A PAIR of Vladimir Putin’s top colonels have reportedly been eliminated in a dramatic Storm Shadow missile blitz by Ukraine.
The deadly drone ambush is said to have wiped out a Russian lieutenant and a battalion chief who were hiding out in a bunker in Kursk.
Lieutenant Colonel Valery Tereshchenko was targeted in the command post along with seven other senior officers.
One of these included Colonel Pavel Maletsky, 39, who is the commander of the 656th separate engineer-sapper battalion.
The fatal blast tore through the city of Lgov on December 30, with images showing the moment of the explosion.
Bright flashes of orange can be seen over the area where the command post was reportedly located.
The missiles used have been supplied to Ukraine by the British.
The high-ranking casualties have only been revealed today as details of their funerals appeared to emerge.
Putin is yet to officially announce the deaths with Russian media staying quiet over the blast.
But a tribute to Tereshchenko has been posted by the Russian Officers’ Ice Hockey League on Telegram.
They announced “with bitterness and sorrow in our hearts” Tereshchenko died in the missile strike.
He played a pivotal role in Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine since joining the Kremlin’s ranks in October 2022.
He is reportedly due to be buried later today.
An apparent friend of Maletsky has also appeared to confirm the death of the colonel in the same attack.
Six other Russians were also killed alongside the two key players in Putin’s war games, Ukrainian media have announced.
Another 22 servicemen are believed to have been injured in the blast.
The damaging deaths to the Kremlin come after another top Russian missile commander was blitzed by a Ukrainian revenge strike.
29-year-old Captain Konstantin Nagayko is currently in critical condition after his post in Russia’s Ivanovo region was attacked, as reported by Ukrainian military intelligence.
It is said that Nagayko, who Kyiv has accused of war crimes, had to go through extensive surgeries after “all his vital organs were damaged”.
UKRAINE’S PINPOINT ATTACKS
Russia has claimed that Ukraine has carried out a series of targeted assassinations since the beginning of the war back in February 2022.
General Igor Kirillov, 54, was killed after a bomb in his electric scooter blew him up outside his Moscow apartment.
Dramatic footage shows the moment the device detonated just seconds after the general and his assistant Ilya Polikarpov left his home.
Some 200g of TNT stuck to the scooter is believed to have been detonated remotely.
The FSB claims Kurbanov was offered $100,000 and European passports to carry out the assassination by Kyiv.
Volodymyr Zelensky’s office later denied Ukrainian involvement in Kirillov’s death.
Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to the head of the Ukrainian president’s office, said: “Ukraine does not use methods of terrorist formats.
It comes after Darya Dugina, 30, the daughter of Alexander Dugin, dubbed “Putin’s Rasputin” was killed in a car bomb attack.
In 2023 military blogger Vladlen Tatarsky was killed in a bombing attack in a café in central St Petersburg.
Another 30 people were injured in the attack.
Daria Trepova, 26, who reportedly handed him a gold TNT-laden figurine of himself. now faces 20 years behind bars.
Meanwhile, naval captain Stanislav Rzhitsky, 42, was shot dead after a hitman tracked him down using a popular fitness app
He was jogging through the Russian city of Krasnodar when he was gunned down.
