In the battles for Sudzha in the Kursk region, mercenary and commander of the Kursk Vityazi Assault Battalion, Ivan Krutikov, was killed.

His death was confirmed by Dmitry Guliyev, a deputy of the Kursk Regional Duma.

33-year-old Ivan Krutikov, known by the call sign “07,” was eliminated in a firefight on the morning of Wednesday, March 12, along with two other Russian soldiers.

“Yesterday, during the liberation of Sudzha in a firefight, face-to-face with the enemy, my brother and friend, the commander of the Kursk Vityazi Assault Battalion, Ivan Krutikov, was killed,” he wrote on his social media.

Guliyev also published “the last photo of Ivan, resting before the assault,” where he sleeps in his uniform on several backpacks.

Krutikov was the commander of the Kursk Vityazi Assault Battalion, which was formed in September 2024 and was part of the Pyatnashka International Brigade. The latter is known for being primarily composed of Abkhazians and for fighting since 2014 in the war in eastern Ukraine.

Before the operation in the Kursk region, he ran a children’s boxing club “Vityaz” in Kursk, but with the start of hostilities, he joined the paramilitary formation along with other coaches.

According to the Evocation database of the Russian regime’s henchmen, Krutikov also fought as a fighter for an unnamed private military company, claiming to have participated in “more than one conflict.” According to some reports, he is mentioned as a member of the PMC Wagner.

As previously reported, another Russian terrorist of the neo-Nazi Sabotage Assault Reconnaissance Group “Rusich”, Yan Petrovsky, was sentenced to life in prison in Finland today.

The Prosecutor General of Finland accused Petrovsky of five war crimes committed in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions in 2014-2015.

According to the investigation, he and the fighters of Sabotage Assault Reconnaissance Group “Rusich” were involved in the deaths of 22 Ukrainian soldiers and the wounding of four others.

Petrovsky is known as a terrorist and a member of the Russian neo-Nazi Sabotage Assault Reconnaissance Group “Rusich”, who participated in hostilities against Ukraine in 2014. The unit set an ambush for the Ukrainian soldiers of the Aidar Battalion near Shchastia in September, where the Russian Nazis cut off the ears of some of the deceased.