Some of Moscow’s most select units, including its Air Force, have suffered the highest levels of damage in the first 68 days of the conflict. The Defense Ministry said that “it will probably take years for Russia to rebuild these forces.” The Kremlin has deployed more than 120 regular battalion groups, each numbering between 600 and 1,000 troops, in Ukraine, which accounts for about 65 percent of Russia’s total ground combat force, according to the report. A Ukrainian attack on a Russian command center in Izyum on Saturday night killed about 200 invading soldiers, including the ninth Russian general killed in the conflict. Kyiv said its resistance forces had killed Lt. Gen. Andrei Simonov, 55, a senior electronic warfare commander, in an artillery attack near the northeastern city. Oleksiy Arestovych, an adviser to President Volodymyr Zelensky, said the attack also destroyed about 30 Russian armored vehicles. Footage posted on the Internet showed the commander being hit by Grad missiles fired from a multi-launcher missile system. Viktor Andrusov, an adviser to Ukraine’s interior minister, said he could not confirm reports that General Valery Gerasimov, the commander of the Russian armed forces, had also been killed in the attack. “We have confirmation that he was actually there, in the Izyum area, but we have no confirmation that he was injured. In addition, we already have a definite confirmation that he was not injured,” Mr Andrusov said. During the attack, Western officials said they had received “credible reports” that General Gerasimov had been sent to the front line by Vladimir Putin to oversee the impetus for the occupation of eastern Ukraine. Roads in and out of the Izyum, which is considered the gateway to the eastern Donbas region of Ukraine, are of key strategic importance to Russian forces. Moscow used Belgorod, which lies right on its borders, as a logistics hub for its war effort. There is a direct road from the city to Izyum, part of the Kharkiv region.
The Russian army sank
The Kremlin recently shifted its focus from invading Ukraine to occupying eastern Donbass. But the renewed military campaign slowed down, swamped by muddy conditions and fierce Ukrainian resistance. Kiev forces have been able to disrupt Russian supply chains by liberating cities around Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city and closer to the Russian border.
