship and those murdered on board after it was attacked by Ukrainian missiles.
Russia is suspected of concealing the fate of dozens, if not hundreds, of crew members, most of whom were conscripts.
However, the courageous parent Dmitry Shkrebets, 43, has stated that he is being investigated by Russian secret services on terrorism charges for allegedly delivering a bomb threat.
He maintains that the claims are false and were made to keep him from revealing the entire horror of what happened to the vessel.
The Kaliningrad region’s Svetlogorsk court ruled a list of soldiers dead in Ukraine, compiled from open sources by the Pskov website 60.ru, as ‘prohibited information.’
The Network of City Websites has removed regional lists of individuals died as a result of this.
The court found that releasing the names of the dead “discloses personnel losses during wartime and during periods of special military operations during peacetime.”
The material is also a’state secret’ subject to criminal liability, according to the court.
‘We apologise to mothers and dads, wives and children, family members and friends of servicemen who died during the special operation,’ said one Siberian news outlet, chita.ru, as it pulled a list honoring the war dead.
‘We made this choice because of the court’s position,’ it added in erasing the names of those who perished.
They called it a “forced action” and cited “fears for the safety of journalists” as justification.
‘Dear readers, we are compelled to close comments on content relating to the special operation in Ukraine and its implications,’ the statement said. We’re hoping this is just a blip on the radar. Thank you for your patience.’
Many of those reported to have been killed are from impoverished provinces thousands of miles away from Moscow.
Novosibirsk, TransBaikal, Chelyabinsk, Yekaterinburg, Krasnoyarsk, and Omsk news outlets are among those affected by the current death toll cover-up.
The suit that sparked the crackdown was filed by the Baltic Fleet’s garrison’s 73rd military prosecutor’s office.
172 people have been identified as deceased in one region, Buryatia, however the true toll is likely certainly higher.
However, mentioning those killed in combat today puts the media in jeopardy.
Separately, the Telegram channel Mozhem obyasnit reports that Russian regional administrations are obtaining thousands of graves for families who cannot pay to bury their loved ones.
The figures are thought to be significantly higher than in recent years.
A total of 700 burials have been dug in the Khabarovsk district.
The figure is 100 in the Krasnoyarsk region.
Hundreds of Russian soldiers’ bodies are still being kept on trains in Ukraine, awaiting repatriation.
Moscow, according to Kyiv, is not in a hurry to receive its war victims.
They are stored on railway rails in refrigerated carriages.
Trains like these have been termed ‘trains of the dead.’