The seventh Russian general dies in the war

Russian Lieutenant General Yakov Rezantsev was reported to have been killed Friday in a Ukrainian attack on the Chernobyka airport near the city of Kherson. This is what the Ukrainian Defense Minister said. There is no independent confirmation of Rezantsev’s death.

In an earlier attack on the same air force base, Lieutenant-General Andrei Mordvichev was also said to have been killed on March 18.

Yakov Rezantsev was the commander of the 49th battalion of the Southern Military District of Russia. He was also said to have been active in the war in Syria. He was promoted to first lieutenant only last year.

Rzantsev will be the seventh Russian general to die in the war, and he is the second lieutenant. In addition to the generals, a whole series of other high-ranking officers were also killed. Russia has so far confirmed the death of General Andrei Sikovitsky (41st Division), who was shot by a sniper.

The death of the Seven Generals in a good war month is a lot. By comparison, during the 20-year war in Afghanistan, the United States lost one general there, and then lost another through an attack on a military base.

young recruits

In addition, according to Western estimates, about twenty generals were sent to Ukraine to lead military operations, which means that a quarter of them were already killed.

According to the same source, the failure of electronic communications in particular would leave the generals vulnerable to targeted sniper attacks aimed at eliminating senior military personnel. Russians have problems with their secure ERA phone system, and therefore sometimes fall back on regular phones with Ukrainian SIM cards. These messages are easily intercepted and transmitted to the Ukrainian army.

But what also plays an important role is that generals have to lead on the front lines because an army of 200,000 is mostly made up of young recruits, who don’t always know what to do. Many soldiers also did not know in advance that they were going to war and had little motivation. But this exposes the generals themselves to greater risks.

Former US General David Petraeus – the commander in chief of the US military and director of the CIA from 2011 to 2012 – told CNN that it was “extremely extraordinary” that a general at the front had died. It also indicates the difficulty of the matter and the broken communication channels.

When a leader has to direct a column, things easily go wrong. A pole stops, and in the rear a general in his armored car is impatient. Junior officers don’t dare make decisions, so general steps forward to see what’s going on. Petraeus explains: “The Ukrainians have skilled snipers, just waiting to be taken out one by one.”