A spokesman for Russia’s National Guard has been killed in battle in Ukraine, a veterans’ organization announced Tuesday.
Col. Sergei Postnov served as a war correspondent in the National Guard’s so-called “information response group,” the Russian Interior Ministry’s veterans’ council said on its website.
The group said that Postnov died “performing his military duty,” but did not identify a cause of death.
Postnov had reportedly been carrying out service and combat roles in Ukraine for more than four months.
The officer was part of a “V” unit that broke through to the town of Hostomel on the northern outskirts of Kyiv in the early days of the invasion in February and March.
When Russian troops later withdrew from the area, Postnov took part in capturing towns and cities in eastern Ukraine’s Kharkiv and Luhansk region, the Russian veterans’ group said.
According to his official biography, Postnov graduated from the Russian Defense Ministry’s Military University with a degree in culture and journalism in 2002.
He served as a correspondent and editor at two military publications before being assigned to the National Guard’s central office.
His demise is the second publicly announced death of a military spokesman in Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Col. Vladimir Ivanov, a member of the Defense Ministry’s press service, was reported to have been killed in action in March.
Tallies by independent media outlets using open source data suggest that at least 3,000 Russian soldiers have been killed in Ukraine — more than twice the official death count released by the Kremlin on March 25.
