Russia has allegedly lost another of its generals in the conflict as Ukraine continues to inflict heavy losses on the invading forces.
Major General Oleg Mityaev died on Tuesday during the storming of the southern port city of Mariupol, making him the fourth general to have been killed in the fighting, according to Ukraine.
Anton Gerashchenko, a Ukrainian interior ministry adviser, published a photograph on Telegram of what he said was the dead officer.
Mityaev, 47, commanded the 150th motorised rifle division and had fought in Syria, Gerashchenko said.
President Zelensky reported the death of another Russian general in his night-time address but did not name him.
Advertisement
Ukraine’s military claimed yesterday morning that 13,800 Russian soldiers had been killed or captured since the start of the invasion and that 430 tanks and 1,375 armoured vehicles had been taken out of action.
The General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces published pictures of Moscow’s tanks and helicopters being damaged or destroyed and armoured cars apparently written-off and abandoned in residential streets.
Last week western officials said that Russia had 20 major generals fighting in Ukraine in the early days of the invasion, however, they were being killed as they made the unusual move of heading close to the battle.
A western official said it was “interesting” that senior commanders were going so far forward, adding that one explanation was that they were pushing “frightened” troops to go forward.
Major General Andrei Kolesnikov of the 29th Combined Arms Army of the Eastern Military District was killed last week. His death came four days after that of Major General Vitaly Gerasimov, 45, who served with Russian forces in Syria and Chechnya and took part in the annexation of Crimea, winning medals from the respective campaigns.
Advertisement
Before that Major General Andrei Sukhovetsky, 47, deputy commander of the 41st Combined Arms Army of the Central Military District, was shot and killed by a sniper near Mariupol, which had been under a brutal siege by Russian forces for days.
The Ministry of Defence in London said that Russia was increasingly seeking to generate additional troops to bolster and replace its personnel losses in Ukraine. “As a result of these losses it is likely Russia is struggling to conduct offensive operations in the face of sustained Ukrainian resistance,” an intelligence update stated. It said that continued personnel losses would make it difficult for Russia to secure occupied territory.
There were suggestions that attacks on high-ranking Russian officers were a deliberate tactic. “I don’t think this is an accident. One is an accident, but this many is targeted,” Dr Rita Konaev, a research fellow at the Centre for Security and Emerging Technology at Georgetown University in Washington, told the BBC. “Assuming there is an element of targeting, this feeds Ukraine’s own morale.”
An aide to President Zelensky confirmed that Ukraine had a military intelligence team dedicated to targeting Russia’s officer class. “They look for high-profile generals, pilots, artillery commanders,” the official told The Wall Street Journal.
Advertisement
According to the MoD, Russia is redeploying forces from as far afield as its Pacific fleet. It is also increasingly seeking to exploit irregular sources such as private military companies and Syrian and other mercenaries. “Russia will likely attempt to use these forces to hold captured territory and free up its combat power to renew stalled offensive operations,” the MoD said.
