Ukraine said that the commander of a Russian tank regiment committed suicide due to the fact that the vehicles that were in the reserve of the unit were out of order.
The Kyiv Ministry of Defense stated that the commander of the “13th Tank Regiment” in the “4th Tank Division of the Russian Federation” shot himself because of the difficult situation, after learning about the condition of the unit’s reserve tanks.
The update also stated that, in general, Moscow forces struggled with low-quality military equipment and faced “the problem of the impossibility of restoring equipment after being “re-mothballed” from warehouses.”
Ukraine said that the commander of a Russian tank regiment committed suicide due to the fact that the vehicles that were in the reserve of the unit were out of order. In the photo: the wreckage of a destroyed Russian tank on the road near Kiev on March 25.
It said that on many occasions, electronic equipment containing precious metals had been dismantled from many Russian military vehicles in storage.
An update posted on the ministry’s Telegram channel claims that Russia is building storage and repair bases in Klimovo, Bryansk region, to repair equipment disabled on the battlefield.
“Currently, the enemy’s RVB is trying to “commission” a significant amount of equipment coming from long-term storage facilities,” the report says.
“The condition of this equipment is basically extremely poor, which makes it impossible to fully use it.” It added: “At present, plans for the transfer of equipment removed from the warehouse to the front have actually been thwarted.”
Kyiv said the commander of the 4th Panzer Division committed suicide when he learned that only one of the 10 tanks in storage was “more or less” operational, meaning nine out of 10 were unusable.
Those that didn’t work were almost completely dismantled, Kyiv said, and some even lacked engines.
The report could not be verified immediately. If so, the commander’s death would be the latest in a string of high-ranking Russian officers and generals to die in Ukraine.
Putin moved troops into Ukraine on February 24, vowing to destroy the country’s armed forces and oust pro-Western President Volodymyr Zelensky.
A downed Russian tank is seen during the ongoing Russian attack on Ukraine, near the town of Trostyanets, in the Sumy region, Ukraine on March 25, 2022.
People walk past a tank destroyed in the fighting during the Ukrainian-Russian conflict, in the besieged southern port of Mariupol, Ukraine, March 23, 2022.
But his armies made little headway in capturing key cities and suffered heavy casualties at the hands of Ukrainian forces who fought intelligently against their much larger adversary.
According to Oryx, a military blog that tracks Russian equipment losses based on visual evidence, the Kremlin has lost a total of 1,891 casualties as of March 26.
Of these, 939 were destroyed, 35 damaged, 229 abandoned and 688 captured by Ukrainian forces.
Given that these figures are based on visual evidence from photos and videos coming from Ukraine, the true figure is expected to be much higher.
Reports of the commander’s suicide came after Western officials on Friday named seven Russian generals they say have already been killed, and one was fired during the war in Ukraine.
The last to die was Lieutenant General Yakov Rezantsev, commander of Russia’s 49th Combined Arms Army in its Southern Military District, an official said.
Rezantsev, who boasted only on the fourth day of the war that it would end in a matter of hours, was apparently killed after the Ukrainian army destroyed the command post of the Russian 49th Army in southern Ukraine.
It is said that the sixth Russian commander killed since the beginning of the invasion was Colonel Yuri Medvedev, who was brutally murdered by mutinous soldiers after their 37th motorized rifle brigade suffered heavy losses. He was hit by a tank.
Meanwhile, Russian army commander Gen. Vladislav Yershov of the 6th Combined Arms Army has been identified as the general fired earlier this week by the Kremlin.
Russian army commander General Vladislav Yershov of the 6th Combined Arms Army has been identified as the general fired earlier this week by the Kremlin.
Pictured: a still from a video purporting to show Russian Colonel Yuri Medvedev being taken to the hospital on a stretcher after severe leg injuries. A Ukrainian journalist said that Medvedev was shot down by a tank driven by his own soldier.
His sudden dismissal was reportedly due to the heavy casualties and strategic setbacks that occurred during the month-long Russian military incursion into the neighboring country.
Others reportedly killed include General Magomed Tushayev of the Chechen special forces deployed by Russian President Vladimir Putin to Ukraine.
Major General Oleg Mityaev, 47, commander of the 150th Motorized Rifle Division, was killed in action in the besieged Mariupol, and Major General Vitaly Gerasimov, 45, was killed on March 7 near Kharkov in the east.
Meanwhile, in the battles of March 11, the commander of the Guards Tank Kantemirovskaya Division, Major General Andrei Kolesnikov, also died.
Major General Andrei Sukhovetsky, 47, was killed during a special operation by a sniper on March 3.
The number of both ordinary Russian military personnel and senior officers allegedly killed in the month-long war shocked Western military and security officials.
Lieutenant-General Yakov Rezantsev, 48, commander of the 49th Combined Arms Army Division, died as a result of an APU strike, sources in Kyiv said.
Major General Andrey Kolesnikov (left), commander of the Kantemirovskaya Guards Tank Division, also died in action on March 11, and Major General Andrei Sukhovetsky, 47, (right) was killed during a special operation by a sniper on March 3.
Major General Oleg Mityaev (left), commander of the 150th Motorized Rifle Division, 47, was killed in action in the besieged Mariupol, while Major General Vitaly Gerasimov (right) was killed on March 7 near Kharkov in the east.
This is partly blamed on communication and logistical problems, which led senior officers to use unencrypted channels, betraying them to Ukrainian forces.
On Friday, the Kremlin said just over 1,300 servicemen died in the war, but figures four to five times that figure are credible in Western capitals.
Officials believe that about 20 of the 115-120 battalion tactical groups deployed by Moscow in Ukraine are “no longer combat-ready” due to the losses incurred.
“After a month of operations somewhere in the area, perhaps the sixth … force ceased to be combat-ready – this is quite a remarkable statistic,” said a Western official.
He also claimed that the commander of the 37th Russian motorized rifle brigade had been killed by his own soldiers “because of the magnitude of the losses suffered by his brigade”.
“We believe he was deliberately killed by his own troops,” the official said, noting that he was “run over.”
He added that this was another sign of “moral problems facing Russian troops.”
“They really ended up in a hornet’s nest and are suffering a lot,” the official said.
The number of both ordinary Russian military personnel and senior officers allegedly killed in the month-long war shocked Western military and security officials.
Pictures from Lvov today show a huge fireball and thick black smoke rising from the rooftops of a residential area in the city’s northeast, in what appears to be the first major attack on the famed cultural city since the February 24 Russian invasion began.
Firefighters put out a fire at an industrial facility following a Russian military attack on March 26, 2022 in Lviv, Ukraine.
This is partly blamed on communication and logistical problems, which led senior officers to use unencrypted channels, betraying them to Ukrainian forces.
It is believed that Putin planned a short and abrupt invasion lasting only a few days, aimed at beheading the government and installing a puppet regime. Instead, he became embroiled in an extremely complex war of attrition.
On Friday, the Kremlin said just over 1,300 servicemen died in the war, but figures four to five times that figure are credible in Western capitals.
Officials believe that about 20 of the 115-120 battalion tactical groups deployed by Moscow in Ukraine are “no longer combat-ready” due to the losses incurred.
“After a month of operations somewhere in the area, perhaps the sixth … force ceased to be combat-ready – this is quite a remarkable statistic,” said a Western official.
A Russian battalion usually consists of about 600-800 officers and soldiers, 200 of whom are infantrymen, equipped with about 10 tanks and 40 infantry fighting vehicles such as armored personnel carriers.
Despite the mobilization of Russian troops numbering between 150,000 and 200,000, Moscow expected nothing but little resistance from Ukrainian forces, probably due to Russian intelligence failures.
A senior NATO military officer said the alliance estimated Russia had lost between 30,000 and 40,000 people on the battlefield in Ukraine during the first month of the war, including between 7,000 and 15,000 killed.
Mistakes early in the campaign, including poor planning and logistics that caused vehicles to stall due to breakdowns, run out of fuel and get bogged down in the mud, are believed to be behind the impressive toll of officer deaths as commanders were forced to go to the front to solve problems before the Ukrainians take you away.
In a potentially important shift, the Russian army has announced that the first phase of its campaign is over and that its forces will now focus on “liberating” the Russian-speaking Donbass in eastern Ukraine.
The head of the Main Operational Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, Sergei Rudskoy, said that the transfer is possible because “the combat potential of the Armed Forces of Ukraine has been significantly reduced.”
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, however, said his country’s refusal to comply with Russia’s demands continued unabated after what he called “very difficult” talks with Moscow.
“We insist, first of all, on a ceasefire, guarantees of the security and territorial integrity of Ukraine,” he said.