As a result of a head-on collision between two racing cars, the experienced Russian rally co-driver Aleksey Lyadukhin lost his life and three others were seriously injured.

The accident happened on Wednesday, 17 May 2017, in the vicinity of the village of Dolshino in Novosokolniki District, Pskovskaya Oblast', Russia, close to the border between Russia and Latvia, during a private testing session along the course of a special stage of the Rally Puškinskie Gory. The event was the fourth round of the 2017 Russian Rally Championship, scheduled to be contested the following weekend. Despite the official start of the rally reconnaissance and familiarisation runs on the route began on Thursday, 18 May 2017 and private tests that took place previously were not included in the rally program, several teams entered in the rally decided to start their training session on Wednesday.

Amongst them were the Russian team Vyacheslav Kucherov-Aleksey Lyadukhin in the Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IX of Prosport team, and the Russian rally star Alexey Lukyanuk from St. Petersburg, who had already won the Rally Puškinskie Gory in 2014. He was vice-champion in the 2016 European Rally Championship and had won the Rally Islas Canarias in Spain just two weeks earlier. With him was the Latvian occasional co-driver Nikita Gergel, deputised for Lukyanuk's usual navigator Alexey Arnautov, who was not involved in the session.

For unknown reasons, possibly due to incoordination of information between the cars, before reaching the finish line of the stage at the end of their run Vyacheslav Kucherov-Alexey Lyadukhin decided to turn their car around and go back, whilst Alexey Lukyanuk's car was still on the stage coming in the opposite direction. While running at high speed, the two drivers were unable to avoid crashing head-on and violently collided each other.

As a result of the accident, both cars caught fire. Impact was immediately fatal for Aleksey Viktorovich Lyadukhin, 57-year-old navigator from Moscow.

R.I.P