London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Monday, Sep 01, 2025

War in Ukraine: Fourth Russian general killed - Zelensky

War in Ukraine: Fourth Russian general killed - Zelensky

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky says another Russian general has been killed during fighting.

He didn't name the officer, but an adviser to Ukraine's interior ministry said Maj Gen Oleg Mityaev had been killed by the far-right Azov Battalion.

Gen Mityaev was killed near Mariupol, Ukrainian media said.

He is the fourth general reportedly killed, leading some to ask why such senior members of the Russian military are so close to the front line.

Analysts believe that around 20 generals are leading Russian operations in Ukraine, meaning that if all the reported deaths are confirmed, one fifth of Russia's generals have been killed in action.

With such high losses, some experts believe that the generals have not simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time, but that Ukraine is likely to be targeting top-level Russian officers.

"I don't think this is an accident. One is an accident, but this many is targeted", Rita Konaev of Georgetown University told the BBC.

Speaking to the Wall Street Journal, a person within President Zelensky's inner circle said Ukraine had a military intelligence team dedicated to targeting Russia's officer class.

"They look for high profile generals, pilots, artillery commanders," the person told the newspaper.

With Ukraine's military outnumbered, its targeting of high-level individuals could be an important part of the information war, according to Ms Konaev.

"Assuming there is an element of targeting, this feeds Ukraine's own morale. There is the element of being victorious. It is inspiring."

For Ukraine to target specific Russian officers, it needs to know where they are. Analysts say that Russia has been using open channels of communications which could give clues about where certain targets are located.

"If the Russians are using mobile phones or analogue radios to communicate with senior officers, the Ukrainians have everything on their plate," defence analyst Konrad Muzyka of Rochan Consulting told the BBC.

After the death of another senior officer - Maj Gen Vitaly Gerasimov - Ukraine released a recording purporting to be two Russian security officers discussing the general's death, and complaining that their secure communications network was not working.

On the front lines


It is unusual for such high-ranking officers to put themselves in danger by getting so close to the battlefield, and western sources believe that they have done so in order to get some control over operations which have, in some areas, badly stalled.

Russia's military is also traditionally top-heavy, with officers often conducting day-to-day activities, says Mr Muzyka. Although this is starting to change, it could explain why generals felt the need to direct operations from the front.

"In recent years there's been a big shift to force battalion commanders to think independently in a way that would give them freedom to make decisions", Mr Muzyka said. "But this was introduced only three years ago, so maybe it didn't properly have an effect yet on their performance".

The details of the generals' deaths are unclear, and getting solid facts from the ground is difficult. There has been an assumption that they were all caught up in fighting on the front line, but that is not necessarily the case, says Ms Konaev.

"It doesn't necessarily mean the generals were at the front line. They could have been in transit or inspecting resupply lines for example," she told the BBC.


Maj Gen Oleg Mityaev reportedly died somewhere near the city of Mariupol, a city in south-east Ukraine which has seen some of the heaviest fighting so far.

The far-right Azov Battalion, claims to have killed him.

He was a commander of the Russian army's 150th motorised rifle division, a relatively new unit formed in 2016, and based in the Rostov region close to the Ukrainian border.

Ukraine claims that the unit was created in order to take part in the conflict in separatist-controlled areas of eastern Ukraine, although Russia denies that its military was involved in fighting there.


Maj Gen Andrei Kolesnikov, of the 29th combined army, was killed in fighting on March 11, according to official Ukrainian sources.

The circumstances of his death were not given.

After Kolesnikov became the third Russian general reportedly killed in Ukraine, one western official told the Press Association that the Russian army may be suffering from low morale, which is why high-ranking military officers are moving closer to the front line.


Mai Gen Vitaly Gerasimov, chief of staff of Russia's 41st combined army, was killed on 7 March outside the eastern city of Kharkiv, according to Ukraine's defence ministry.

Kharkiv, close to the Russian border, has come under sustained attack from Russian forces.

Ukraine's military released a recording of what it said was two Russian security service officials discussing Gerasimov's death, and complaining that their secure communication networks no longer worked in Ukraine.

Gerasimov was involved in the second Chechen war, the Russian military operation in Syria, and in the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014.


Maj Gen Andrey Sukhovetsky, a deputy commander at the same unit as Gerasimov, was reportedly killed by a sniper on 3 March.

Like Gerasimov, Sukhovetsky was part of Russia's military operations in Crimea and in Syria.

Unlike the other generals, Sukhovetsky's death was reported in the Russian media and Russian President Vladimir Putin confirmed in a speech that a general had died in Ukraine.

Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
WhatsApp is rolling out a feature that looks a lot like Telegram.
Investigations Reveal Rise in ‘Sex-for-Rent’ Listings Across Canada Exploiting Vulnerable Tenants
Chinese and Indian Leaders Pursue Amity Amid Global Shifts
European Union Plans for Ukraine Deployment
ECB Warns Against Inflation Complacency
Concerns Over North Cyprus Casino Development
Shipping Companies Look Beyond Chinese Finance
Rural Exodus Fueling European Wildfires
China Hosts Major Security Meeting
Chinese Police Successfully Recover Family's Savings from Livestream Purchases
Germany Marks a Decade Since Migrant Wave with Divisions, Success Stories, and Political Shifts
Liverpool Defeat Arsenal 1–0 with Szoboszlai Free-Kick to Stay Top of Premier League
Prince Harry and King Charles to Meet in First Reunion After 20 Months
Chinese Stock Market Rally Fueled by Domestic Investors
Israeli Airstrike in Yemen Kills Houthi Prime Minister
Ukrainian Nationalist Politician Andriy Parubiy Assassinated in Lviv
Corporate America Cuts Middle Management as Bosses Take On Triple the Workload
Parents Sue OpenAI After Teen’s Death, Alleging ChatGPT Encouraged Suicide
Amazon Faces Lawsuit Over 'Buy' Label on Digital Streaming Content
Federal Reserve Independence Questioned Amid Trump’s Push to Reshape Central Bank
British Politics Faces Tumultuous Autumn After Summer of Rebellions and Rising Farage Momentum
US Appeals Court Rules Against Most Trump-Era Tariffs
UK Sought Broad Access to Apple Users’ Data, Court Filing Reveals
UK Bank Shares Dive Over Potential Tax on Sector
Germany’s Auto Industry Sheds 51,500 Jobs in First Half of 2025 Amid Deepening Crisis
Bruce Willis Relocated Due to Advanced Dementia
French and Korean Nuclear Majors Clash As EU Launches Foreign Subsidy Probe
EU Stands Firm on Digital Rules as Trump Warns of Retaliation
Getting Ready for the 3rd Time in Its History, Germany Approves Voluntary Military Service for Teenagers
Argentine President Javier Milei Evacuated After Stones Thrown During Campaign Event
Denmark Confronts U.S. Diplomat Over Covert Trump-Linked Influence in Greenland
Starmer Should Back Away from ECHR, Says Jack Straw
Trump Demands RICO Charges Against George Soros and Son for Funding Violent Protests
Taylor Swift Announces Engagement to NFL Star Travis Kelce
France May Need IMF Bailout, Warns Finance Minister
Chinese AI Chipmaker Cambricon Posts Record Profit as Beijing Pushes Pivot from Nvidia
After the Shock of Defeat, Iranians Yearn for Change
Ukraine Finally Allows Young Men Aged Eighteen to Twenty-Two to Leave the Country
The Porn Remains, Privacy Disappears: How Britain Broke the Internet in Ten Days
YouTube Altered Content by Artificial Intelligence – Without Permission
Welcome to The Definition of Insanity: Germany Edition
Just a reminder, this is Michael Jackson's daughter, Paris.
Spotify’s Strange Move: The Feature Nobody Asked For – Returns
Manhunt in Australia: Armed Anti-Government Suspect Kills Police Officers Sent to Arrest Him
China Launches World’s Most Powerful Neutrino Detector
How Beijing-Linked Networks Shape Elections in New York City
Ukrainian Refugee Iryna Zarutska Fled War To US, Stabbed To Death
Elon Musk Sues Apple and OpenAI Over Alleged App Store Monopoly
2 Australian Police Shot Dead In Encounter In Rural Victoria State
Vietnam Evacuates Hundreds of Thousands as Typhoon Kajiki Strikes; China’s Sanya Shuts Down
×