A notorious Russian general known for torturing his own men has been killed by a Ukrainian drone while riding his motorbike.
Major General Pavel Klimenko died on Wednesday after his reconnaissance mission was attacked near the front lines in a Russian-occupied part of Ukraine’s Donbas region.
He was one of Russia’s most reviled military leaders and relatives of soldiers killed under his command even celebrated his death.
One account, under the name Anastasia, wrote on a Russian social media website: “This is your punishment, scum, for all the men whose lives you played with like cards!!! God heard our tears and prayers.”
Victoria, who said her son had been “kept in a basement like cattle” after being injured and then forced back into battle without a rifle or body armour, said: “Burn in hell, animal!”
Klimenko, 47, was regarded as a sadist who tortured soldiers refusing to take part in his “meat grinder assaults”, one military strategist said.
At least one such soldier, a disabled guitar teacher from the occupied Donetsk region, was alleged to have died as a result of Klimenko’s torture.
Eyewitnesses have claimed Klimenko ordered sick and injured soldiers into battle and allowed his subordinates to steal their salaries.
His officers are also being investigated for torturing and killing a pro-Kremlin US blogger and fighter earlier this year, before blowing up his body to try and disguise the murder.
‘Mine-explosive injury and blunt head trauma’
Klimenko, who commanded the Donetsk 5th Separate Motorised Rifle Brigade, is at least the eighth Russian general to be killed since the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
An official notice of his death said a Ukrainian drone hit Klimenko’s motorbike squad on Wednesday at a checkpoint roughly two miles from the town of Kurakhove, the focus of a fierce battle.
Klimenko, it said, died from “a mine-explosive injury and blunt head trauma”. He also had several major fractured bones and severe internal bleeding.
Elsewhere on the frontline, the death toll from a Russian attack on the city of Zaporizhzhia has now risen to 10, including a one-year-old boy, his mother and his great-grandmother.
At least 41 other people were injured in the attack on Thursday, which struck a residential area and an oncology clinic.
Russian forces have intensified their attacks across Ukraine over the past two months in an effort to push their manpower and ammunition advantages.
This has included dropping powerful “glide bombs” on Zaporizhzhia since the start of October.
In Odesa, at least one person was killed and nine others were injured in Russian drone attacks, while Russian bombs injured 25 people in Kharkiv.
‘People are dying everyday’
According to the British Ministry of Defence (MoD), Russia launched 2,000 drone attacks in October. This is an increase of 700 since September, the third “significant” monthly increase in a row, it reported.
The MoD said: “It is likely that high figures seen through September and October to date will become normal.”
In Russia, reports from Novosibirsk in Siberia revealed that the Communist party was allowed to organise a rare anti-war rally to mark the anniversary of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution.
The 30-person rally focused on criticising the Kremlin for the cost of the war but did not directly reproach Vladimir Putin.
Sergei Krupenko, a Communist Party activist, said: “This government has dragged the country and tens of millions of people into a bloody adventure, you know where! People are dying every day. The civilian population is suffering. Today, trillions of roubles have been wasted, literally wasted.”
Protests are rare in Russia where dissent is banned. Although, as reported by the Telegraph from Kazan last month, discontent with Putin and his war in Ukraine has become fairly widespread in private.
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