A Russian mercenary who gained notoriety for ruthlessly butchering hundreds of war prisoners and civilians in the Donbas region has been killed during intense fighting with Ukrainian forces. Vladimir Andonov, 44, also known as "The Executioner" for his brutality in previous wars he served in Syria and Libya, was shot dead by a Ukrainian sniper in Kharkiv.
Andonov, a member of the notorious Wagner Group of Russian mercenaries, was allegedly also engaged in the shooting of Ukrainian POWs during the Donbas conflict in 2014. It comes after a group of independent journalists reported that Vladimir Putin lost two of his most senior officers in a single day in a catastrophic bridge ambush in eastern Ukraine.
Killed at Last
Andonov, a native of Russia's Far East province of Buryatia, is believed to have been killed in the Kharkiv region of eastern Ukraine. Zhambal-Zhamso Zhanaev, the head of the territory where Andonov lived, confirmed his death to Russian newspaper Moskovskij Komsomolets.
"The death in Ukraine of Vladimir Andonov, better known as Vaha, has become known," the publication reported. "He died last night during a reconnaissance of the area together with his friend," it added.
Andonov's death is yet another blow to Putin, who has already lost over a score of commanders and other top-ranking military officers in his fight against Ukraine. Andonov had boasted about the mission to Russian media, claiming that his unit had been ordered to "destroy all the forces of the enemy " and that "there were no survivors" of the attack.
Andonov's death also appeared to be confirmed by Russian military sources based in Buryatia on the messaging app Telegram.
The ruthless mercenary was known to Russians as "Vakha," or "the volunteer from Buryatia," after the province from whence he came, while to Ukrainians, he was known as "The Executioner," because of the killings he carried out in during Russia's initial invasion of the country in 2014.
In early 2015, he was a member of a squad that "liberated" the Donbas village of Logvinovo, where three Ukrainian prisoners were later found killed in a shallow grave, including one who had been shot in the eye.
Paid for His Sins
Andonov's death comes as a major victory for Ukraine, which has been resisting Russian attack for over three months now. Andonov was born in 1978 in a small Russian hamlet near the Mongolian border and joined the Russian army in 1997.
Andonov was enlisted into the Olkhon special forces company operating in the Donbas in early 2015, and fought in the Battle of Debaltseve, one of the final significant battles of the initial conflict.
"I was in Donbas in September 2014, volunteering. I was urged by the events of May 2 in Odesa, where people were burned alive," he had said in an interview with Gazeta Nomer Odin in 2017.
Amnesty International released a report shortly after the conflict that recounted the killings of Oleksandr Berdes, Vasiliy Demchuk, and Pavlo Plotsinskiy, three Ukrainian troops who were seized by Russia and later discovered dead in a shallow grave near the village.
ANdolov is believed to have been behind the brutal killings of the three soldiers.
Andonov stayed on the frontlines in Ukraine until the full-scale fighting ended in 2015 with the signing of the Minsk Agreements, before returning to his home region in 2017.
He vanished at the end of that year, having destroyed all traces of himself online, and was supposed to be fighting as part of Wagner forces deployed to Syria and Libya over the next several years.
In August last year, the survivor of a gun massacre in the Libyan town of Espia told the BBC that Andonov had been among the soldiers that shot his family dead after occupying their home.
Andolov is claimed to have previously stated that his grandfather served in the Second World War in Ukraine. According to prior interviews with Russian media, Andonov is believed to leave behind a wife and at least two daughters.
Andonov's body, along with that of another fellow fighter Bair Mitupov, also from Buryatia, is currently being returned from the front to his home region for burial.
It comes after two of Putin's generals were assassinated overnight in a single strike. Major General Roman Kutuzov and Lieutenant General Roman Berdnikov, both 47, were allegedly killed in the same ambush in eastern Ukraine on Sunday.
The two generals were killed after their convoy was ambushed on a bridge in the Donetsk region, according to a Telegram post by state TV reporter Alexander Sladkov. The Russians have apparently confirmed Kutuzov's death, but there has been no word on Berdnikov.
