MOSCOW: Aleksei Bugayev, a member of Russia’s squad at the Euro 2004 finals, has been killed in the 34-month-old war in Ukraine.

His father Ivan Bugayev, reported by TASS, said: “Unfortunately, the news about Aleksei’s death is true. It happened today.

The player’s agent, Anton Smirnov, said intense fighting had made it impossible to retrieve Bugayev’s body for burial.

Bugayev, who was 43, played twice for Russia in the 2004 European championship and, in his club career, for Moscow Torpedo and Lokomotiv.

In September Bugayev had been sentenced by a court in southern Russia to nine and a half years in prison on drug trafficking charges.

He was released under the system freeing prisoners prepared to join the war effort.

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