The Defense Forces eliminated Volodymyr Lyapkin, former head of a Security Service of Ukraine (SSU) department in Sevastopol and a former Major General, call sign “Baty,” who fled to Russia after the Revolution of Dignity and joined the Russian Armed Forces.
Mediazona reported the operation.
Lyapkin recently served in the Russian irregular unit Bars-33 and was killed on March 17, 2026.
Bars-33, named after V. F. Margelov, operates in the Kherson direction under the Dnepr troop group and is overseen by the Russian occupation administration. The unit conducts reconnaissance and assault operations along the front line and guards strategic sites.
Lyapkin was promoted to Major General in 2013 and took part in dispersing protests on the Maidan. After the protesters’ victory in February 2014, he was dismissed from the SSU and fled to Russia, settling in annexed Crimea.
In 2022, following the Russian occupation of Kherson, he became deputy head of the invaders’ “state security service” in the region, involved in kidnappings, torture, and killings. The successor of the state security service is now part of the FSB in Kherson and registered in Henichesk.
The Center for Investigative Journalism reported that Russia granted Lyapkin the rank of Major General within its own structures.
In April 2023, the invaders awarded him the Medal “For Merit to the Kherson Region,” 2nd degree.
In 2025, the SSU charged Lyapkin with collaboration. Investigators said that as deputy and acting chief of the state security service, he conducted “filtration measures” and repressions against civilians. He faced 12-15 years in prison and confiscation of all property.
On February 6, Moscow authorities reported an attack on Vladimir Alekseev, first deputy chief of the Main Directorate of the Russian General Staff (GRU).
The assailant shot Alekseev in the chest outside a residential building on Volokolamsk Highway, where his partner likely lived, before fleeing the scene.
