Ukraine Strikes Are Wiping Out Putin’s Top Brass

Ukrainian strikes throughout President Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine have reportedly eliminated key figures among the Kremlin’s top brass. Moscow has lost a large number of top generals and commanders in the conflict, which may include the head of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, according to Kyiv.

Kyiv’s special forces said on Monday that Admiral Viktor Sokolov, the commander of the Black Sea Fleet and Russia’s top admiral in annexed Crimea, and many of his subordinates were killed in a September 22 missile attack on the fleet’s headquarters in the port of Sevastopol.

The Kremlin has yet to confirm or deny Sokolov’s reported killing, but if confirmed, it would mark one of the highest-profile deaths among Russia’s military in the 19-month-old war.

On Tuesday however, Russia’s Defense Ministry released a video via state media of top officers meeting with Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu. Sokolov appeared to be present via video link in that meeting. It’s not clear when the footage was filmed.

Former NATO Commander James Stavridis said in post on X, formerly Twitter, that the strike on the headquarters is a “remarkable achievement” by Ukraine “eliminating a very significant Russian military leader and many of his subordinates.”

Newsweek has contacted Russia’s Defense Ministry via email for comment. Moscow rarely confirms reports about the deaths of its top commanders.

By eliminating Russian senior military commanders who typically provide purpose, motivation, and direction, Ukraine is seeking to undermine the Russian military’s capacity to effectively continue the war, according to Federico Borsari, Leonardo Fellow with the Transatlantic Defense and Security Program at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA).

It is “part of a wider strategy to disrupt their enemies’ command-and-control network, with the ultimate goal of significantly degrading Russian forces’ ability to plan and conduct coordinated operations,” Borsari told Newsweek.

Viktor Kovalenko, a former Ukrainian soldier and journalist, told Newsweek that for the Russian military, every loss of a top military officer creates a “temporary localized chaos” because their units “are not trained and even allowed to maneuver autonomously.”

Ukrainian strikes targeting top military leaders are significantly hindering the Russian army’s operations in the ongoing war, according to retired Lieutenant General Ben Hodges, former commanding general, United States Army Europe.

“Any time you take out a senior leader, you probably are getting a bunch of people around him, at least in this environment, that has a significant cumulative effect,” Hodges told Newsweek. “It slows down the Russians’ ability to react, to anticipate. It disrupts their planning, because now they’ve got to reconstruct, they’ve got to rebuild or find a new place.”

High-Profile Military Casualties

Another recent high-profile casualty that has been reported amid Kyiv’s grinding counteroffensive includes Colonel Andrey Kondrashkin, the commander of a Russian elite air-assault brigade. Kondrashkin, head of the 31st Airborne Storm Brigade, is reported to have played a crucial role in Russia’s siege of Mariupol in 2022.

Alexander Khodakovsky, the commander of the Russian-aligned “Vostok” battalion fighting on the Donetsk front, suggested in a Telegram post on September 17 that Kondrashkin was killed in a Ukrainian strike near the city of Bakhmut in the eastern Donetsk region.

Ukrainian journalist Yurii Butusov said the circumstances of exactly how Kondrashkin was killed in battle are not yet known, “but the liquidation of the commander of one of the Russian strike formations is a serious achievement.”

Days earlier, the U.S.-based think tank the Institute for the Study of War assessed that Vasily Popov, the commander of the 247th Guards Air Assault Regiment, had been killed in fighting at an unknown location in Ukraine.

The unit’s previous commander, Colonel Konstantin Zizevsky, was killed in southern Ukraine in spring 2022.

Meanwhile in July, a colonel of the armed forces of Ukraine, Anatoly Shtefan, reported that the commander of Russia’s “Ghost” Brigade, Artur Bogachenko, had been killed in Ukraine. The Russian Telegram channel “Russian Spring Military Correspondents” also reported that Bogachenko was killed in clashes near Bakhmut.

He was reportedly the commander of the Prizrak Brigade (meaning “Ghost Brigade”) of the Russian Armed Forces. The Ghost Brigade is a pro-Russian separatist militia operating in the Donbas area of Ukraine. It was formed in the Luhansk region in 2014 when Russian forces invaded Ukraine and illegally annexed the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea.

Reports of Bogachenko’s death came shortly after Russian commander Yevgeny Pisarenko, head of the Chechen armed formation known as Akhmat, was reportedly killed in combat in the Donbas region.

High Casualty Rates Weeks Into Conflict

Just weeks into Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, a handful of generals had already been reported killed in the conflict.

Alexander Beglov, governor of St. Petersburg, confirmed the death of Vladimir Frolov, deputy commander of Russia’s 8th Guards Combined Arms Army, on April 16, 2022.

Kyiv has said that Major General Andrei Sukhovetsky, the commanding general of Russia’s 7th Guards Airborne Division and deputy commander of the 41st Combined Arms Army, was killed on February 28, 2022, and that Major General Andrei Kolesnikov, a serviceman commanding the 29th Combined Arms Army, was killed on March 11, 2022.

Ukraine also said that Lieutenant General Yakov Rezantsev, the commander of 49th Combined Arms Army, died in a strike near the southern city of Kherson.

Estimates of military casualties in the conflict vary widely, with figures provided by Ukraine usually outstripping those given by its Western allies. Russia rarely releases figures on its own troop losses, but when it does, its estimates are far lower than those of Ukraine.

In June, the BBC Russian Service and independent Russian news outlet MediaZona reported that in the first month of Ukraine’s counteroffensive, between June 4 and July 7, one Russian general, two colonels and three lieutenant colonels were killed in action.

‘Sophisticated’ Operation

Ukraine’s targeting of senior military commanders, and the strike on the Black Sea Fleet headquarters in Crimea is part of a “larger, very sophisticated, multi-domain operation,” that is putting pressure on the Russian General Staff, the Russian leadership and on Russian air defense, said Hodges.

“If a bunch of subordinate commanders and senior staff were taken out, that will have an effect. That is a big chunk of the command and control, the planning, the coordination capability of the Black Sea Fleet, which is already under pressure. And now they just lost a bunch of experienced people,” Hodges added.

Hodges has previously urged the U.S. to supply Ukraine with long-range systems to assist in its efforts to recapture Crimea, which was annexed by Russia in 2014.

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