Two of Vladimir Putin's top military pilots have been killed after their motorcade was struck in Ukraine by missiles, it has emerged.
Both colonels, the two fighter pilots were reportedly taken down in a missile attack in the Donetsk region aided by Western intelligence. Both were among Russia's most decorated military.
Lt-Col Maksim Potyomin, 41, and 54-year-old Colonel Anatoly Stasyukevich were struck by a precision US-supplied HIMARS missile in a strike which is believed to have been targeted.
HIMARS is a US rocket launch system loaned to Ukraine which is reportedly causing huge problems for war lord Putin.
The recent attack takes the death toll of Russian colonels in the war to 82.
The men - both of whom were from pilot dynasties and from the same unit in Krymsk, Krasnodor region, died on July 8 - although the news of the attack was only revealed now.
Stasyukevich, chief of staff of the 1st Guards Baranovichi Red Banner mixed aviation division, was a third generation military pilot.
News of the two deaths will come as a major blow to Putin, whose losses are believed to be surging once again.
Lt-Col Potyomin's death was confirmed by his family - he was married with a daughter, 15, and son, eight.
His godmother Natalya Duddinka told Russian press of her "huge, huge grief", saying, "there are no words to express this pain”.
Potyomin’s father Alexey Potyomin, chairman of the Volgograd Regional Parachuting Federation, said: “My son’s car was hit by a HIMARS missile, which we have been hearing so much about lately...
“His injuries were incompatible with life."
Potyomin has reportedly been posthumously awarded the order of courage by a Putin decree.
It comes after Russia claimed their troops had destroyed four HIMARS missile launchers last week - a claim which was rebuked by Ukraine and US defence headquarters the Pentagon.
Warmonger Putin meanwhile has been told he has lost a total of 56,572 troops, national guards and fighters from private military companies in the war, according to new toll breakdown, the highest yet.
General SVR channel puts Russian losses at a staggering 43,018 in Putin’s armed forces plus 11,437 in private military companies like Wagner, and 2,117 national guards.
The total is 56,572, it claimed.
The head of the British Armed Forces, Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, recently claimed Russia has lost 30 percent of its forces with 50,000 soldiers dead or injured.
The new figure relates only to the dead.
