They are already seven senior officers to have been killed, if one believes the Ukrainian authorities. Moscow recognizes only two victims, but it is already a lot. The Russian army deployed in Ukraine has only about twenty generals or admirals. So if we follow the figures given by kyiv, that means a third of the Russian high command already dead at the front. To give a point of comparison, during the Vietnam War, the United States had lost a dozen generals, but over ten years.
The most emblematic disappearance since the beginning is undoubtedly that of Vitali Gerasimov, chief of staff of the 41st army, engaged in the north, between kyiv and Kharkiv. He was killed a month ago. He was a very experienced officer, who had notably served in Syria. His deputy, Major Andrei Sukohvetsky, had been killed shortly before. The latest is Iakov Revantsev, lieutenant-general of the 49th army, deployed in the south: he seems to have been killed in Kherson, the only city taken to date by the Russians.
So how to explain these serial deaths of high-ranking officers? The first reason has to do with the organization of the Russian army: very hierarchical, with relatively few non-commissioned officers empowered to take initiatives on their own. This leads the generals to approach the front to make decisions when it is necessary to arbitrate in the face of an unforeseen event. And there, it’s mechanical: the risk increases of being targeted.
Second reason: the Ukrainians deliberately target them. The Ukrainian power claims this strategy: to target the Russian general staff to better disorganize the enemy. A special Ukrainian military intelligence unit is assigned to this task. It has excellent snipers, a French soldier tells us. She also uses drones to target these senior officers. And again, this strategy is made all the more effective because the Russian military has not shown great caution so far. The command post vehicles are easy to spot: they are lined with antennas. And in addition, they are betrayed by their communication systems, weakly encrypted or not at all. It is moreover visibly in this way, via this Achilles’ heel of radio communications, that General Guerassimov was spotted and killed near Kharkiv.
These high-ranking deaths can have an impact, change something during the war, but not necessarily in the way we think. In first intention, we think that the Russian army can quickly run out of generals if the conflict, as is likely, lasts and gets bogged down. So, given the very hierarchical functioning of this army, it can paralyze it. But on the other hand, Russian power and society remain relatively insensitive to human losses.
And above all, to overcome these difficulties linked to a possible lack of senior officers, Vladimir Putin may be tempted to develop the use of volunteer forces, militiamen, mercenaries from the Wagner group. With all that this implies of even more uncontrollable and uncontrolled violence against civilians.