Killed Arctic spetsnaz commander appears on school wall
Colonel Magomedali Magomedzhanov was former commander of the 61st Naval Infantry Brigade in Sputnik, Kola Peninsula. One year after he was killed in Ukraine, the military man lives on at a school wall in Severomorsk.
Magomedzhanov commanded the brigade in northern Russia in the period 2008-2010. When Russia launched its full scale war against Ukraine in 2022, the 57-year-old colonel was deployed on the front.
Magomedzhanov fought in the area of Oleshki in occupied parts of the Kherson region when he was badly injured in a Ukrainian attack. He was reportedly taken to hospital in Sevastopol where he died on February 14, 2024.
He became one of hundreds of Russian high-ranking military men killed in the war of aggression. Many of them have served in the North.
Magomedali Magomedzhanov was born and raised in a village in the North Caucasian republic of Dagestan. He became a paratrooper after his studies at the Ryazan Guards Higher Airborne Command School and subsequently started his career as a marine.
He fought Chechens in the North Caucasus in the 1990s and took part in Russia's military aggression in Syria.
At the time of his death, he served as deputy commander of the Russian 18th Combined Army.
He was post-mortem awarded the title 'hero of Russia.' A plate with his portrait was in November 2024 put on the wall of Sovetskaya Street No 7 in Severomorsk, his place of living before going to Ukraine.
Magomedali Magomedzhanov not only lived in Sputnik, where he headed the 61st Naval Infantry Brigade in Sputnik. He also lived and served in Severomorsk, the headquarter city of the Northern Fleet, between 2013 and 2024.
He is believed to have been actively involved in the Northern Fleet's training of new marines.
In February 2025, the portrait of the killed colonel was put on the wall also in a local school. In a ceremony, the mural was officially opened at Lyceum No 1 in Severomorsk.
"During his years of service, Magomedali Magomedzhanov trained a brilliant assemblage of talented commanders in the best traditions of the marines," Severomorsk city Mayor Vladimir Yevmenkov said in an address.
Magomedzhanov is one of several high-ranking military men from the Northern Fleet that have been killed in Ukraine.
Yaroslav Kurcheev served in high positions in the 61st Naval Infantry Brigade and the 200th Motorised Rifle Brigade before his was killed in October 2024.
On one of the first days of the full-scale war, commander of the 200th Motorised Rifle Brigade Denis Kurilo was reported killed. Later, Vladimir Zavadsky, the general that was in charge of several of the most powerful military units in the Kola Peninsula, was killed.
