The Ukrainian army has eliminated the Russian commander of the regiment that stormed Ilovaisk in 2014

The Ukrainian army has eliminated the commander of the elite Russian 331st landing regiment from Kostroma, colonel Sergey Sukharev. Four other servicemen from this regiment were also killed, specifically sergeant Sergey Lebedev, senior sergeant Oleksandr Limonov, corporal Yuriy Degtyariov, and captain Oleksiy Nikitin.

This was reported by Russian local state TV company Kostroma.

331st guardian paratroopers-landing regiment took part in both Chechen ars and in the five-day war against Georgia in 2008. In 2014 it was sent to Ukraine to storm Ilovaysk city. They were combating there without any identification marks. Russia was assuring that 10 captured paratroopers were just stranded during the drills and crossed the state Russian-Ukrainian border by mistake.

The fighting for Ilovaysk

Fighting took place near the city of Ilovaisk in the Donetsk oblast during the Russian-Ukrainian war in August 2014. On August 23-24, regular Russian troops entered the rear of the Ukrainian group holding Ilovaisk from the territory of the Russian Federation, and the Ukrainians found themselves surrounded. On the night of August 28-29, Russian President Vladimir Putin appealed to DNR militants to open a humanitarian corridor for the Ukrainian military. On August 29, the Ukrainian military began to move out of the city in organized columns on routes previously agreed with the Russian side. At first, Ukrainian columns moved freely past Russian fortified positions, but after a while Russian troops opened fire and shot them.

On August 21, 2020, Ukrainian Prosecutor Generalʼs Office called the Russian invasion the only cause of the Ilovaysk tragedy. According to the National Museum of Military History, in the battles for Ilovaisk on August 7-31, 2014, 368 Ukrainian soldiers died, 18 are considered missing.