Putin loses two more colonels in Ukraine war including ‘best’ paratroop commander

Two more Russian colonels have been killed in Ukraine - including the country’s “best paratroop commander” delivering another blow to Vladimir Putin’s war.

Lt Col Alexander Dosyagayev, 34, was a commander of an airborne assault battalion of the 104th paratrooper regiment.

Troops from his 104th air assault regiment were reportedly in Bucha, which was the scene of alleged rape and torture atrocities by Vladimir Putin’s forces earlier in the war.

His battalion based in Pskov had been recognised as the best in Russia in its extensive combat training and military discipline and was judged the winner of the Winged Infantry category at the 2021 military festival, Army of Russia.

“I was filled with pride that my soldiers and officers showed the result they were striving for,” Dosyagayev said.

Ukraine’s Armed Forces gave little acknowledgment to Dosyagayev’s achievements in their statement on his death writing: “This did not help him at a meeting with Ukrainian warriors.”

Russian media outlet Mediazona confirmed the death of another colonel killed earlier in the war which has not been announced.

Col Vladimir Ivanov, 41, has been labelled a “propagandist” by the Ukrainian media because he served in the Russian defence ministry’s department of Information and Mass Communication. It is now established that he died in March fighting in Ukraine.

A friend of Ivanov carried his portrait at a march of the “immortal regiment” on 9 May commemorating Russians killed in action in multiple conflicts.

It is now believed that over 40 Russian colonels have been killed in the war along with 10 generals in what is amounting to Russia’s biggest losses since the Second World War. Additionally, according to Ukraine’s defence ministry over 30,000 Russian troops have been killed since the invasion began on 24 February.

The news comes amid growing concerns around Mr Putin’s health with recent reports claiming the Kremlin leader has been given just three years to live by doctors.

A growing number of unconfirmed reports allege the 69-year-old president has cancer and that his health is deteriorating quickly.

And now an FSB officer has claimed Mr Putin “has no more than two to three years to stay alive”, adding the Russian president has “a severe form of rapidly progressing cancer.”

Messages said to be from the unidentified Russian spy to FSB defector Boris Karpichkov also say Mr Putin is losing his sight and suffering from headaches.

“We are told he is suffering from headaches and when he appears on TV he needs pieces of paper with everything written in huge letters to read what he’s going to say,” the Russian officer told the Sunday Mirror.

“They are so big each page can only hold a couple of sentences. His eyesight is seriously worsening.”