A close Vladimir Putin ally and fanatical war supporter known as ‘Mr Hypersonic’ has been wounded in a Ukrainian attack as he celebrated his birthday in Donetsk.
Dmitry Rogozin, 59, the former deputy prime minister and former head of the Russian Space Agency, Roscosmos, was hit in the head, thigh and buttocks by shrapnel in shelling which killed two and wounded a total of six.
“I was wounded in the back - I’ll live. The shrapnel hit a centimetre away from the spine", Rogozin said.
The Ukrainian Border Service said that it had been established that he was in Donetsk and that “caring comrades” - the army - had struck him.
The city is Ukrainian under international law and therefore he “illegally crossed the Ukrainian border” and his location was established “on the territory temporarily occupied by Russia in the Donetsk region."
Rogozin was given the nickname "Mr Hypersonic" after being the main cheerleader for Russian President Vladimir Putin ’s monster rocket, the Satan-2 known in Russia as Sarmat.
Loyalist “rocket man” Rogozin was spending time in the war zone until a promised new post from Putin.
Russian war correspondent Semyon Pegov said the strike hit a hotel above the Shesh-Besh restaurant, where he was celebrating his birthday.
The journalist continued: "Judging by the nature of the damage, the targeted strike was carried out by either pinpoint rocket artillery or a long-range Excalibur projectile."
Russian expert Christo Grozev, of Bellingcat investigative journalism organisation, said Rogozin is “one of the most despicable Russian political figures who famously promised to arrive to Paris on a tank [who now] has a penetrative shrapnel wound in the buttocks… And many people say that's beautiful.”
Vitaly Khotsenko, chairman of the government of the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic government, was wounded, and his bodyguard died.
Russian nationalist MP Aleksey Zhuravlyov was at the party with his aide who was wounded.
Zhuravlyov said he and his aide were “carrying the wounded out”, leading to suspicions there was a large group present.
The MP's aide Ivan Kalegin was shown with a bloody face.
In June, Ukraine claimed Rogozin had “lost touch with reality” when he posted satellite pictures and precise map coordinates of Downing Street, the White House and NATO headquarters which could be used in a nuclear strike.
He then highlighted a fake report that former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson had threatened to deploy Britain’s nuclear missiles without consulting NATO.
Rogozin stated: “Boris, if ‘Sarmat’ is used, none of you will ‘consult with each other’. And there will be no one to style your hair, Mr Prime Minister.”
Rogozin was replaced as space chief by Yury Borisov, another ex-deputy PM.
The attack came on a day when Putin decreed the expansion of the Russian army from around one million to 1.5 million and raised the age of conscription from 27 to 30.
Donetsk is in the industrial Donbas region and has been described by Ukrainian President Zelensky as the "epicentre" of recent fighting between Russia and Ukraine.
