Russian actress killed in ‘reckoning blow’ strike while singing for Putin’s troops

This is the shocking moment a Ukrainian missile killed a Russian singer at a concert packed with Russian marines in a ‘deliberate revenge attack’.

The HIMARS strike reportedly killed at least 25 of Putin’s troops and left 100 wounded in the occupied Donetsk region.

The concert, which was held in the village of Kumachovo, only 37 miles from the frontline, was to mark Russia’s annual Day of Missile Forces and Artillery.

In video footage, Russian actress and choreographer Polina Menshikh, 40, can be seen playing the guitar and singing for the marines when the deadly two-missile strike hits, and the video blacks out.

A theatre based in St Petersburg associated with Ms Menshikh said an upcoming performance of a play she had previously directed would be dedicated to her memory.

Russia reportedly ordered a news blackout on the troop losses from the US-made HIMARS strike on Sunday.

The Russian Investigative Committee announced a criminal probe into the attack which ‘killed a civilian’.

The Ukrainian military described the strike as a ‘reckoning blow’ after many of its own civilians were murdered in similar strikes.

But at least 25 Russian marines were killed and more than 100 were wounded in the Sunday strike, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said.

The strike has enraged Russian war bloggers, one of whom hit out at the ‘untaught idiots’ – Russia’s commanders – who did not expect the Ukrainians to seek revenge as Russia’s own troops marked their Artillery Forces Day.

The channel raged: ‘The building where the show event was held was located only 60 kilometres [37 miles] from the frontline.

‘The result is predictable – the enemy struck with HIMARS, including Russian actress Polina Menshikh, who was performing at that moment, who died.

‘Almost two years of war and the untaught idiots still do not know what to do and what not to do.’

Commander of Ukrainian aerial reconnaissance unit Birds of Magyar, Robert Brovdi, said Kyiv’s forces had attacked the 810th separate brigade of the Russian Marines in ‘revenge for the 128th Brigade’.

The 128th Brigade saw at least 20 soldiers killed and more wounded by a Kh059 missile strike on November 4, which marks Ukraine’s Artillery Forces Day.

President Zelensky branded the November 4 attack as a ‘tragedy that could have been avoided’ and a criminal investigation was launched.

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