Vladimir Putin's forces continue to suffer losses in the hand of Ukrainian forces, with another general killed on Tuesday. According to reports, Major General Oleg Mityaev, 47, was killed along with seven members of an elite SWAT unit in the storming of Mariupol, dealing a new blow to Putin's invasion of Ukraine.
Mityaev is the 13th Russian commander to have been killed in the Russia-Ukraine war that to in the past 10 days. The announcement of Mityaev's death was made by Ukrainian Interior Ministry adviser Anton Gerashchenko on Telegram, wherein he shared a photo of a person and said that was a top officer.
Big Blow for Russia
If Ukraine's claims are to be believed, Mityaev was the fourth top officer of the Russian army to have been slain after Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24. It is not known when and exactly under what circumstances Mityaev died.
According to reports, he was commanding a unit in Mariupol, when he was fatally hit by bullets and died. Mariupol seems to have been a tough ground for Russia, with more than five of its commanders having been killed there itself.
Mityaev, according to Gerashchenko, was a decorated military general and a father of two. The commander of the 150th motorized rifle division is the fourth Russian General to die in the war, according to Kyiv.
Mityaev previously served in Syria and was named commander of a Russian military facility in Tajikistan in 2016. Although Russia hasn't confirmed the death, Ukraine's far-right Azov Regiment has taken the responsibility of killing Mityaev.
Russia Continues to Lose Generals
Besides Mityaev, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky also reported the death of another Russian general. However, he didn't give the name the officer. Meanwhile, photographs of six elite "maroon beret" special forces fighters from the Dzerzhinsky Division's Vityaz Special Purpose Centre were released in Russia.
The squad is named after Felix Dzerzhinsky, the dreaded creator of the Soviet Union's secret police.
Mityaev's death follows that of a spy captain in Ukraine during a "top-secret" operation, giving Vladimir Putin a total of 13 commanders killed in the invasion. Captain Alexey Glushchak, a GRU military intelligence spy from Tyumen, Siberia, perished in the carnage in Mariupol, but no details about his death have been disclosed.
Ukraine has in less than a week reported the deaths of Major General Andrei Sukhovetsky, commanding general of the Russian 7th Airborne Division and deputy commander of the 41st Army, and Major General Vitaly Gerasimov, chief of staff of the 41st Army.
This shows the extent of losses Russians have suffered so far in the war. The Ukrainian army also said that so far, more than 12,000 Russian soldiers have been killed and 57 planes, 353 tanks, and 83 helicopters have been downed. Apart from this, 125 guns, and 1,165 military vehicles have also been damaged, Ukraine said.
However, Moscow has not provided an up-to-date count of the soldiers killed in the war and has only named a few of the dead, including senior generals. Many of the funerals that have been reported in the media recently are for troops who died at the end of February.
Russia is taking two weeks or more to transfer their bodies back to families, many of whom live thousands of miles away from the brutal conflict zone in the Russian Far East.
Corporal Danil Novolodsky, 24, a senior gunner on an air assault artillery unit, was also laid to rest. Putin issued a decree awarding him the Order of Courage.
