A deputy commander of the Russian Armed Forces shot dead his commander in Ukraine's partially occupied southern Kherson region after he was mocked for having a "Ukrainian" name, a Russian Telegram channel has reported.
The VChK-OGPU outlet, which purports to have inside information from Russian security forces, reported that 37-year-old Sergeant Mikhail Khokhlov fatally shot his commander, Lieutenant Ivan Krivosheev, 37, with an AK-74 assault rifle. Khokhlov also shot and wounded his colleague Alexander Lykov in the neck. The channel didn't elaborate on when the shooting took place. Newsweek has yet to verify the details.
The U.K.'s Ministry of Defense said in an intelligence update on the war in September that Russian military personnel are suffering from low morale due to the absence of regular unit rotations out of combat duty.
Newsweek has contacted the Russian Defense Ministry for comment by email on Tuesday.
"Previously, on the eve of the incident, all three had been drinking. At some point, they began to make fun of Khokhlov for his last name, which the fighter clearly did not like, and he pulled out a machine gun," the VChK-OGPU channel said.
The name Khokhlov can be viewed as deriving from the word "Khokhol", which is a derogatory Russian term for Ukrainians.
"Now the shooter has been detained and handed over to the bail of the commandant's office of the 1218th regiment. It is known that most of the servicemen of this regiment were mobilized, and came from different parts of Russia. All three had children in their homeland," VChK-OGPU added.
The shooting incident was also reported on by Russian independent news channel ASTRA, which said "the exact reasons for the murder are currently unknown." The publication added that the shootout happened on Sunday morning.
There have been multiple reports of internal conflicts within Russian units throughout the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which began in February 2022.
Ukraine's intelligence service said last month that mobilized Russian soldiers beat to death their deputy commander in annexed Crimea, before fleeing the scene.
The soldiers from the 20th Guards Motor Rifle Division, part of the eighth Army of Russia's southern military district, "inflicted severe bodily injuries on Colonel Musurbekov" on November 1. They fled to the neighboring Russian region of Krasnodar, the intelligence service said.
Newsweek was unable to verify the claims of Ukrainian intelligence, and has reached out to Russian authorities for comment via email.
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
Isabel van Brugen is a Newsweek Reporter based in Kuala Lumpur. Her focus is reporting on the Russia-Ukraine war. Isabel ... Read more
