Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces (SSO) have released exclusive video footage showing the strike that seriously wounded Lt. Gen. Esedulla Abachev, deputy commander of Russia’s North Group of Forces.
The video, published on Telegram on Aug. 20, captures the moment a suicide drone hit the general’s vehicle near Rylsk, Kursk region.
The drone camera footage, which Kyiv Post was unable to independently verify for time or location, shows a car driving along a highway when a suicide drone strikes it.
Later footage shows the car stopped on the roadside with its front passenger door open, apparently during an evacuation, before another suicide drone hits the vehicle.
According to the SSO, Abachev’s car was targeted by the UA_REG TEAM unit. As a result of the strike, the general reportedly lost an arm and a leg and was urgently airlifted to Moscow for treatment.
Moreover, footage allegedly showing the destruction of the Russian column in which Abachev was injured had earlier circulated on Ukrainian Telegram channels.
Abachev has long been a notorious figure in Ukraine. The Prosecutor General’s Office charged him in 2023 for ordering bombardments of civilian areas in Luhansk while commanding the so-called “2nd Army Corps of the Luhansk People’s Republic.”
Ukrainian intelligence (HUR) earlier stressed that the attack was part of Kyiv’s ongoing campaign of retribution against Russian commanders responsible for war crimes.
Abachev’s military career spans decades of Kremlin-led wars. He graduated from the Kharkiv Higher Tank Command School in 1989 and later participated in the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict, the Second Chechen War, Russia’s invasion of Georgia in 2008, and the Syrian campaign.
For his role in these operations, Russian President Vladimir Putin personally awarded him the Order of Courage.
Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Abachev commanded the 2nd Army Corps in Luhansk before being appointed in August 2024 to lead Russian forces covering the Kursk border.
His injury follows a series of Ukrainian strikes on senior Russian officers.
Just last month, Maj. Gen. Mikhail Gudkov, Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Navy, was reportedly killed in a missile strike on a command post in the Kursk region.
Earlier this year, Ukrainian operations also targeted Gen. Yaroslav Moskalik near Moscow, alongside multiple other senior officers in occupied territories.
Ukraine’s intelligence services emphasize that such operations are designed to weaken Russia’s command structure and serve as direct consequences for its war against Ukraine.