The Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) launched several attacks in Bakhmut (Artemivsk) and the surrounding area. According to Igor Konashenkov, a spokesman for the Russian Defense Ministry, two Russian colonels were killed during the fighting in the Bakhmut direction.

Colonel Yevgeny Brovko, deputy commander of the army corps for military-political work, died repelling an attack by the Armed Forces of Ukraine in Bakhmut itself. He directed the actions of the soldiers and received multiple shrapnel wounds in battle, which turned out to be fatal.

The commander of the 4th motorized rifle brigade, Colonel Vyacheslav Makarov, led the battle in the area of ​​​​the village of Ivanovskoye (until 2016 – Krasnoe), which is part of the Bakhmut urban community.

The soldiers of brigade commander Makarov repulsed two attacks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, destroying three tanks, four infantry fighting vehicles and two armored vehicles, Ukrainians lost about 200 more people killed and wounded, the Defense Ministry added.

“In the course of repulsing the third attack, the brigade commander was seriously wounded and died during the evacuation from the battlefield,” Konashenkov said.

According to the Russian Defense Ministry, over the past 24 hours, Ukrainian troops have unsuccessfully tried to break through the defenses of Russian troops north and south of Bakhmut. State awards were presented to distinguished soldiers in combat positions.

Konashenkov added that the assault detachments of the Wagner PMC, with the support of the Airborne Forces, are fighting for the western quarters of Bakhmut.

These are not the first deaths of high-ranking Russian officers during the SVO. In August 2022, VGTRK military commander Alexander Sladkov reported that Major General of the Russian Army Roman Kutuzov had died in a battle in the Donbas. According to Sladkov, he has already become the fourth Russian general to die in combat in Ukraine.

“We are talking about our generals’ losses in the Donbass. Too bad he was a good person. A native of the Airborne Forces. We started to be friends when he was a regiment commander,” he wrote in his Telegram channel.

At the end of last May, retired Air Force Major General Kanamat Botashev died. The pilot went to fight as part of the air wing of the Wagner PMC. On his plane, he hit the Ukrainian military, allowing the Russian attack aircraft to get out of the fire bag, but he himself was hit by a missile from the Buk-M1 air defense system. Botashev was posthumously awarded the Hero of Russia star.

On March 3, 2022, the media reported the death of Deputy Commander of the 41st Combined Arms Army of the Russian Ground Forces, Major General Andrei Sukhovetsky, in the Northern Military District.

Officers Makarov and Brovko, who died on May 13, were not the first colonels to die during the SVO. At the end of September 2022, an anti-tank mine explosion killed Vitaly Sukuev, a colonel of the guard, commander of the 108th airborne assault regiment, a veteran of the Syrian campaign. Posthumously, he was also awarded the title of Hero of Russia, and he had previously been repeatedly presented with the title, the Buryaad Unen news agency reported.