Fifth Russian general ‘killed’ as Ukrainian forces ‘shoot down two planes & three helicopters’ in overnight blitz

UKRAINIAN forces have killed another top Russian general, the fifth to die since Putin's troops invaded the country last month.

Lieutenant-General Andrei Mordvichev, commander of the 8th Combined Arms Army, died in fighting at Chornobaivka, near the southern city of Kherson.

Major-General Oleg Mityaev, 47, was killed in Mariupol on Wednesday, bringing the total number of Russian officers to die since the start of the war to 13.

It comes as Ukraine claimed this morning to have shot down two Russian planes and three helicopters in the past 24 hours.

Lieutenant General Andrei Mordvichev - the commander of the 8th General Army - died during fighting last night in a fresh blow to Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine.

It's thought the military boss was killed in the Russian-controlled Kherson Airport, which has been hit with Ukranian strikes in the past few days.

A statement from the army general staff in Kyiv read: “As a result of fire on the enemy by the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the commander of the 8th All-Military Army of the Southern Military District of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, Lieutenant-General Andrey Mordvishev was killed.”

It comes as Ukraine this morning claimed they have hit 12 Russian air targets in the last day.

The armed forces say Russia continues to suffer heavy losses - adding that Russian equipment was destroyed in the Mykolayiv and Sumy regions.

On Wednesday, Major-General Oleg Mityaev, 47, died in the storming of Mariupol, along with seven members of an elite SWAT team.

A picture of the corpse of the decorated military officer, a father-of-two, was released by Ukrainian Interior Ministry adviser Anton Gerashchenko.

The commander of the 150th motorised rifle division is the fourth Russian General to die in the war, according to Kyiv.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had reported the death of another Russian general in his nightly address but did not name him.

Meanwhile, pictures were released in Russia showing the photographs of six elite “maroon beret” special forces fighters from the Vityaz Special Purpose Centre of the Dzerzhinsky Division.

The unit is named after the feared founder of the Soviet Union's secret police, Felix Dzerzhinsky.

It comes as...

• Russia claims it has unleashed deadly hypersonic missiles in Ukraine for the first time
• Putin held a huge military rally in Moscow, but it was mysteriously cut off during the president's speech
• Russian troops' morale is "collapsing", according to a UK military expert
• Hundreds are still feared trapped under the ruins of a theatre in Mariupol bombed by Russian forces
• Video captured the moment Ukrainian laser-guided missiles blew up Russian tanks
• An increasingly-paranoid Putin is said to fear he will be "poisoned" as he purges his staff

The death comes after that of a spy captain during a "top-secret" operation in Ukraine meaning Vladimir Putin has now lost a total of 13 commanders in the invasion.

GRU military intelligence spy Captain Alexey Glushchak, 31, from Tyumen in Siberia, died in the carnage in Mariupol but details of his death have not been released.

“Due to the strict secrecy of the military operation, the circumstances of the death of the Tyumen hero are not disclosed,” said a statement. 

The GRU was behind the poisoning of defected spy Sergei Skripal with Novichok in Salisbury.

Pictures emerged of father-of-one Glushchak’s funeral in Russia, where he was buried with full military honours and a guard of honour.

On the day the military intelligence officer died he had spoken to both his wife and mother in Russia, it was revealed. 

He called to congratulate them on International Women’s Day but on the same day in the evening they learned he had been killed. 

His death coincides with the first expressions of anger and dismay on the number of coffins now returning to Russia, even though those officially acknowledged as having fallen in Ukraine are seen as a small fraction of the total number which best estimates suggest now run into many thousands. 

Glushchak will be posthumously decorated. 

Moscow has given no up-to-date total of those killed in the war and named only a handful of the fallen which include several generals. 

Many funerals currently visible in the media are for soldiers slain at the end of February.

Russia is taking two weeks or more to transport their bodies back to relatives, many of whom live in the Russian Far East thousands of miles from the bloody war zone. 

A funeral was also held for Corporal Danil Novolodsky, 24, a senior gunner on an air assault artillery battery.

He was awarded the Order of Courage under a decree signed by Vladimir Putin.

He was from Ulan-Ude, capital of the Republic of Buryatia in Siberia, a mainly Buddhist region, which has suffered a disproportionate number of fatalities among Russian soldiers killed in Ukraine.

Ahead of the invasion, tens of thousands of troops were sent west on the Trans-Siberian Railway to fight in the coming war. 

Another funeral from the same region was held for Vladimir Plekhanov, 24, an orphan raised by a foster family. 

Sagyndyk Kudaibergenov, 22, from Tyumen, like the GRU agent, was buried with military honours, say reports.

He was killed in mortar fire while deploying communications equipment across a river. 

He was killed on February 26 but his funeral was only on March 11.

At the weekend Russia launched missile strikes just 12 miles from the Polish border with Ukraine leaving at least 35 people dead.

Ukraine claimed Russian forces fired more than 30 cruise missiles at the Yavoriv military base near Lviv, injuring 134 people.