Russian officer is ‘blown up by drone while mowing his lawn on his day off’ near Ukrainian border

A Russian officer has been killed mowing his lawn on his day off in a settlement near the Ukrainian border, local reports said.

Alexei Chernykh, deputy chief of a local anti-corruption police department, was blown up by a drone at his home in Schetinovka village, they claimed.

The village is located just a mile from Russia’s border with Ukraine in Belgorod Oblast, which has been subject to frequent drone strikes in recent months as Ukraine has stepped up its cross-border attacks.

Telegram broadcaster Baza, which has ties to Russian security services, said a drone dropped a bomb on the Chernykh site on Sunday.

“A Ukrainian drone dropped ammunition at its location in Shchetynovka,” the Telegram channel reported. “At the time, Alexey was mowing on his day off,” it added, saying he was killed in the incident.

The police lieutenant colonel would have turned 40 today, according to information on his social media account.

Belgorod Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov accused Ukraine of being behind a drone strike in the region on the same day, saying it had killed a “civilian”.

He accused Ukraine of dropping “an explosive from a drone,” hitting a civilian who was “mowing the lawn at his summer cottage at the time.”

Gladkov said the man died of shrapnel.

He did not name the person who died in the attack.

Ukraine, which has yet to achieve major success with its summer ground offensive, has struck deep into Russia in recent months, including an attack on the Kremlin in May and numerous drone strikes against civilian targets in Moscow.

Ukraine typically does not comment on who is behind attacks on Russian territory, although officials have publicly expressed their satisfaction.

Chernykh’s death, if confirmed, would make him the last senior Russian official to die since Vladimir Putin launched the invasion of Ukraine.

It has been confirmed by Russian sources that at least six generals have been killed since February 2022 (including four with the rank of major general and two lieutenant general), while Ukraine claims the true number is fifteen.

Be that as it may, the number of Russian generals killed in the conflict is unprecedented since World War II.

The numbers are attributed to senior commanders who personally went into the field to address command problems, the faltering performance of Russian front-line forces, insecure communications, and US intelligence gathering.

Just last month, Lieutenant General Oleg Tsokov, 51, was killed in an attack believed to have been carried out using a British-supplied storm shadow missile.

Tsokov was personally known to Putin and had been sanctioned by Britain and the EU for his role in the war against Ukraine.

News of Chernykh’s reported death came as Ukraine said on Wednesday it had downed more than 20 cruise missiles and a swarm of attack drones across the country in its “most powerful” airstrike on Kiev in weeks, killing two.

The attack came as Russia said Pskov airport, near the border with NATO member Estonia, had been targeted by drones, and state news agencies reported several transport planes damaged.

Russian officials also described attacks on targets in the Bryansk, Kaluga, Orlov, Ryazan and Moscow regions.

Russia’s foreign ministry said the attacks would “not go unpunished” and could not have penetrated this far into Russian territory without Western help.

The attack on Pskov airport, more than 400 miles from the border with Ukraine, marks the latest attack deep into Russian territory since Kiev pledged to hand the conflict back to Russia in July.