Kursk (BN24) – A senior Russian commander and close ally of Vladimir Putin is fighting for his life after a Ukrainian strike devastated a military column in Russia’s Kursk region, reportedly leaving him with catastrophic injuries, including the amputation of an arm and a leg.
Lt. Gen. Esedulla Abachev, 57, deputy commander of Russia’s North Group of Forces, was hit along the Rylsk–Khomutovka highway early Saturday, according to Ukraine’s Main Intelligence Directorate (HUR). The decorated officer was urgently airlifted to Moscow’s Vishnevsky Central Clinical Hospital, where surgeons carried out multiple amputations in an attempt to save his life.
A pro-Moscow source confirmed his condition, saying: “He is alive, but in serious condition [after] traumatic amputation of the arm and part of the leg.”
The attack forms part of Ukraine’s broader strategy to target senior Russian commanders, aiming to weaken Moscow’s chain of command and morale as its forces attempt to push across the border in the Kursk direction.
Ukrainian intelligence also reported striking an ammunition depot in occupied Melitopol a day earlier, killing Russian marines and members of Ramzan Kadyrov’s “Akhmat-Vostok” Chechen unit. “There will be just retribution for every war crime against the Ukrainian people,” HUR said in a statement.
A long battlefield history
Abachev has been at the center of nearly every Kremlin military campaign in the past three decades. A graduate of the Kharkiv Higher Tank Command School in 1989, he went on to fight in the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict, the Second Chechen War, Russia’s 2008 war with Georgia, and its campaign in Syria.
For his battlefield record, Abachev was repeatedly honored by Putin, receiving the Order of Courage and later the Hero of Russia – Gold Star, the country’s highest award. He also led the 2nd Army Corps of the so-called “Luhansk People’s Republic” during the ongoing invasion of Ukraine, where Ukrainian officials accuse him of committing war crimes against civilians in Lysychansk.
In August last year, amid increasing Ukrainian cross-border raids, Abachev was appointed commander of Russia’s border-cover group in Kursk — a role that placed him in the path of Saturday’s strike.
Mounting blows to Russian leadership
Abachev’s injuries are the latest in a series of humiliating Ukrainian strikes on Russia’s top brass. In July, Maj. Gen. Mikhail Gudkov, Russia’s Deputy Navy Chief and another Hero of Russia recipient, was killed during a suspected HIMARS strike on a command post in Kursk. In April, Gen. Yaroslav Moskalik was killed near Moscow.
Ukrainian social media channels have already circulated videos purportedly showing the burning wreckage of Abachev’s convoy following the attack. Analysts say Kyiv is deliberately intensifying strikes against senior commanders in a bid to disrupt Russian command structures and sap frontline morale.
The strike comes as Moscow intensifies operations in the Kursk region, while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky faces growing international pressure to negotiate with the Kremlin. Each successful hit on a high-ranking commander is seen as both a tactical victory and a symbolic blow to Putin’s struggling war effort.
thesun
