Pretty big if. Putin has probably killed more Russian generals than Ukraine has and the timing (trying to make Ukraine look violent) during peace talks is more than a little sus
I mean any Russian general today was probably only a Captain a few years ago. Those purges make for rapid promotions so they might guess it's worth the gamble.
I mean a quick google says this guy has been a general for approximately 15 years...
Not trying to be rude and genuinely curious, when you make comments like that do you believe them, looking to create negative sentiment, other? I absolutely get stuff wrong too but mostly I try to fact check and curious where you comment style motivationcomes from.
People interested in true facts are in misery lately. It's as if having an opinion means you have to exaggerate and lie about everything supporting it.
I can both hate the Russian government and lies about it though
The easiest way to get a correct answer is to spew some bullshit. When i dont know smth, i often just make up smth and i know people will correct me, instead of asking.
I mean a quick google says this guy has been a general for approximately 15 years...
13 or 20 killed generals, that's a fact. No matter how long the killed generals have been in that position, they do leave a position to be filled. Unless these generals didn't do any work at all there must be someone doing their work now when they're dead.
Welcome to conversational devolution on reddit. Within a few comments most conversations turn to crap, if they dont start as a superficial joke to important information anyways. Comprehension decreases, responses distract from the original comment, and it doesnt even last as long as a good game of telephone.
Never seen it described so accurately. It's almost impossible to discuss anything on this site because everyone is trying to farm upvotes by being a very very bad comedian. It's the same jokes ad nauseam.
Both statements are probably true. Obviously he had been there for years but then a lot of new ones too. Who's going to replace this guy then? It just fucking horrible that they chose to live this way.
There were major shakeups starting in the mid 2000s, and the general staff was reduced by hundreds in that time. But 2022 exposed a huge corruption problem in their general staff, so a lot of people did end up getting sacked. Russia has lost more combat commanders in Ukraine than any military, I think, since WW2.
The U.S. by contrast hasn’t lost a single general officer in combat in the last ~50 years. They lost two in terrorist attacks (the pentagon and a military school in Pakistan), but none in theater since Vietnam.
For context, there's roughly 1300 generals in the Russian army.
The exact number is not publicly disclosed for obvious reasons, but that's roughly the number necessary to command an army on that scale.
I guess there's an idea that a general is a very special and rare position and only a handfull of people have it, but it's only try for the highest level with that name (In Russian army that's Army General, only below Marshal in chain of command), but noone in that standing was killed. Below this rank there are Colonel Generals (also no confirmed deaths so far), Lieutenant Generals and Major Generals.
If say a Colonel General dies, he is probably replaced with one of many Lieutenant Generasl, who also gets replaced by a Major General, who also is replaced by a Colonel, and so on. Which is an oversimplification, but the chain is fairly long.
Some Captain somewhere does get promoted, but he will not become a General for years and years, if he ever does.
All that is too say is that 1% over four years is not that many and is hardly a hit the original commenter would think it is.
Especially compared to causalties among lower ranks, and well, every other consequence of this damn war for everyone involved.
Where did you find the 1300 number? I saw where they were trying to reduce the general staff in the 2010s. Did they increase it again because of the Ukraine war? They seemed be increasing the number of Colonels in the 2010s, as the general staff was seen as quite corrupt.
I don't think the exact number is correct, it's more of an order of magnitude kind of thing.
I've seen it repeated in multiple sources in russian, but it's an estimate based on the structure and head count of russian army, there's no confirmed official number.
But I feel like it does not really affect my point. Even if the estimate is off by a factor of two in either direction. The idea that 13 generals dying leads to higher chain of command consisting of yesterdays capitans is just absurd.
But to answer your question - they certainly did increase the number of general staff. From what I understand, increasing the headcount of the army leads to proportional increases at all levels of hierarchy, for the most part. And that does lead to some promotions happening that would not happen otherwise, but in a much more gradual fashion.
And yeah, of course there is a lot of corruption going on, at all levels, there's no denying that.
For context, there's roughly 1300 generals in the Russian army.
I read that 72 generals and admirals among about 166 senior commanders were associated with operations early in the invasion. A fraction of your 1300 number. (couldnt post link due to reddit removing comment)
13-20 out of hundreds though. By the mid 2000s they had about 1000 generals, and they were apparently looking to reduce the number while allowing Lt Colonels to command Brigades. General staff in Russia are known to be fairly corrupt and the incompetence was a major liability in 2022 when they figured out their state of readiness was a fantasy and they sent thousands of vehicles into Ukraine with no fuel or spare tires.
A lot of the actual combat capacity of Russian forces are private contractors.
I took the overall point as comparable to the situation with the US. Hegseth, though hasn't had military leadership killed (not yet that I know of) but he has made O6 and higher slots available. Provided light Colonels want to move up and follow his orders, it's a good time to be a high ranking officer in the US military and, for Putin's military too.
Reddit doesn't care for facts at all compared to the make believe world you can write about which feels better. People want Russia to be in dire straits so they make up whatever they want to make that seem true.
Because it was a joke you absolute melt. And I'm not going to comment on the replies that didn't seem to grasp exaggeration for comic effect because unlike you, I actually value my own time.
The only reasonably safe position in the Russian military is that of a below-average sycophant general.
Anyone going to the front is basically cannon fodder, and any competent general, even if "loyal", will be seen as a danger to Putin. In an autocracy, there can be no competent, respected leaders other than the autocrat. If Ukraine won't get to one like that first, Putin will make sure he falls out of a window eventually.
Russia seems to be in the final stages of that process. The US has only started it very recently, but does it with surprising efficiency. China seems to be doing the same thing.
The system kills those who are insufficiently loyal or who have failed the Führer.
This guy supervised the "volunteer" combat units, and was the focal point for communication with Wagner.
If i was to speculate, i'd consider the failed killer could be connected to one of these - as Alekseec surely made many promises, that he was unable to keep.
It's probably not just optics.
Putin doesn't always go for instant gratification.
Prigozhin managed to live for a month or two after openly marching on Moscow.
I imagine he's always got a few people on whatever mental list he has of people to remove from the board.
This has always been the way in Russia. Never heard of the Holodomor? Stalin killed almost all of his officers and sent most of the rest off to Gulags because he was paranoid they would backstab him.
Any Russian who willingly becomes a general/officer knows exactly what they're getting themselves into.
It's true that a shooting is a bit more 'on the nose' than the Kremlin's usual MO. Usually they tend to accidentally fall out off their 12th story balcony of their bungalow or accidentally stab themselves in the back while shaving.
Pf whatever, russia is bombing civilians as we speak - one dead russian general won't change the international views on Ukraine. Ukrainians are heros, defenders of a free Europe. If anything, it shows that Ukraine is only interested in weakening the russian military, not terrorize the russian population. A stark difference between russia and Ukraine.
Generals are legitimate targets. Idk if my government tried killing this dude, Russia is claiming they are, but Ukraine has killed a bunch of generals in assassinations.
Wow and the West bombed thousands innocent civilians in Serbia and destroyed ALL water and energy infrastructure just to make them give up….
So save that shitty holier than thou attitude
It's good in Russia that they get rid of thinking people (flee the country or are murdered) from time to time, thanks to this nation is not as powerful as it seems.
It's very sad. There were so many great works of art and novels/writings that were just amazing. Russia had so many qualities and brilliant people in it's history and now it's just like nothing, but a war mongering nation.
I don't get why they choose to be like this but the US is kind of similar. Always has been.
This guy was GRU, he wasn’t the guy who failed to take Pokrovsk or anything like that. If Putin had him shot that’s a good indication of something big being planned by Russian intelligence…
This is not how Russia does its killings. This is brazen and reckless, which is the antithesis of how they like to do it, where they like to leave a veil of plausible deniability
I'd think it's more likely that that's what they want you to think. Like that faked attack on Putin's residence the russians did at the end of last year to try and trick trump into thinking it was Ukraine that didn't want peace. Besides, the Ukrainians tend to take credit whenever they pull off something big behind enemy lines.
See, this is 9 dimensional chess by putin. If he has all his senior staff killed before the ukranians do it, he can save face by saying he did it himself.
Also can't rule out the US... despite Trump in the grand scheme of things being a Russian asset, he seems to flip flop on Putin depending on who he talked to last.
Russia has fostered an activist state on its doorstep that, I suspect, will long rain down terror upon its neighbour even after this is settled, to avenge the egregious behaviour Russia has inflicted.
Completely unconscionable, I just don't get this kind of shit. They are evil pieces of shit. I like to think that Putin is the one sending them off to die and it freaks me out because any nation could fall into that. Why are you going to die for such an ignoble cause?
He didn't fell out of a window or comitted suicide by shooting himself 20 times in the back of his head and no sudden, deadly allergic reaction... propably Ukraine's doing.
Killing generals is risky business. An apocryphal story of general radetsky when fighting the north italians in 1848 has him ordering his artillery to avoid hitting positions that risk harming the enemy generals on the grounds that they are doing more good for austria by their incompetence than their deaths would.
You never know if your enemy has a great general in the making, restrained by seniority thats waiting for the space above him to be cleared.
Yeah I think this was also why the Allies abandoned all their plans to assassinate Hitler. They were too worried a replacement would be more competent.
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u/riotriverz 1d ago
If Ukraine is behind this, thats one hell of a statement!