A high-ranking Russian military officer, Colonel Abdulaziz Shikhabidov, who recently took command of the notorious 76th Guards Air Assault Division, also known as the Pskov Division, has been confirmed killed during Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine. The Russian colonel, originally from Dagestan, was personally appointed to lead the elite airborne division by the Russian dictator less than two months before his death on 10 March 2025.
The Russian outlet Agentstvo shared a video of Shikhabidov’s funeral, which took place on Monday, 6 May at a cemetery in Moscow. Though the Kremlin has remained silent on the circumstances of his death, regional authorities in Dagestan had begun a public campaign to honour him before his body returned home.
Schools in Dagestan held commemorations, with memorial corners set up featuring his photograph and military biography. In Buynaksk Secondary Boarding School Number 3, students in years seven to nine were involved in an orchestrated tribute that included decorating classrooms with St George’s ribbons, lighting candles and listening to a speech by the regional Minister of Education, Yakhya Buchayev. After these images were published online, they were swiftly removed from social media, though copies were preserved in online archives.
Billboards featuring Shikhabidov’s face were also displayed across Dagestan, and schoolchildren were asked to draw portraits of him as part of a propaganda campaign following public praise by the Russian dictator. This glorification was triggered after Putin commended the 76th Division in April for what he described as its “daily successes” on the front lines in Ukraine.
The 76th Guards Air Assault Division has a long and brutal record in the war against Ukraine, having been active since 2014. It gained global infamy for its reported involvement in the atrocities committed in Bucha in 2022, where civilians were targeted, tortured and killed during the Russian occupation.
Before taking command of the division, Shikhabidov had served in military operations in South Ossetia and Syria, earning several awards for his role in the Kremlin’s foreign campaigns. His death is a significant loss to Russia’s elite forces, and another blow to Moscow’s faltering invasion effort.
Ukraine has not publicly commented on the specific operation that led to his death, but his removal is widely seen as a consequence of mounting Ukrainian resistance and increased precision strikes on key enemy positions.
