A high-ranking Russian officer, Col. Ruslan Galitsky, who was accused of commanding pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine, has been killed in Aleppo, Syria. Russian President Vladimir Putin personally confirmed the colonel’s death.
The Russian Ministry of Defense announced on Dec. 7 that Galitsky had been killed, and Putin subsequently said that Galitsky had suffered fatal wounds when a Russian military field hospital in Aleppo’s al-Furqan neighborhood was shelled on Dec. 5.