lit a candle 4h agoSays here he briefed the president on the Kostiantynivka offensive. That's the line the wires ran with, and that's about all I've got.
Their story
Anton Feliksovich Grunis was a Russian major general who commanded the 4th Separate Guards Motor Rifle Brigade and was named a Hero of the Russian Federation in 2026. Born in Kazan on 5 October 1979, he followed a classic Soviet and Russian officer path from a Suvorov military school into…
Anton Feliksovich Grunis was a Russian major general who commanded the 4th Separate Guards Motor Rifle Brigade and was named a Hero of the Russian Federation in 2026. Born in Kazan on 5 October 1979, he followed a classic Soviet and Russian officer path from a Suvorov military school into the Moscow Higher Combined Arms Command School, then into wars that defined post-Soviet Russian force projection. He was killed in occupied Donetsk Oblast in mid-September 2026, at the age of 46, in a Ukrainian drone strike that both Ukrainian and Russian voices later confirmed.
Grunis came of age as a professional soldier rather than a celebrity officer. After graduating in 1996 he served through the Second Chechen War, the 2008 war with Georgia, the 2014 annexation of Crimea, and Russia's intervention in Syria. In 2021 he left active service for the reserve. The full-scale invasion of Ukraine pulled him back. In 2023 he returned as chief of staff of a motor rifle brigade that fought around Bakhmut alongside Wagner Group units. When brigade commander Vyacheslav Makarov was killed, Grunis took the command that would define his final years: the 4th Separate Guards Motor Rifle Brigade of the 3rd Guards Combined Arms Army in the Southern Military District.
On 2 May 2024 a presidential decree raised him from colonel to major general. By summer 2026 his brigade was a lead element in the Russian push toward the Donetsk fortress city of Kostiantynivka, within the "South" grouping of forces. On a video link with President Vladimir Putin in early July 2026, Grunis reported that Kostiantynivka had been taken. Ukrainian leaders rejected the claim and fighting for the city continued for weeks afterward, a gap between announcement and battlefield that later obituaries noted carefully.
In 2026 he received Russia's highest honorary title, Hero of the Russian Federation, for what the decree called heroism and courage in the performance of military duty. Defence Minister Andrey Belousov presented the Gold Star and a named weapon on 28 August 2026, a ceremony image that entered Wikimedia Commons under a Ministry of Defence credit. Less than three weeks later, on 13 September 2026 according to English and Russian Wikipedia (Ukrainian Unmanned Systems Forces commander Robert Brovdi said the strike was on 12 September), Grunis was killed when a Ukrainian drone hit a private house identified as his position in occupied Horlivka. Brovdi published strike video; Apti Alaudinov of Russia's Akhmat forces also confirmed the death. He was 46.
Grunis left a short public biography and a long combat record. To Russian official media he was the "Hit" officer turned Hero who briefed the president. To Ukrainian reporting he was a senior invader removed by drone forces. The documentary record that remains is the career of a post-Soviet general: Suvorov boy, Chechnya and Syria veteran, Bakhmut staff officer, brigade commander, Hero of Russia, and casualty of a war that outlasted his claim of victory at Kostiantynivka.
Biography adapted from English and Russian Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0); The Kyiv Independent; Meduza; Militarnyi; Kommersant.
Photos
1Anton Grunis at his Hero of the Russian Federation Gold Star ceremony, 28 August 2026
by People Forever
