Russia has suffered the death of another General along with seven elite SWAT fighters under Putin’s direct control.
Major-General Oleg Mityaev, 47, commander of the army’s 150th motorized rifle division, died fighting around the besieged city of Mariupol, Ukraine’s interior ministry said late Tuesday.
A picture of the corpse of the decorated military officer and a father-of-two was released by Anton Gerashchenko, a Ukrainian Interior Ministry adviser.
His death coincides with the first expressions of anger and dismay on the number of coffins now returning to Russia, even though those officially acknowledged as having fallen in Ukraine are seen as a small fraction of the total number which best estimates suggest now run into many thousands.
It marks the fourth Russian general that Ukraine claims to have taken out and the 13th officer overall, as Putin’s invading forces suffer heavy losses at the hands of relentless Ukrainian defenders.
Meanwhile, seven elite SWAT fighters from the feared Dzerzhinsky Division of Russia’s national guard were also revealed to have died in the fighting.
A mourning picture was released in Russia showing the photographs of six elite “maroon beret” special forces fighters from the Vityaz Special Purpose Centre of the Dzerzhinsky Division, named after Soviet secret police founder Felix Dzerzhinsky. It was later revealed that a seventh had been slain.
Among the elite SWAT troops killed was Major Viktor Maksimchuk, 44, commander of a motorized rifle regiment, who died fighting near Mariupol. A father and grandfather, his funeral is due today in the Krasnodar region.
Mikhail Belyakov, 30, a sergeant from the Penza region, died fighting in Ukraine on February 27 with his death announced Tuesday. Belyakov, a father of two, was awarded the Order of Courage posthumously.
Also killed was Alexey Blinkov, a graduate of the Novosibirsk Institute of National Guard Troops. The fourth SWAT fighter to be named was Maxim Pustozvonov, a native of the Samara region.
The body of another Russian soldier Aslanbek Mukhtarov was reported to have been found on the battlefield two-and-a-half weeks after he died. Air force pilot Captain Alexey Belkov was also killed when his plane was downed.
Ilya Kubik, 18, and Pyotr Tereshonok from the same city, Bratsk, in Siberia, who had been moved 3,500 miles to fight in the war, were also confirmed to have died as their funerals were held.
A total of 12 of Putin’s military commanders have now been killed in battle since the Russian leader began the invasion of Ukraine. The city’s mayor said: “I bow my head before the valor of our soldiers and officers.”
Colonel Andrei Zakharov was killed in a Ukrainian ambush near Kyiv followed by Major General Andrei Kolesnikov of the 29th Combined Arms Army.
Another general, Vitaly Gerasimov, was killed in fighting outside Kharkiv.
Lieutenant Colonel Dmitry Safronov, who led a Marine brigade, died along with Lieutenant Colonel Denis Glebov and Colonel Konstantin Zizevsky, who led air assault troops. Safronov and Glebov were killed when Ukrainian forces have recaptured the city of Chuhuiv, while Zizevsky was killed in the south of Ukraine.
Major General Andrei Sukhovetsky was killed by a Ukrainian sniper during the fighting for Hostomel Airfield about 30 miles outside Kyiv. General Magomed Tushaev died when his Chechen special forces column, including 56 tanks, was obliterated near Hostomel, north-east of the city.
Also among the Russian dead is warlord Vladimir Zhonga who led the Sparta Battalion, a Neo-Nazi military unit that has the Kremlin’s backing. Two other unnamed Russian senior commanders have also been killed in the fighting.
Captain Alexander Garnaev, a famous military test pilot and recipient of the Kremlin’s highest honor, the Hero of Russia award, denounced the “completely incomprehensible” war. He warned that his country’s forces have suffered losses on a scale that will “horrify” people when the figure, now a closely guarded secret, is revealed.
Garnaev quit from a number of positions over the “completely incomprehensible” war. He launched a scathing attack on the way Ukrainian cities have been “bombed and crushed with tanks”.
Russia is taking two weeks or more to transport their bodies back to relatives, many of whom live in the Russian Far East thousands of miles from the bloody war zone. Moscow has remained tight-lipped about its losses in Ukraine, having only acknowledged the death of one general and around 500 men.
Ukraine puts the figure at 13,500 troops including thousands of vehicles and tanks. Western estimates are slightly lower, between 2,000 and 6,000, but that would still amount to punishing losses for Putin.
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