Four Russian Generals Killed in Three Weeks Show Moscow's Vulnerabilities in Ukraine
Four Russian brigadier generals have died in three weeks on the battlefield in Ukraine, Kyiv officials said, showing faults in Moscow’s ability to lead troops into battle. The fallout could shape the outcome of the war, according to Ukrainian and Western officials. The deaths of Gen. Vitaly Gerasimov, Gen. Andrei Kolesnikov, Gen. Oleg Mityaev and Gen. Andrei Sukhovetsky were announced by Ukrainian officials and confirmed by some Russian media reports, but not the Kremlin. They were veterans of Russia’s earlier conflicts in Georgia, Ukraine and Syria, where Russia also lost generals.
The Russian military’s fighting style appears to have contributed to the losses, analysts say. Other factors include subpar radio communications and intense fighting, including ambushes by Ukrainian forces near cities. Replacing them with officers with similar experience could prove difficult. “Their level of small-unit leadership, as they themselves recognize, is not great, which is why you see general officers much more forward in the field” in the Russian army, said Col. John “Buss” Barranco, a U.S. Marine Corps fellow at the Atlantic Council, a Washington think tank.“They are overly dependent on senior people micromanaging from the front because they don’t have the same noncommissioned officer corps to exercise initiative,” he said.
Given the limited public details about the generals’ deaths, Western officers and analysts can’t say which Ukrainian actions against Russian officers have proven most successful, or whether mistakes on the Russian side left their officers vulnerable. The Russian officers killed in action have a rank that translates as “major general,” which equates to one-star officers, analogous to brigadier generals or simply “brigadiers” in the West.
By contrast only one U.S. general has died in combat in decades, the victim of an attack by a disgruntled Afghan soldier.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/death-of-russian-generals-in-ukraine-expose-vulnerabilities-in-moscows-military-tactics-11647441273
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