One strike takes out more Russian officers than ever during the entire war. Mediazona reveals 20 KIA officers in the August 26 attack on Donetsk

The Armed Forces of Ukraine launched a missile strike on Donetsk on the evening of August 26. Denis Pushilin, the head of the local occupation administration, reported on his Telegram channel that the “Donetsk City” shopping mall was the target and that eight people—two children, two women, and four men—were wounded. He added that French Storm Shadow/SCALP-EG missiles were used in the attack.

The Exile+ channel claimed that one strike hit a building at 97 Ilyich Avenue; prior to the war, the site housed research and industrial facilities. The Ukrainian Telegram channel CyberBoroshno added that one of the targets was an underground parking garage with 600 spaces beneath an unfinished residential complex, which was struck by six missiles.

Ukrainian OSINT projects suggested that both sites were being used as Russian army command posts. According to Exilenova+, the strikes resulted in 27 deaths and 58 injuries, with two generals among the seriously wounded.

Mediazona has access to personnel rosters for the headquarters of the Central Military District (military unit No. 33303; 856 men) and the headquarters of the 41st Combined Arms Army (military unit No. 44424; 206 men). The data in these lists is correct as of July 2025. In addition to surnames, the lists include ranks, positions, and other information. After cross-referencing these lists with the registry of inheritance cases and other state databases, and examining obituaries of high-ranking officers published over the past month, we concluded that at least 20 people were killed in the August 26 strike on Donetsk: 18 died that same day, and two succumbed to their injuries later.

Served at the Central Military District headquarters:

• Colonel Artyom Berdyugin, 38, Chief of the Intelligence Planning and Coordination Division, Intelligence Directorate;

• Colonel Alexander Kalyanov, 50, Chief of the Special Intelligence Division, Intelligence Directorate;

• Colonel Sergei Legky, 47, Deputy Chief of Electronic Warfare Troops, Electronic Warfare Troops Directorate;

• Lieutenant Colonel Yury Zhigalov, 39, Chief of the Joint Training and Inter-Service Coordination Section, Organisation and Planning Division, Combat Training Directorate;

• Major Sergei Lykov, 37, Operations Division, Missile Troops and Artillery Directorate Headquarters;

• Major Vyacheslav Latyshev, 41, Coordination and Operational Directions Section, Operations Division, Engineer Troops Directorate;

• Major Dmitry Ovcharenko, 34, Chief of the Engineer Training Section (Combined Arms Formations and Units), Troop Training Division, Engineer Troops Directorate;

• Major Anton Shcherbanev, 36, Intelligence Planning and Coordination Division, Intelligence Directorate.

Served in the headquarters of the 41st Combined Arms Army:

• Colonel Sergei Laptev, 48, Head of Section / Deputy Chief of Staff (Operations);

• Colonel Vasily Latyshev, 55, Chief of Staff / Deputy Chief of Missile Troops and Artillery;

• Colonel Yevgeny Timkin, 39, Head of the Engineer Troops Section;

• Lieutenant Colonel Artyom Akimov, 42, Deputy Chief of Air Defense Troops;

• Lieutenant Colonel Andrei Moiseyenko, 42, Senior Officer, Command Organization Subsection (Operations Section, Army Headquarters);

• Lieutenant Colonel Rustam Fakhrutdinov, 43, Chief of Intelligence / Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence (Intelligence and Automated Troop Control Systems Subsection, Missile Troops and Artillery Section);

• Major Oleg Berezovsky, 34, Information Security Officer (Subsection for Secrecy and Protection Against Unauthorized Access to Computing Systems, State Secret Protection Service);

• Captain Kirill Polozkov, 28, Intelligence Section;

• Senior Lieutenant Oleg Golubenko, 26, Officer, Intelligence and Automated Troop Control Systems Subsection (Missile Troops and Artillery Section).

Other duty stations or lack of precise data:

• Colonel Andrei Krestyansky, 51, senior instructor-inspector at the Ministry of Defense’s Center for Training Formation Command Staff;

• Lieutenant Colonel Denis Pavlov, 35, last known duty station: 15th Motorized Rifle Regiment;

• Lieutenant Colonel Viktor Basenko, 46, last known duty station: Chief of Logistics Staff, 25th Combined Arms Army.

By cross-referencing military unit lists with state registries, Mediazona discovered two additional instances of mass casualties among staff officers of the 41st Combined Arms Army: eight officers died on August 4, 2026, and four on September 8, 2025.

Killed on 4 August 2026:

• Lieutenant Colonel Aleksei Furzikov, 52, Operational Duty Officer / Deputy Chief of the Territorial Control Center, 41st Army Headquarters;

• Lieutenant Colonel Sergei Avdeev, 42, Chief of the Training Section, Missile Troops and Artillery Department, 41st Army;

• Major Mirza Mirzoyev, 29, Senior Officer, Operations Section, Engineering Troops Department, 41st Army;

• Major Semyon Belonozhko, 39, Radiation, Chemical, and Biological Protection Troops Section, 41st Army;

• Major Pavel Safonov, 36, Topographic Service, 41st Army Headquarters;

• Captain Sergei Averin, 39, Senior Officer, Unmanned Systems Planning, Employment, and Countermeasures Section, Unmanned Systems Department, 41st Army Headquarters;

• Captain Nikolai Zobnin, 30, Air Defense Department, 41st Army;

• Lieutenant Aleksander Novikov, 34, Command Organization Section, Operations Department, 41st Army Headquarters.

Killed on 8 September 2025:

Lieutenant Colonel Sergei Konoplev, 39, Сommunications Department of the headquarters of the 41st Army;

Major Foat Nazipov, 37, сommunications officer at the headquarters of the 41st Army;

Major Andrei Asyutin, 46, Communications Department of the headquarters of the 41st Army;

Lieutenant Alexei Matkov, 33, communications officer at the headquarters of the 41st Army.