Who was Andrey Mordvichev? Ukrainian forces kill senior Russian general in Kherson
A Russian general has been killed in Ukraine, the country's military claimed said on Saturday, March 19. Lieutenant-General Andrey Mordvichev was the fifth senior Russian leader to be killed since the invasion began. Mordvichev died when a command post at an airfield in Kherson, a port city in southern Ukraine, was destroyed by armed forces.
Mordvichev's death comes just days after Maj. Gen. Oleg Mityaev, an officer who reportedly commanded the 150th Motor Rifle Division and had fought in Syria, was killed as Russian forces stormed Mariupol. Before Mityaev, three other Russian generals to be allegedly killed were Maj. Gens. Vitaly Gerasimov, Andrei Kolesnikov and Andrei Sukhovetsky, Ukrainian officials and some Russian media said.
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Who was Andrey Mordvichev?
Andrey Mordvichev was a Russian lieutenant general who commanded the 8th General Army of the Southern Military District. He was deployed in 2022 to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Russia suffered its first major blow when Ukrainian defense forces killed Russian Maj Gen Andrei Sukhovetsky earlier this week in combat. The Kremlin-backed Pravda confirmed that Sukhovetsky was killed "during a special operation in Ukraine". Talking about his death, former CIA officer and station chief Dan Hoffman said, "If it’s true, it’s big."
Sukhovetsky was the commanding general of the Russian 7th Airborne Division and a deputy commander of the 41st Combined Arms Army. So far, he is the most senior Russian figure to have died in the conflict. Sukhovetsky graduated from the Ryazan Higher Airborne Command School in 1995. He began his career as a platoon commander, eventually climbing up to the chief of staff of the Guards airborne assault unit.
After Russian President Vladimir Putin deployed deadly weapons and also began considering nuclear options, it was speculated that he was afraid of losing the war. Russian troops became bogged down after an attempt to surround Kharkiv was in vain, with Ukrainian soldiers launching a scathing counter-attack on Russian armored vehicles by using British anti-tank missiles.
However, Bill Roggio, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and editor of FDD's Long War Journal, had said that he did not believe that Putin is losing the war. "Sympathy for the outnumbered and outgunned defenders of Kyiv has led to the exaggeration of Russian setbacks, misunderstanding of Russian strategy, and even baseless claims from amateur psychoanalysts that Putin has lost his mind," the Daily Mail quoted Roggio as saying. "A more sober analysis shows that Russia may have sought a knockout blow, but always had well-laid plans for follow-on assaults if its initial moves proved insufficient. The world has underestimated Putin before and those mistakes have led, in part, to this tragedy in Ukraine. We must be clear-eyed now that the war is underway."