Ukraine has taken out a Russian artillery regiment commander in Kherson who was once a Ukrainian naval officer and who betrayed his country in 2014. Colonel Oleksandr Isaiev, a Mykolaiv native who defected to Russia during the seizure of Crimea and rose to command Russia's 8th Artillery Regiment, was killed by a Ukrainian FPV drone on 19 September, the Book of Executioners, a Ukrainian government project documenting Russian war crimes, said.

Isaiev's death, if confirmed, closes a decade-long arc of betrayal. The Ukrainian citizen, who served in Ukraine's military from 1992, defected while serving as a senior officer in Ukraine's coastal artillery, joined Russia's Black Sea Fleet, and by 2024 was commanding a Russian regiment that shelled the country he had sworn to defend.

A drone finds the commander

The regiment Isaiev led, military unit 87714, operated on the coastal tactical axis in southern Ukraine as part of Russia's "Dnepr" grouping, the project said. An FPV drone, the small first-person-view aircraft that now dominates the front, struck him in Kherson Oblast on 19 September. The project provided no further details on the location, time, or circumstances of the strike.

The betrayal dates to Crimea

Isaiev was by 2014 chief of staff and first deputy commander of the 406th Separate Coastal Artillery Brigade in Ukraine's navy.

When Russia seized Crimea that year, he switched sides, in what Ukraine calls high treason, and took a post as chief of staff and deputy commander of the same 8th Artillery Regiment on the Russian side.

Discharged to the reserve in 2015, he returned to Russian service in October 2022 to join the war against Ukraine, and in September 2024 was made the regiment's commander and promoted to colonel.

A database keeps the list

The Book of Executioners is Ukraine's public register of those it accuses of crimes against the country, and it closed its report on Isaiev with a standing vow: every war crime will be investigated, every war criminal identified, found, and, in time, punished.