The story goes on under the ad “It’s very unusual,” a senior Western official told reporters, confirming the names, ranks and status of the “killed in action” of the seven. In all, at least 15 senior Russian commanders have been killed in the field, said Markiyan Lubkivsky, a spokesman for Ukraine’s Defense Ministry. The Russian government has not confirmed the deaths of its generals. If the numbers of senior commanders killed prove to be accurate, the Russian generals were either extremely unlucky or they were successfully targeted – or both. The story goes on under the ad Shooting generals is a legitimate tactic of warfare – and has been openly embraced by Ukrainian officials, who say their forces have focused on slowing Russian advance by concentrating fire on Russian command and control units near the front line. Jeffrey Edmonds, Russia’s former director of the National Security Council and now a senior analyst at the CNA think tank in Washington, D.C., said Ukrainian forces appeared to be targeting “anyone with gray hair standing near a pile of antennas,” a signal that could be are senior officers. Some experts say the Russian military has struggled to keep its communications secure and that Ukrainian intelligence units have been targeted by Russian negligence, with Russian forces restricting their use of unencrypted devices. There are reports of Russian soldiers using cell phones. The story goes on under the ad The Pentagon and other Western officials say Russian generals generally serve closer to the front line than their NATO counterparts. By design, the Russian army is very heavy with senior officers, which makes them numerous, though not expendable. Military analysts and Western intelligence officials say Russian generals in Ukraine may be more exposed and serve closer to the front because their side is fighting – and that senior officers have moved closer to action to quell the chaos. A Western official suggested that Russian generals were also needed to advance the “frightened” Russian troops, including the raw conscripts. Earlier this month, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the Defense Ministry to withdraw its conscripts from the battlefield, having publicly pledged not to deploy. The story goes on under the ad The Pentagon, NATO and Western officials say the Russian military in Ukraine is fighting bad morale. Russian troops attacked and wounded their commander after their brigade suffered heavy casualties in battles outside the capital, Kyiv, according to a Western official and a Ukrainian journalist. Troops with the 37th Motorized Rifle Brigade dropped a tank on Colonel Yuri Medvedev, injuring both of his legs after their unit lost almost half of its men, according to a Facebook post by Ukrainian journalist Roman Tsimbalio. The post stated that the colonel had been hospitalized. A senior Western official said he believed Medvedev was killed, “as a result of the magnitude of the losses suffered by his own brigade.” The story goes on under the ad Oleksiy Arestovych, a military adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, told the Washington Post that the Ukrainian army has focused its efforts on “slowing down” the Russian invasion, in part by “beheading” the front-line command, which means , not literally beheading. . The killing of senior officers could slow Russian advance by “three, four or five days” before new command structures can be set up, Arestovich said. He attributed the successful targeting to both “extraordinary intelligence” and numerous Russian vulnerabilities. Arestovich claimed that in addition to slowing down the Russian momentum, the assassination of their generals undermines Russian morale and strengthens Ukraine’s resolve. The story goes on under the ad “The deaths of such commanders are quickly made public and it is very difficult to hide,” he said. “Unlike the death of an ordinary soldier, it makes a big impression.” Ukrainian and Western officials have named seven Russian generals killed in the fighting: Magomed Tusayev, Andrei Sukhovetsky, Vitaly Gerasimov, Andrei Kolesnikov, Oleg Mitiaev, Yakov Rezhevchev. Russian officials and the Russian media have confirmed the death of only one general. Sukhovetsky, deputy commander of Russia’s 41st Army, was shot dead by a sniper at the start of the war, Ukrainian officials said. During his burial in Novorossiysk, a port city on the Black Sea, a deputy mayor said that Sukhovetsky “died heroically during a combat mission during a special operation in Ukraine.” The story goes on under the ad Christo Grosev, director of the Bellingcat open source research team, said he had confirmed Gerasimov’s death, which was first announced by the Ukrainian intelligence service. Researcher Bellingcat was also mentioned one A March 7 phone call from a Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) officer reporting his death to his superior, a call recorded by Ukraine’s intelligence service and made to reporters. One of the first commanders Ukraine claimed to have killed in late February was Tusayev, the right-hand man of Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov. Kadyrov denied the allegations on his Telegram channel, and Chechen Information Minister Ahmed Dudayev posted an audio message allegedly from Tusayev, saying he had proved he was alive. The story goes on under the ad The deaths of senior officers are being celebrated on Ukrainian social media – but kept away from Russian news. The assassination of Russian generals “feels like a consequence for Ukraine,” especially in “David vs. Goliath’s narrative,” said Margarita Konaev, a Russian military innovation specialist at the University’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology. He said the nature of the fighting – in close proximity to urban environments – was likely to increase the number of troops on both sides, for civilians, ordinary soldiers and commanders. The urban dimension is particularly deadly, he said. Mason Clark, a senior analyst and specialist in the Russian military at the Institute for War Studies, said Ukrainian reports suggested that radio communications in Russian forces were vulnerable to interception and detection. Before the war with Russia, Clark said Ukrainian forces had learned how to use communications to “target and locate” artillery shells in separatist enclaves in the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine. “They have used this training on a scale,” Clark said. Ruth Deyermond, a post-Soviet security expert at the Department of War Studies at King’s College London, said it was unknown how the loss of senior officers in Ukraine could shape thinking in the Kremlin. As Putin’s circle shrinks and decision-making becomes more opaque, he said, “you do not even know what Putin is being told about the losses” by his own military. The reportedly high rate of deterioration for Russian commanders in Ukraine underscores the problem of invading the country with false pretenses, hoping to quickly overthrow the Ukrainian government and establish a puppet regime to bring it back to Moscow’s trajectory. A military operation that Russia predicts will last a few days has entered its second month. Russia is particularly sensitive to military casualties, especially when senior officers are involved. Calling the invasion a “special military operation” to liberate Ukraine from the “neo-Nazis”, Russian authorities have banned journalists from using the term “war” and have criminalized military criticism or the publication of any information that could harm the his position. In the wake of Russia’s initial failures, Putin has simply doubled his military effort, with the Kremlin lowering its hopes for an off-ramp through peace talks. The Russian authorities seem to be preparing for a long, bloody campaign, drumming up internal unity through propaganda, as the military intensifies its pressure on Ukraine. Booth reported from London, Dixon from Riga, Latvia and Stern from Mukachevo, Ukraine. Liz Sly in London contributed to this exhibition.
