KATERYNA TYSHCHENKO — SATURDAY, 29 OCTOBER 2022, 19:28
Colonel-General Alexander Lapin, commander of the Central Military District of the Russian Armed Forces, was dismissed from his post.
source: State Chechen TV and Radio; the Russian business channel RBK: Meduza, the Russia-based media company in Latvia
details: On Saturday, several Russian media outlets, including Chechen state television and radio and an RBC source familiar with the personnel decision, reported on Lapin’s sacking.
As noted by Meduza, Lapin has recently been actively criticized by Ramzan Kadyrov, the head of the Chechen Republic: in early October, he accused the general of extraditing Lyman and called him “untalented.” According to Kadyrov, Lapin, who is in charge of this region, did not provide the mobilized occupiers in the Luhansk region with the necessary resources, and he allegedly “hid” in Luhansk.
Two days ago, Kadyrov put the colonel-general in charge of defending the area in northern Donetsk Oblast, where Ukraine’s armed forces recently broke through. The head of the Chechen Republic also has questions about the fact that Lapin received the title “Hero of Russia” for the capture of Lysychansk “at which he was not even present”.
background: Meduza wrote that Alexander Lapin (born 1964) has been the commander of the Central Military District since 2017.
From 2012 to July 8, 2014, Lapin was the commander of the 20th Guards Combined Arms Army, which includes the 53rd Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade. According to international investigations, the Buk missile system used to shoot down Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 on July 17, 2014 was supplied by that brigade’s base near Kursk in eastern Ukraine. Bellingcat investigators mentioned Lapin in their report on the Russian military as the commander who could be responsible for shooting down the plane, noting that the Buk flew off the base in late June.
The story goes on
Prior to Lapin’s appointment as commander of the Central Military District, he was commander of Russian forces in Syria.
One of the first mentions of Lapin in the media after the Russian invasion of Ukraine was a story on the Zvezda TV channel of the Russian Federation Ministry of Defense about how Lapin decorated soldiers “at the front” who “showed courage and heroism during the liberation of the cities and communities in the Chernihiv region.” The story was published on March 29, and in the days that followed, Russia withdrew all its troops from northern Ukraine. Also, as the BBC’s Russian service found out, his son, Lieutenant Colonel Denis Lapin, was one the prizewinner of Lapin.
On June 24, at a briefing, the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation announced that units of the Central Military District under the command of Colonel-General Lapin broke through the “well-prepared defense” of Ukrainian troops, defeated Ukrainian forces and blocked Lysychansk. On July 3, Lapin was mentioned again in a message about the blockade of Lysychansk, and the next day Russian President Vladimir Putin awarded the general the title of Hero of Russia for his participation in the capture of the Luhansk region.
sota [a Russian news outlet] published the latest news about the commander of the Central Military District. According to the information provided, a mobilized soldier whose company withdrew from the front without permission after the shelling of the Svatove district said that Lapin held a gun to the head of the company commander “with an order to turn back.”
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