Storm Shadow strike kills three Russian lieutenant colonels. Mediazona reveals high‑ranking losses of the 76th Airborne Division right before New Year

At least three lieutenant colonels from the 76th Airborne Assault Division were killed in Lgov, Kursk Region, during a Ukrainian Storm Shadow missile strike on the unit's location on the night of December 30–31, according to a Mediazona investigation based on published obituaries. One obituary suggests that a total of eight officers from the division were killed that night, although only four names have been identified so far.

Lieutenant Colonel Valery Tereshchenko, the division’s chief of communications, was among the casualties. His obituary in the Telegram group Officers’ Hockey League stated that he died “while on a new headquarters deployment in the town of Lgov, Kursk region.” The post further claimed that the attack killed “eight members of the division’s senior staff and wounded 22,” though no additional names were mentioned.

Lieutenant Colonel Pavel Maletsky’s death was reported by his friend Ivan Shevchenko (the obituary was deleted, but preserved in an archive). Maletsky was the commander of the 656th Engineering Battalion, a unit of the 76th Division.

The death of Lieutenant Colonel Alexei Seliverstov—head of the division’s nuclear, biological and chemical defence service—was reported by his wife Olesya (the obituary is redacted, but the initial verision is preserved in an archive). While his obituary did not explicitly confirm his service in the 76th Division, Seliverstov lived in Pskov, where the unit is based, and was killed in the December 30 “missile attack.”

Another confirmed fatality from the 76th Airborne Division is Major Ali Tsurov, the division’s deputy chief of staff, as reported by the Ingushetia media outlet Fortanga.

On December 30, the Kursk regional operations HQ reported that four AFU missiles had been shot down over the region. Later, the acting Kursk governor, Aleksandr Khinshtein, wrote that “the Ukrainian Nazi regime has once again struck at the peaceful town of Lgov.” He then claimed that the attack injured an 86-year-old woman “who had her legs cut by glass shards in her apartment.”

The following day, Ukrainian journalist Yuriy Butusov shared a video of the strike's aftermath on his Telegram channel, describing it as a Storm Shadow attack on the Kursk combined forces headquarters.

The 76th Airborne Division is stationed in Pskov and has been actively involved in the invasion of Ukraine since February 2022. Mediazona has collected details about 12 officers with the rank of lieutenant colonel and above who served in this military unit and were killed in the war. Overall, obituaries mentioning service details suggest that the division has lost at least 607 personnel in combat so far.