Alexey Kolomeytsev, head of the 924th state center for unmanned aviation of the Russian Defense Ministry, was eliminated on Friday night, Interfax-Ukraine has reported.
The outlet’s Ukrainian military intelligence source said Kolomeytsev’s death was the result of a special operation by a local resistance movement in coordination with the Main Intelligence Agency of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine.
The report alleged that Kolomeytsev was involved in the training of Russian specialists in the use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), including operators and support staff for Shahed-type kamikaze drones.
Newsweek has contacted the Russian and Ukrainian defense ministries for comment via email outside of standard working hours.
A drone is seen in the sky seconds before it attacked buildings in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Oct. 17, 2022. The Russian military has previously used Iranian Shahed exploding drones to strike Ukrainian infrastructure.
Oleksii Samsonov/Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images
“The resistance movement is expanding, expanding its activities throughout Russia and beyond, as we warned earlier,” Interfax-Ukraine’s source reportedly said.
“Every Russian war criminal, everyone involved in the aggression against Ukraine, is our target, regardless of position, age, gender and location. We will destroy everyone who has the blood of Ukrainians on their hands until the Russian regime stops the war and answers for all its crimes,” the source added.
Ukrainian military footage posted online purported to show a convoy of Russian military vehicles in flames following an attack by Kyiv’s soldiers.
Ukraine’s Airborne Assault Forces posted on Facebook that its soldiers had managed to repel a 50-strong column of Russian equipment. Newsweek was unable to immediately verify the details of the footage and has contacted the Russian Defense Ministry for comment.
Independent U.S.-based think tank the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said on Friday that Ukrainian forces had repelled “a reinforced battalion-size Russian mechanized assault in the Kupiansk direction” in the first mechanized assault along the line since last winter.
On Wednesday, Ukraine’s defense ministry said Russia lost 115 drones (or UAVs) within the space of 24 hours—its worst daily loss of UAVs this month.
Newsweek has previously visualized Russian personnel, tank, and artillery losses in 2024 as of September 18, according to figures published by Ukrainian authorities.
May was Russia’s worst month for tank losses so far this year, with 428 destroyed. It was the second deadliest month in the war for Russian tank crews, following October 2023 with 521. Subsequent months saw 359 losses in June; 300 in July; and 193 in August.
On Tuesday, data sourced from Ukraine’s armed forces indicated that Russian losses of military personnel hit their second-highest three-day levels since the reignition of its conflict with Ukraine in 2022.
Do you have a story we should be covering? Do you have any questions about the war in Ukraine? Contact LiveNews@newsweek.com
