Notorious Russian commander reportedly dead

The Ilovaisk massacre has left its mark on the Ukrainians. After the Russian invasion in 2014, about 7,000 Ukrainian soldiers were surrounded in the city in Donbass. The attackers promised them safe conduct, but when the soldiers withdrew, the Russians fired on the fugitives with artillery: 366 Ukrainians were killed, 450 wounded and 300 captured. Now the Ukrainians may have killed one of the main perpetrators of the war crime.

“Ukrainian soldiers have again retaliated against Ilovaisk,” Ukrainian war correspondent Yuriy Butuzov told Telegram. “They took out Dmytro Lisitsky, the commander of the 1st battalion of the 247th airborne regiment of the Russian army.”

The lieutenant colonel is said to have ordered in 2014 to shoot at the retreating Ukrainians from Ilovaisk. In 2015, Kremlin chief Putin awarded him the title of “Hero of Russia”. So far, neither Kiev nor Moscow have confirmed the 48-year-old’s death. The attack is said to have taken place on Sunday, but reporter Butusov gave no further details about the circumstances.

“Treacherous Trap”

With Dmytro Lisitsky, the Russian army would lose an experienced officer. Since the 1990s, Lisitsky has been involved in seven military operations, including twice in Chechnya and the Russian invasion of Georgia in 2008. “The 247th regiment suffered heavy casualties during the 2022 invasion of Ukraine,” writes Yuriy Butuzov. “The elimination of Lisitsky would significantly weaken the regiment’s fighting power.”

The ARD reporter Udo Lielischkies and his camera team narrowly escaped the carnage in Ilowaisk. “I well remember this treacherous trap, which cost the lives of many Ukrainians – including two of our Ukrainian ARD colleagues,” Lielischkies wrote on Twitter after news of Lisitsky’s death. “But Gosha and Ivan survived, not this commander.”

(t-online, mk)