Russia loses its EIGHTH colonel after fierce fighting in Kharkiv in latest high-ranking casualty

An eighth Russian colonel has been killed in Ukraine in another devastating blow to Vladimir Putin‘s faltering invasion which has seen the loss of many high-ranking officers.

Kyiv said it had ‘eliminated’ Colonel Denis Kurilo, commander of the 200th separate motorised rifle brigade, in fighting near Kharkiv.

The brigade had suffered massive losses in the fierce battle, the Ukrainian army’s press office said.

A picture of Kurilo was shared with a red cross through it to announce his death.

Two battalion groups in the 200th brigade were destroyed, with a staggering loss of 1,500 servicemen, Ukraine has claimed. 

The colonel is the latest in a long line of slain Russian military leaders, which experts say betray the Kremlin’s blundering tactics in the brutal invasion.

Kurilo follows seven colonels and seven generals who have been killed by defiant Ukrainian forces in the month-long war.

Colonel Nikolay Ovcharenko, chief of the Western Military District engineer troops, was killed in an ambush that left a total of 18 Russians dead by a pontoon bridge over the Siverskyi Donets River.

Colonel Alexei Sharov, commander of the 810th Guards Separate Order of Zhukov Brigade in the Russian Marines, was killed in Mariupol last week. 

Colonel Sergei Sukharev, of the 331st Guards Parachute Assault Regiment from Kostroma, was ‘liquidated’ according to Ukraine in fighting earlier this month. 

‘Commander of the Kostroma Airborne Regiment, Colonel Sergei Sukharev… got lost in the “[military] exercises”, but returned home the right way,’ said the Ukrainian statement.

His deputy Major Sergei Krylov was killed alongside him, said the report.

Colonel Andrei Zakharov was killed in an ambush near Kyiv in the opening days of the war, while Colonel Konstantin Zizevsky who led air assault troops died in the south of Ukraine.

Russian brigade commander Colonel Yuri Medvedev was even run down with a tank  by his own mutinous troops.

A Western official claimed the commander had been killed by his own troops, ‘as a consequence of the scale of losses that had been taken by his brigade’.

‘We believe he was killed by his own troops deliberately,’ the official said, noting he was ‘run over’.

He added it was a further sign of ‘morale challenges that Russian forces are having’.

‘They really have found themselves in a hornet’s nest and they’re suffering really badly,’ the official said.

Colonel Sergei Porokhyna is another high-profile casualty among Putin’s forces. 

On top of the colonels, at least seven Russian generals have been killed in fighting, more than during the entire 10-year brutal Soviet campaign in Afghanistan in the 1980s where five generals died.

And last week, Russian Army Commander General Vlaislav Yershov, of the 6th Combined Arms Army, was sacked by Putin due to the heavy losses and strategic failures. 

The latest to die, Lieutenant General Yakov Rezanstev, was a commander of Russia’s 49th Combined Arms Army in its southern military district, the official disclosed.  

Among the others said to have been killed is General Magomed Tushaev, of the Chechen Special Forces deployed by Russian President Vladimir Putin in Ukraine.

Another is believed to have been Lieutenant General Yakov Rezantsev, 48, commander of the army’s 49th combined arms division, who became the fifth general to be killed after being taken out in a strike by the Ukrainian armed forces.

Rezantsev, who bragged on just the fourth day of the war that it would be over in a matter of hours, was apparently killed after the Ukrainian army destroyed the commanding post of the 49th Russian Army in southern Ukraine. 

Major-General Oleg Mityaev, 47, commander of the army’s 150th motorised rifle division, died fighting in the besieged city of Mariupol while Major General Vitaly Gerasimov, 45, was killed on March 7 outside the eastern city of Kharkiv.

Meanwhile Major-General Andrey Kolesnikov, Commander of the Guards Tank Kantemirovskaya Division, was also killed in fighting on March 11. 

Major-General Andrei Sukhovetsky, 47, was killed during a special operation by a sniper on March 3. 

The number of both rank-and-file Russian troops and senior officers allegedly killed in the month-long war has shocked Western military and security officials.

It has been blamed in part on communications and logistics issues, leading senior officers to use unencrypted channels which has exposed them to Ukrainian forces.

Putin is thought to have planned for a short and sharp invasion lasting only a few days, aimed at decapitating the government and installing a puppet regime. Instead he has found himself sucked into a hugely demanding war of attrition.