The deputy chief of the Russian Navy has been killed by Ukraine in Russia’s Kursk region, Oleg Kozhemyako, the governor of the Primorsky region in Russia’s far east, said Thursday.

Maj. Gen. Mikhail Gudkov, promoted to deputy head of the Russian Navy just a few months earlier, died in an apparent Ukrainian strike.

Major General Mikhail Gudkov, deputy head of the Russian Navy who was praised and promoted by President Vladimir Putin, has been killed in action, depriving Moscow of one of its most senior officers,