Ukrainian strike on Russian marine brigade command post in the Kursk region kills at least five senior officers

At least five senior Russian officers were killed in a strike on the command post of the 155th Guards Marine Brigade in the Kursk region. The monitoring project Russian Officers Killed in Ukraine first compiled the obituaries.

The most senior officer killed was Major General Mikhail Gudkov, Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Navy. His death was announced on July 3 by Oleg Kozhemyako, the governor of Primorsky krai, a region in Russia’s Far East. Kozhemyako also confirmed that another senior officer, Colonel Nariman Shikhaliev, was killed in the same attack.

Two other officers killed in the strike, both colonels serving in the 155th Brigade, were identified as Leonid Bashkardin from Kursk and Sergey Ilyin from Chuvashia. The fifth victim was Captain 2nd Rank Alexander Shipunov. His funeral was held on July 11 in the Siberian city of Barnaul.

According to an obituary from the “Typhoon” veterans’ organisation, Gudkov and more than ten others were killed on July 2 in what it described as a Ukrainian missile strike on the town of Korenevo. Pepel, an independent local news outlet,reported that the brigade’s command post had been set up inside a private house.

On July 6, Vladimir Putin posthumously awarded Gudkov the title of Hero of Russia. According to a Telegram post by Alexander Khinshtein, the acting governor of the Kursk region, the award made the late major general the “first twice Hero of Russia in modern history.”

Ukrainian sources state that the 155th Brigade participated in the early 2022 occupation of Bucha, Irpin, and Hostomel. The Ukrainian open-source intelligence project DeepState and the independent Russian outlet Agenstvo have also reported that servicemen from the unit may be linked to the beheading of Ukrainian prisoners of war.

The brigade, which was based in Primorsky krai in the Far East before the full-scale invasion, gained particular prominence in December 2024 when Vladimir Putin called for its banner to be unfurled during a live broadcast.

“We will consider this banner of the 155th Marine Brigade of the Pacific Fleet to represent all the battle standards of our fighters, who are now fighting for Russia, for the motherland, along the entire line of contact,” he said during his live Q&A session.

The 155th Marine Brigade has since been officially renamed in honour of Major General Mikhail Gudkov.