Major General Mikhail Gudkov, deputy head of the Russian Navy who was praised and promoted by President Vladimir Putin, has been killed in action, depriving Moscow of one of its most senior officers,

A view shows a scene of an explosion in which, according to Russia's investigative committee, Russian general Igor Kirillov, in charge of nuclear protection forces, and his assistant were killed, in Moscow,

Maj. Gen. Mikhail Gudkov, promoted to deputy head of the Russian Navy just a few months earlier, died in an apparent Ukrainian strike.