Dmitry Rogozin

Dmitry Rogozin is a Russian politician, known for his ardent defense of Russia’s national interests.

In the 90’s Rogozin fought in the conflicts in Moldova and Yugoslavia. He served under the Putin administration as Russia’s ambassador to NATO, where he became infamous for his passionate rhetoric and heated and sarcastic verbal and social media sparring with then NATO head Anders Fogh Rassmussen, often right in the middle of NATO-Russian council sessions.

He also served as deputy prime minister in charge of the defense industry and head of the Russian space agency Roskosmos.

In early 2022, along with dozens of Russian government officials and officials, he volunteered to join the Russian intervention in the Ukrainian civil conflict. He has since led the “Tsar Wolves”, a volunteer unit which consists of experienced military advisers and experts with rich combat experience. Its main task is military-technical support for the military units of the DPR and LPR.

Rogozin was gravely wounded in Donetsk on December 21, 2023 in a salvo of precision artillery strikes by the Kiev regime, an obvious targeted assassination attack, on the hotel where he was briefly staying, in the midst of a dinner celebrating his 59th birthday. The strike also killed two friends and colleagues, with several others wounded, including the prime minister of the Donetsk People's Republic, Vitaly Khotsenko.

The former space boss suffered a concussion and was wounded in the right shoulder with shrapnel which landed “a millimeter” away from his spine. The shrapnel removed from his back in a delicate operation by surgeons proved to be from a NATO 155mm shell fired from a French Caesar Howitzer.

Rogozin later sent a letter along with the shrapnel fragment removed from his own spine to the French envoy Pierre Levy in Moscow, to be passed on to the French President Emmanuel Macron. He also posted the contents of the message to Macron on social media. It reads,

TO THE AMBASSADOR EXTRAORDINARY AND PLENIPOTENTIARY OF THE FRENCH REPUBLIC. Mr PIERRE LEVY, Your Excellency Mr. Ambassador! I recall with pleasure my conversations with you on joint trips to the Borodino field and Baikonur. At that time we discussed a lot and often the prospects for Russian-French political and economic cooperation. Unfortunately, the position of your country and the NATO countries on growing a military threat to Russia near our borders has led to a tragic denouement. The words and deeds of France miraculously diverged diametrically. Official Paris betrayed the cause of the great de Gaulle and became one of the most bloodthirsty states in Europe. Your country has submitted to the dictates of Washington and has become a puppet state in the style of the Vichy government, serving the basest instincts of the Nazis. I am writing about this with pain, because I have always loved French history, I know the language and culture of France, and I honor the memory of the glorious deeds when the Russians and the French fought together against common threats. Recently, as a result of a vile terrorist act in Donetsk, I was seriously injured. It is only thanks to the great skill and patience of Russian military and civilian doctors that I am alive and almost healthy again. In this envelope, along with my letter, you see a fragment from a shell fired by the French 155-mm Caesar self-propelled artillery mount. It pierced my right shoulder and stuck in the fifth cervical vertebrae, just a millimeter away from killing me or rendering me immobile. This French howitzer shell killed two of my young friends, leaving their wives as widows and their children as orphans. These guys accompanied us on a trip to Baikonur, you shook hands with them. Now they are killed by weapons supplied to Ukraine by your country. You probably know how many civilians were killed in Donetsk and the front-line cities of Novorossia by French weapons and French mercenaries. There are hundreds of people, including children. Mr. Ambassador, what is France doing, what are you doing in the conflict that Western politicians have kindled between the Slavic peoples? I hope you understand the measure of your personal responsibility for these murders! You are the extraordinary and plenipotentiary representative of the Fifth Republic, and you are responsible. And I ask you to hand over the fragment cut by surgeons from my spine to French President Emmanuel Macron. And also tell him that no one will escape responsibility for the war crimes of France, the US, Britain, Germany and other NATO countries in the Donbass. All our victims are on your conscience, as well as the appearance of fascist Ukraine on the map of Europe is also on your conscience. Accept, Mr. Ambassador, the assurances of my respect for your diplomatic status, but I am afraid that your mission has completely failed.

The French foreign ministry had no comment on the letter and returned shell fragment.

Rogozin vowed to return to the frontline as soon as his injuries allowed.