Lieutenant General Alexander Otroshchenko is probably one of the victims of the An-26 military transport plane crash in the annexed Crimea. reported the Russian BBC service with reference to its sources. However, there is still no official confirmation of the death of a high-ranking officer, writes TASR according to the Russian website Verstka.
The general’s death was also confirmed to the BBC by a resident of Severomorsk, who lost a relative in the rank of major in the disaster. According to her, ten other officers from the unit in Safonov near Murmansk were on board with Otroshchenko. The general commanded the mixed air corps of the Northern Fleet.
Local public groups also reported on the general’s death. A post appeared on the social networks of the Maritime Museum of the Northern Fleet in which He mentioned Otrošchenko as one of the victims of the crash, but this information was later modified.
The governor of the Murmansk region, Andrei Chibis, confirmed that soldiers of the Northern Fleet were among the dead, but did not provide details. Otrošchenko was a decorated military pilot with more than 2,000 flight hours. In 2014, he was involved in the annexation of Crimea and later in the Russian operation in Syria.
According to the calculations of the Mediazona website and the Russian BBC service, it will be if confirmed, the fourteenth dead Russian general since the Kremlin launched a full-scale war against Ukraine and the fifth in the rank of lieutenant general.
The An-26 plane crashed late in the evening on March 31 near the village of Kujbyševo in the Bakhchisaray district. All 29 people on board died. Sources from state agencies said that “hit a cliff”. According to the Russian Ministry of Defense, how the preliminary cause of the crash was determined to be “technical failure”.
