The Other McCain

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Russian Generals Keep Getting Killed

Posted on | May 2, 2022 | Comments Off on Russian Generals Keep Getting Killed

This is either the ninth or 10th killed so far:

Russia has lost another general in Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, according to top Ukrainian officials, The Kyiv Post has reported
Maj. Gen. Andrei Simonov was killed near the city of Izyum in the Kharkiv region, which is currently occupied by Russian forces, Ukrainian authorities said.
The Ukrainian military attacked a field command post of the Russian 2nd Army on Saturday, striking more than 30 Russian armored vehicles, including tanks, according to the paper.
Footage posted on social media appears to show the command post being bombarded by rockets, said the Kyiv Post.
The general was among 100 Russian soldiers killed in the attack, President Zellenskyy’s military adviser Oleksiy Arestovych said, according to The Kyiv Post. Arestovych said well-placed army sources had confirmed the death of Maj. Gen. Simonov in a YouTube interview, per the Mail Online.
The claims by the Ukrainian authorities have not been independently verified.
Russia has not as of yet confirmed the death of Maj. Gen. Simonov.
Simonov was a senior commander of electronic warfare, Ukrainian government advisor Anton Gerashchenko said on his Telegram account.
His death would make him the tenth Russian general to die in Ukraine, according to a count by The Kyiv Post.

Different sources give different counts of how many Russian generals have been killed in Ukraine, but as I said the last time it happened, “Look, I know this might seem far-fetched, but hear me out. Maybe if you’re going to have a meeting of your army commanders, you should try to choose a location that is not within range of the enemy’s artillery.” You don’t need to be a military genius to figure this out. Meanwhile:

Vladimir Putin’s top military commander has been flown out of the war zone with shrapnel wounds after being to sent to Ukraine by the Russian president to secure victory, a former Russian internal affairs minister has claimed.
Valery Gerasimov, the chief of staff of the Russian army, was today wounded in Izyum in Ukraine’s Kharviv region, which has been at the centre of intense fighting since Russia’s invasion.
Putin had sent Gerasimov to the region to take personal control of his push to grab territory in eastern Ukraine, after the Russian army abandoned its plans to take Kyiv at the end of March in favour of a concentrated assault on the Donbas region of Donetsk and Luhansk.
An unofficial Russian source reported that Gerasimov sustained ‘a shrapnel wound in the upper third of the right leg without a bone fracture.
‘The shard was removed – there is no danger to life,’ he said.
But Gerasimov’s injury was severe enough to have him flown away from the frontlines and back to Russia to undergo further treatment, marking another embarrassing defeat for Putin’s forces. . . .
Ukrainian interior ministry adviser Anton Gerashchenko said the attack on Izyum was ‘the very place where…Gerasimov, who personally came to lead the attack on Slavyansk, was located’.
A ‘large number’ of senior officers were killed in the attack which wounded Gerasimov, Gerashchenko said.
Pro-Ukrainian Telegram channel Vertikal also alleged Gerasimov had been ‘wounded near Izyum’, citing unspecified sources.
‘Our source reports that his legs and hips are damaged,’ Vertikal said.
It suggested that three of Gerasimov’s entourage had been killed before he was evacuated.

Such a high number of casualties among senior leaders is certain to degrade the effectiveness of Russian forces, which haven’t been very effective so far, and it’s difficult to see how they can maintain offensive operations much longer. What’s happening in this war?

You can click that map to enlarge it. The Russian command post that was struck over the weekend was in Izyum (circled in the center of the map), and what the Russians want to do is to push south from there toward Sloviansk, about 30 miles to the south. Taking Sloviansk would put the Russians athwart the supply lines of Ukrainian forces operating farther east toward Luhansk. The tactical objective of the Ukrainians must be to isolate the Russians in the Izyum salient, and the fact that the Ukrainians were able to strike the Russian command post there suggests that the invaders have lost the initiative. If Ukraine can develop momentum in its counterattack, it’s possible that the Russian invasion could collapse rather quickly. Remember that the Russians went from besieging Kyiv to being forced to withdraw in just a matter of weeks.




 

Category: Russia, Ukraine

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