Russian colonel killed after 'stepping on mine' during visit to boost morale on Ukraine frontline
A Russian Colonel has reportedly been killed after “stepping on a mine” while visiting troops in Ukraine in an attempt to boost morale.
Arman Ospanov, who was the head of the armoured service of the Russian Airborne Forces, is the latest high ranking Russian officer to be killed.
He stepped on a mine and was killed, according to Anton Gerashchenko, an adviser to Ukraine's internal affairs minister who said Russian Telegram channels had confirmed the news.
Another account on X, formerly Twitter, Russian Officers killed in Ukraine, also backed up the claim.
It sources its information from funeral notices, obituaries, Russian news, monuments and memorial plaques.
Another X account – Status-6 claimed said Ospanov had been visiting the 104 Guards Air Assault Division near Kozachi Laheri in Kherson Oblast on January 6.
According to a source, the colonel had been delivering spare cables to an armoured recovery vehicle and when he arrived the group came under fire from Ukrainian artillery and he was “killed instantly”.
Reports say that Sergeant Alexander Krasnov from the airborne division was also killed.
The total number of Russian military personnel reportedly killed since the invasion of Ukraine is estimated at 365,170, although this has not been independently verified.
A large number of senior Russian military figures have been killed since Russian President Vladimir Putin sent his forces into Ukraine.
Major General Vladimir Zavadsky, deputy commander of Russia's 14th Army Corps, was killed in Ukraine in December 2023.
The investigative news outlet iStories said Zavadsky was the seventh Major General whose death had been confirmed by Russia, and the 12th senior officer overall to be reported dead since the start of the war.
In August last year Police Lieutenant Colonel Alexei Chernykh was gardening at his country home in Shchetinovka, Russia, just 1,000ft from the Ukraine border when he was killed in a drone strike.
In June, Major-General Sergey Goryachev, 52, was struck and killed by a long-range British-supplied Storm Shadow missile in Zaporizhzhia region, according to Moscow war sources.
Lieurenant-Col Viktor Fursov, an army intelligence officer, 37, died during a combat mission, although the circumstances of his death have not been disclosed. Major-General Dmitry Ulyanov, 44, had only recently returned to active service after retirement as a commander when he was killed in February last year.
Col. Mikhail Nagamov, 41, commander of a sapper regiment of the Western Military District, died in Ukraine on April 13, 2022. Major General Vladimir Frolov, deputy commander of the 8th Combined Arms Army was killed in battle the same month.
Meanwhile Major General Andrei Sukhovetsky was reportedly shot dead by a sniper at the battle for Hostomel Airfield about 30 miles outside the capital Kyiv in early March.
