A senior Western official confirmed the names, ranks and “killed in action” status of seven Russian generals.
If true, the deaths of so many generals, alongside more senior Russian army and naval commanders — in just four weeks of combat — exceeds the attrition rate seen in the worst months of fighting in the bloody nine-year war fought by Russia in Chechnya, as well as Russian and Soviet-era campaigns in Afghanistan, Georgia and Syria.
“It is highly unusual,” said a senior Western official, briefing reporters on the topic, who confirmed the names, ranks and “killed in action” status of the seven.
In all, at least 15 senior Russian commanders have been killed in the field, said Markiyan Lubkivsky, a spokesperson for the Ukraine Ministry of Defense.
NATO officials estimated earlier this week that as many as 15,000 Russian troops have been killed in four weeks of war, a very high number. Russia has offered a far lower figure, reporting Friday that only 1,351 of its fighters had died.
The Russian government has not confirmed the deaths of its generals.
If the numbers of senior commanders killed proves accurate, the Russian generals have been either extremely unlucky or successfully targeted — or both.
Shooting generals is a legitimate tactic of war — and it has been openly embraced by Ukrainian officials, who say their forces have been focused on slowing Russian advances by concentrating fire on Russian command-and-control units near the front lines.
Jeffrey Edmonds, former director for Russia on the National Security Council and now a senior analyst at the CNA think tank in Washington, said Ukrainian forces appear to be targeting “anyone with gray hair standing near a bunch of antennas,” a signal they may be senior officers.
Some experts suggest the Russian military has struggled to keep its communications secure and that Ukraine intelligence units have found their targets through Russian carelessness, with Russian forces reduced to using unencrypted devices. There have been reports of Russian soldiers using mobile phones.
Pentagon and other Western officials say that Russian generals generally serve closer to the front lines than their NATO counterparts. By design, the Russian army is top heavy with senior officers, which makes them numerous, though not expendable.
Military analysts and Western intelligence officials say the Russian generals in Ukraine may be more exposed and serving closer to the front because their side is struggling — and that senior officers are deployed closer to the action to cut through the chaos.
One Western official suggested that Russian generals were also needed to push “frightened” Russian troops, including raw conscripts, forward. Earlier this month, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the Defense Ministry to withdraw conscripts from combat, having publicly pledged that they would not be deployed.
Pentagon, NATO and Western officials say the Russian army in Ukraine is struggling with poor morale.
Russian soldiers attacked and injured their commanding officer after their brigade suffered heavy losses in the fighting outside the capital, Kyiv, according to a Western official and a Ukrainian journalist.
Troops with the 37th Motor Rifle Brigade ran a tank into Col. Yuri Medvedev, injuring both his legs, after their unit lost almost half its men, according to a Facebook post by Ukrainian journalist Roman Tsymbaliuk. The post said the colonel had been hospitalized.
A senior Western official said he believed Medvedev had been killed, “as a consequence of the scale of the losses taken by his own brigade.”
Oleksiy Arestovych, a military adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, told The Washington Post the Ukraine army has focused its efforts on “slowing the pace” of the Russian invasion, in part by “beheading” forward command posts, meaning killing, not literally beheading.
Killing senior officers can slow down the Russian advances by “three or four or five days” before new command structures can be put in place, Arestovych said.
He attributed successful targeting to both “excellent intelligence” and numerous Russian vulnerabilities.
Arestovych claimed that in addition to slowing Russian momentum, killing their generals undermines Russian morale, while bolstering Ukrainian resolve.
“The death of such commanders quickly becomes public knowledge and it is very difficult to hide,” he said. “Unlike the death of an ordinary soldier, it makes an outsized impression.”
Ukrainian officials and Western officials have named seven Russian generals killed in action: Magomed Tushayev, Andrei Sukhovetsky, Vitaly Gerasimov, Andrey Kolesnikov, Oleg Mityaev, Yakov Rezanstev and Andrei Mordvichev.
Russian officials and Russian media have confirmed the death of only one general.
Sukhovetsky, a deputy commander of Russia’s 41st army, was killed by a sniper at the beginning of the war, Ukrainian officials said. At his burial in Novorossiysk, a port city on the Black Sea, a deputy mayor said Sukhovetsky “died heroically during a combat mission during a special operation in Ukraine.”
Great news .
Actually, 90% of those kills are confirmed only by the UA side, so I would not be that optimistic. The evidences are pretty scarce, there are no pics and no info on funerals, so I would regard that general kills steak carefully.
News during war, all coming from one side , are always 100% reliable. So yes, Russians are hurting and loosing generals every day. They have food for 3 more days, after that collapse is imminent.
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A senior Western official confirmed the names, ranks and “killed in action” status of seven Russian generals.
If true, the deaths of so many generals, alongside more senior Russian army and naval commanders — in just four weeks of combat — exceeds the attrition rate seen in the worst months of fighting in the bloody nine-year war fought by Russia in Chechnya, as well as Russian and Soviet-era campaigns in Afghanistan, Georgia and Syria.
“It is highly unusual,” said a senior Western official, briefing reporters on the topic, who confirmed the names, ranks and “killed in action” status of the seven.
In all, at least 15 senior Russian commanders have been killed in the field, said Markiyan Lubkivsky, a spokesperson for the Ukraine Ministry of Defense.
NATO officials estimated earlier this week that as many as 15,000 Russian troops have been killed in four weeks of war, a very high number. Russia has offered a far lower figure, reporting Friday that only 1,351 of its fighters had died.
The Russian government has not confirmed the deaths of its generals.
If the numbers of senior commanders killed proves accurate, the Russian generals have been either extremely unlucky or successfully targeted — or both.
Shooting generals is a legitimate tactic of war — and it has been openly embraced by Ukrainian officials, who say their forces have been focused on slowing Russian advances by concentrating fire on Russian command-and-control units near the front lines.
Jeffrey Edmonds, former director for Russia on the National Security Council and now a senior analyst at the CNA think tank in Washington, said Ukrainian forces appear to be targeting “anyone with gray hair standing near a bunch of antennas,” a signal they may be senior officers.
Some experts suggest the Russian military has struggled to keep its communications secure and that Ukraine intelligence units have found their targets through Russian carelessness, with Russian forces reduced to using unencrypted devices. There have been reports of Russian soldiers using mobile phones.
Pentagon and other Western officials say that Russian generals generally serve closer to the front lines than their NATO counterparts. By design, the Russian army is top heavy with senior officers, which makes them numerous, though not expendable.
Military analysts and Western intelligence officials say the Russian generals in Ukraine may be more exposed and serving closer to the front because their side is struggling — and that senior officers are deployed closer to the action to cut through the chaos.
One Western official suggested that Russian generals were also needed to push “frightened” Russian troops, including raw conscripts, forward. Earlier this month, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the Defense Ministry to withdraw conscripts from combat, having publicly pledged that they would not be deployed.
Pentagon, NATO and Western officials say the Russian army in Ukraine is struggling with poor morale.
Russian soldiers attacked and injured their commanding officer after their brigade suffered heavy losses in the fighting outside the capital, Kyiv, according to a Western official and a Ukrainian journalist.
Troops with the 37th Motor Rifle Brigade ran a tank into Col. Yuri Medvedev, injuring both his legs, after their unit lost almost half its men, according to a Facebook post by Ukrainian journalist Roman Tsymbaliuk. The post said the colonel had been hospitalized.
A senior Western official said he believed Medvedev had been killed, “as a consequence of the scale of the losses taken by his own brigade.”
Oleksiy Arestovych, a military adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, told The Washington Post the Ukraine army has focused its efforts on “slowing the pace” of the Russian invasion, in part by “beheading” forward command posts, meaning killing, not literally beheading.
Killing senior officers can slow down the Russian advances by “three or four or five days” before new command structures can be put in place, Arestovych said.
He attributed successful targeting to both “excellent intelligence” and numerous Russian vulnerabilities.
Arestovych claimed that in addition to slowing Russian momentum, killing their generals undermines Russian morale, while bolstering Ukrainian resolve.
“The death of such commanders quickly becomes public knowledge and it is very difficult to hide,” he said. “Unlike the death of an ordinary soldier, it makes an outsized impression.”
Ukrainian officials and Western officials have named seven Russian generals killed in action: Magomed Tushayev, Andrei Sukhovetsky, Vitaly Gerasimov, Andrey Kolesnikov, Oleg Mityaev, Yakov Rezanstev and Andrei Mordvichev.
Russian officials and Russian media have confirmed the death of only one general.
Sukhovetsky, a deputy commander of Russia’s 41st army, was killed by a sniper at the beginning of the war, Ukrainian officials said. At his burial in Novorossiysk, a port city on the Black Sea, a deputy mayor said Sukhovetsky “died heroically during a combat mission during a special operation in Ukraine.”
Great news .
Actually, 90% of those kills are confirmed only by the UA side, so I would not be that optimistic. The evidences are pretty scarce, there are no pics and no info on funerals, so I would regard that general kills steak carefully.
News during war, all coming from one side , are always 100% reliable. So yes, Russians are hurting and loosing generals every day. They have food for 3 more days, after that collapse is imminent.
like, what’s the ordinary rate?