Z-bloggers report that General Colonel Gennady Anashkin has been removed from his position as Russian Southern Group of Forces commander. The alleged reason is the “situation on the Siversk front” and his “unwillingness to inform the higher command about the true state of affairs.”
According to Russian sources, General Anashkin provided false information to higher command, leading to significant losses for the Russian army in futile assaults near the settlement of Siversk. “Just recently, false reports came from Siversk about successful breakthroughs, followed by poorly prepared column attacks on enemy positions, resulting in heavy losses and minimal gains.”
General Anashkin reported corruption and ineptness by the Kremlin and Ministry of Defense. He said his troops faced significant challenges fighting against Western weapons.
A Russian general has said he has been fired as a commander after telling Moscow’s military leadership “the truth” about the dire situation at the front in Ukraine as tensions in the Russian army grow in the aftermath of the Wagner group’s short-lived mutiny.
Maj Gen Ivan Popov, who commanded the 58th Combined Arms army, which is fighting on the front in Ukraine near Zaporizhzhia, said in a voice message that he had been fired after he brought up problems on the battlefield, including the lack of counter-battery fire as well as deaths and injuries the army was suffering from Ukrainian attacks.
Popov story was published by Andrey Gurulyov, a retired Russian colonel general and Duma deputy.
Without naming them, Popov appeared to attack the head of the army, Valery Gerasimov, and the defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, two of the country’s most potent military men, accusing them of stabbing the country in the back.
“As many commanders of regiments and divisions said today, our army was not broken through the front, but our most senior commander hit us in the back, thus treacherously beheading the army in the most difficult period,” Popov said.
Popov added that he faced a choice with his superiors “to keep quiet and be a coward or to say it the way it is … Due to this, the seniors likely felt some danger in me and instantly, in one day, put together an order to the minister of defence and got rid of me.”
It was not clear when Popov had recorded the message or who its intended recipients were.
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