Ukraine has claimed that its forces have shot dead the deputy commander of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet in another significant blow to Vladimir Putin.
First rank captain Andrey Paliy, 51, is the only senior naval officer allegedly killed in the war in Ukraine, although Kyiv have also claimed to have killed five army generals.
Colonel Sergeie Sukharev, from the 331st Guards Parachute Assault Regiment, was killed on March 18, while Major General Andrei Sukhovetsky was shot and killed by a sniper at the end of February.
Sukhovetsky was the deputy commander of the 41st Combined Arms Army.
On March 7, the death of Major General Vitaly Gerasimov was announced by Ukrainian military intelligence based on an intercepted radio call.
He was the first deputy commander of the 41st Army, and was killed outside of Kharkiv, according to a conversation between two FSB officers.
Paliy’s death appeared to be confirmed by a Russian friend, Konstantin Tsarenko, secretary of the public council of the Sevastopol Nakhimov Naval School.
However his death has not been officially acknowledged by Moscow.
One account said that he had been involved in attacks on Russian marines near Mariupol.
The exact circumstances of his death remain unknown.
Paliy, who was born in Kyiv, refused to take the Ukrainian military oath in 1993, and instead chose to serve in the Russian Northern Fleet.
He had earlier served on the Russian nuclear missile cruiser “Peter the Great”.
He also served as deputy head of the Russian naval academy in Sevastopol in annexed Crimea.
Russia used hypersonic Kinzhal missiles on “military targets” in Ukraine again on Sunday, according to the defence ministry in Moscow.
Russian defence ministry spokesman Major General Igor Konashenkov said that the Kinzhal (Dagger) hypersonic missile hit a Ukrainian fuel depot in Kostiantynivka near the Black Sea port of Mykolaiv.
He added: “Kalibr cruise missiles were launched from the waters of the Black Sea against the Nizhyn plant that repairs Ukrainian armoured vehicles damaged in fighting.”
On Saturday, the Russian military said the Kinzhal had been used for the first time in combat to destroy an ammunition depot in Diliatyn in the Carpathian Mountains in western Ukraine.
Konashenkov added that another attack by air-launched missiles hit a facility in Ovruch in the northern Zhytomyr region where foreign fighters and Ukrainian special forces were based.
The type of missile strike was not specified.
“More than 100 servicemen of [Ukraine’s] special operations forces and foreign mercenaries were killed,” he said.
