The Armed Forces of Ukraine eliminated the Colonel Vladimir Ivanov, press officer of the Russian Ministry of Defense.
Reported by Department of Strategic Communications of the AF of Ukraine.https://t.co/YSMZbwPb5b pic.twitter.com/TZPrh22M93
— Euromaidan Press (@EuromaidanPress) May 29, 2022
These deaths also follow the shoot down of retired Russian Major General Kanamat Botashev, who was believed to be shot down in Popasna while flying in a Su-25 fighter jet. The retired Russian General was dismissed in 2013 as he and another high-ranking Russian officer, Colonel Yevhen Oliynyk, went on an unauthorized joy ride in a Su-27UB. Oliynyk had lost control over the fighter jet while doing some tricks and maneuvers. This led them to get booted out of the military.
The retired Russian General apparently could not stay away from the action and later allegedly joined the Wagner Group to fight in Ukraine, a group of former Russian military personnel who now acts as Putin’s private army. Russia uses the mercenary group to unofficially interfere with foreign conflicts, so they cannot be held internationally liable for their actions.
https://twitter.com/lilygrutcher/status/1531262346877861889
According to US intel, Russia had 150,000 soldiers ready to invade Ukraine last February. Recent estimates state that some 20% had been rendered out of action, which means the Ukrainian Armed Forces have taken out some 30,000 Russians. If we were to tally this with the projected amount of wounded, this number would be higher. If the ratio of wounded to killed still stands at 2-4 wounded for each person killed in the war, the total number of incapacitated Russian troops would be somewhere from 60,000 to 120,000. Given the lack of proper medical care and apparent absense of field hospitals to treat their wounded, the number of wounded Russian soldiers succumbing to their injuries may be much higher than the numbers being reported by Ukraine.
Ukrainian estimates of Russian losses as of June 2 are at around 30,850 troops, which is not far off from the US estimate. This is accompanied by losses of some 1,363 tanks, 3,354 APVs, 661 artillery systems, 210 fighter planes, 175 helicopters, 521 UAVs, and some 120 cruise missiles.
The death of these top military officers is not new. Most recently, a verified interception of a call between two Russian colonels revealed that troops sent to Ukraine did not know anything about combat and were merely taught to salute, confirming speculation that Russia has sent barely conscripts to fight in Ukraine. Untrained personnel out in the field were determined to have low morale as they were lied to about their true intentions in Ukraine. They had experienced food and fuel supply issues, which led to the further degradation of their morale. In the attempt to get these green troops into the fight, Russian colonels and generals have had to go directly to the front lines to personally lead these men into combat, with the results we are now seeing.
These incompetent decision making led the two Russian colonels to curse Putin directly:
“Even if they hit the wrong f*cking place, let them be f*cking scared, shoot the f*cking train stations, shoot the f*cking railways, for f*ck’s sake,” he said. “A f*cking rocket should fly into the Verkhovna Rada [Ukraine’s Parliament] in Kyiv. That’s it, f*ck it. Why didn’t [a rocket] fucking fly? I don’t f*cking get it, you’re f*cked, Putin—motherf*cker!”
Currently, the Russians are making progress in the city of Severodonetsk, which is about 70% controlled by Russians. If successful in invading Severodonetsk and Lysychansk, they will now have control over the entirety of Luhansk – one of two regions in Donbas. The question then becomes whether they can hold it with Ukraine on the offensive.
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