
The Russian military has suffered a major loss, as Major General Anton Feliksovich Grunysh, one of its most prominent figures in the war in Ukraine and an officer whom Moscow state media had portrayed as a particularly successful commander on the front, has reportedly been killed after a Ukrainian attack.
The Ukrainian side claims that the 46-year-old general was killed on September 12 by a drone strike near Kintrativka, in the Donetsk region.
The commander of Ukraine's Unmanned Systems Forces, Robert Brovdy, announced that his forces carried out the attack. Russia has now confirmed Grunysh's death, however without officially announcing the circumstances in which he was killed.
Originally from Tatarstan, Grunish had a long military career. He served in the Second Chechen War, the 2008 Russia-Georgia war, Russian operations during the annexation of Crimea in 2014, and in Syria, before taking up duties in the war that began with the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
A video released by Ukrainian military sources attributes the attack to the 427th Unmanned Systems Brigade "Rarog".
The footage shows suicide drones heading towards buildings in the Kintrativka area, followed by explosions and powerful fires.
However, the material itself does not prove that Grunis was inside the specific buildings at the time of the attack.
The Ukrainian military leadership claims that the Russian general was killed there, while Reuters noted that it has not been able to independently confirm all the details of the attack.