SBU general who ran Russia’s Kherson filtration ops dies

Vladimir Lyapkin, a former SBU major general who defected to Russia following the 2014 Revolution of Dignity and subsequently ran filtration operations against civilians in Russian-occupied Kherson Oblast, was killed on 17 March 2026, RBK-Ukraine reports, citing Mediazona.

Lyapkin had been fighting in volunteer unit Bars-33 — the Battalion named after Vasily Margelov — under the callsign "Batyi." Colonel Eduard Malov, a former emergency services official from the Moscow region, was killed alongside him, according to the report.

From Ukrainian general to occupation security chief

Lyapkin received his major general rank in 2013, heading the SBU's department of operational documentation. According to his former associates, he personally participated in attempts to disperse protesters at the Maidan. After the Revolution of Dignity, he fled to Russian-annexed Crimea.

Under the occupation authorities in Kherson Oblast, Lyapkin served as deputy head of the so-called "State Security Service of Kherson Oblast," a structure created by the occupiers. It was headed by another defector — former SBU chief Oleksandr Yakymenko.

Filtration, repressions, and formal charges

In 2025, the Security Service of Ukraine formally notified Lyapkin of suspicion of collaborative activities. Investigators established that in his capacity within the occupation security service, he organized "filtration measures" and directed repressions against the civilian population in the occupied part of Kherson Oblast.

Russia's losses among senior officers

Lyapkin's death comes amid a series of losses in Russia's senior military and security ranks. In late March, Lieutenant General Oleksandr Otroschenko — who participated in Russia's seizure of Crimea in 2014 — died in an An-26 aircraft crash in occupied Crimea. In April, reports emerged that Ukrainian drones in the Mediterranean may have killed General Andriy Averyanov aboard a Russian shadow fleet tanker off the coast of Libya. In December 2025, Lieutenant General Fanil Sarvarov's car was bombed 16 kilometres from the Kremlin — an incident Western media described as a serious signal to Russian elites.