Yuri Medvedev, who commands the 37th Motorized Rifle Brigade, is believed to have been deliberately targeted for anger over the number of casualties suffered by his unit. An initial official statement said that Colonel Medvedev had been “killed”, but this was later reiterated amid allegations that he had been wounded in the leg and had been evacuated to Belarus. An official said the attack “gives an idea of some of the challenges facing Russian forces”. Colonel Medvedev was reportedly shot down after the morale of Russian soldiers plummeted to an all-time low, with one official saying Moscow forces had been “unexpectedly found in a drone nest and were suffering very badly” due to ongoing shelling. The same official said a lieutenant general who commanded the 49th Combined Arms Army was also recently killed in the fighting. It makes him the seventh Russian general killed in battle since Russia’s start of the war in Ukraine – more than a third of those deployed at the beginning of the operation. NATO estimates that between 4,000 and 15,000 Russian soldiers were killed in four weeks of fighting. Russia’s latest death toll has risen to 1,351, according to Sergei Rudskoi, chief of staff of the Russian General Staff, and 3,825 wounded. A Western official said that of the 115 to 120 battalions that the Russians had at the start of the war, 20 were no longer “effective in battle.” “After a month of operations to have somewhere in the area of the sixth, maybe a fifth, of forces that are no longer effective, this is a pretty remarkable set of statistics,” they added. This map shows the extent of the Russian invasion of Ukraine (Press Association Pictures) The news came as Russian President Vladimir Putin decided to “stop” his multiple attempts to occupy Kyiv in order to concentrate his forces in the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine. Although progress has slowed, however, the men are said to be angry at the number of deaths recorded in a war that has so far “been unsuccessful”, according to officials. “It is clear that Russia recognizes that it can not pursue its choices on many fronts at once,” he said. However, they warned that the West should not be “ahead” in believing that Russia would not return harder. “What we are not seeing is a reversal of the tide,” the official said. The Independent has a proud campaign history for the rights of the most vulnerable and we first launched our “Welcome Refugees” campaign during the war in Syria in 2015. Now, as we renew our campaign and start this report on In the wake of the unfolding Ukrainian crisis, we call on the government to move faster and faster to secure aid. To learn more about our Refugee Campaign, click here. To sign the application click here. If you would like to donate, click here for our GoFundMe page.
