A top Russian general was recently killed in the fighting in Ukraine as Russia’s invasion of the country enters its second week.
Maj. Gen. Andrei Sukhovetsky was the deputy commander of the 41st Combined Arms Army and had previously served as the commander of the 7th Guards Mountain Air Assault Division of Russia’s airborne forces, according to Newsweek.
The 41st Combined Arms Army is a field army that had been deployed to Yelnya, in western Russia near the border with Belarus and Ukraine since at least last November.
While the circumstances of Sukhovetsky’s death were unclear, the event was initially reported in both Ukrainian and Russian media, and those reports were corroborated on Thursday by the Associated Press.
“The fact is, we killed him,” said Ukraine’s former minister of infrastructure, Volodymyr Omelyan, according to Fox News.
The online Russian newspaper Pravda.ru cited a post on the Russian social media platform VKontakte by Sergei Chipilev, a member of a Russian veteran’s group called Combat Brotherhood.
“With great pain, we learned the tragic news of the death of our friend, Major General Andrey Sukhovetsky, on the territory of Ukraine during the special operation. We express our deepest condolences to his family,” wrote Chipilev, according to the Pravda translation, using the turn of phrase Russia has used to describe its invasion of Ukraine.
As reported by British newspaper The Independent, Russian President Vladimir Putin acknowledged the general’s death during a publically broadcast speech Wednesday.
Sukhovetsky had reportedly participated in Russian campaigns in Abkhazia, the North Caucasus, and Syria.
Christo Grozev, executive director of Bellingcat, commented on Thursday that Sukhovetsky’s death could be a “major demotivator” for Russian forces. He also linked to a 2021 interview with the general in Russian media, in which Sukhovetsky was quoted as saying, “We train our officers to fight online: you see, you destroy.”
The death of a general officer in combat is a very rare occurrence on the modern battlefield.
While one general officer was killed during the Sept. 11 attack on the Pentagon, since the end of the Vietnam War, only one American general has been killed in action; Maj. Gen. Harold Greene, who was killed during an insider attack in Afghanistan in 2015.
On Thursday, a senior defense department official said that the U.S. could not confirm reports of Maj. Gen. Sukhovetsky’s death.
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