Western officials have claimed that the Russian commander who oversaw two deplorable attacks in eastern Ukraine that killed thousands of men has been sacked.
General Rustam Muratov commanded Russia’s Eastern Group of Forces (EGF) in Ukraine for about a year, having taken over after his predecessor’s pathetic attempt to assault Kiev in the war’s first weeks.
Muradov, a close ally of Russia’s army chief Valery Gerasimov, launched a heavy attack earlier this year on the Ukrainian mining town of Voldar in the Donetsk region.
His tactic – a frontal attack in broad daylight, ended in utter disaster.
Survivors claim that one marine battalion of 5,000 men was almost completely wiped out, and the Armed Forces of Ukraine destroyed at least 130 armored vehicles, including 36 tanks.
Shocking aerial footage captured by Ukrainian drones in the aftermath of the attack showed piles of corpses and the twisted wreckage of armored vehicles littering the fields on the outskirts of the city.
Muradov was also involved in planning a similarly doomed attack on the village of Pavlevka, in which hundreds more of Putin’s soldiers were shot dead.
Britain’s Ministry of Defense described Muradov’s departure as the biggest military chapter of 2023 so far – but warned that more were likely to follow as Moscow failed to achieve its goals in eastern Ukraine.
General Rustam Muradov – the Russian commander who oversaw two deplorable attacks in eastern Ukraine that killed thousands of men – has been removed from his post.
Shocking aerial footage captured by Ukrainian drones in the aftermath of the attack showed piles of corpses and the twisted wreckage of armored vehicles littering the fields on the outskirts of Voldar.
Video evidence shows Russia suffering catastrophic military losses after its armored vehicles were ambushed at Voldar.
“The losses turned out to be one-sided,” wrote the former KGB commander Igor Strelkov-Girkin, “the Ukrainians shot the attackers“ as if in a firing hall.
An intelligence update said, “The Russian Defense Ministry has most likely dismissed Colonel Rustam Muradov from the post of commander of the Eastern Group of Forces (EGF) in Ukraine.”
“Muradov’s PDF has suffered exceptionally heavy losses in recent months as its ill-conceived offensives have repeatedly failed to capture the Donetsk Oblast town of Vohlidar.”
Muradov’s ouster would be welcomed by legions of Russian military commentators, bloggers and media personalities, who in the days after the Fuldar massacre in February called for public trials to punish the commanders and generals responsible for the losses.
“Some of them are complete cretinism — all the mistakes made before are repeated,” said Igor Strelkov-Girkin, a former Russian intelligence officer who helped organize the 2014 pro-Moscow rebellions in Donetsk and Crimea.
Girkin complained that the Russian soldiers—including many of the best marines, SS soldiers, and tank crews—were being cut down “like turkeys on a shooting range” as the Ukrainians held higher positions “without much difficulty”.
One particular Russian unit – the Pacific Fleet’s 155th Marine Brigade – lost hundreds of men in the ill-conceived Muradov assault on Pavlevka in late 2022.
The rebel survivors then wrote a letter to the district governor blaming Muradov for their appalling losses and asking for his replacement, but their pleas fell on deaf ears.
Only months later, Muratov sent the 155th Brigade to Voldar, and it was almost completely destroyed.
“The 155th Brigade had already been resupplied three times,” said Colonel Oleksiy Dmitrashkevsky, a spokesman for the Ukrainian military.
Putin has been quick to fire several high-ranking military officials who have failed to achieve his wild goals in Ukraine
This is the moment when a Russian armored vehicle explodes in the fields near Voldar
A group of Russian soldiers can be seen climbing on top of a tank and jumping down before escaping from the burning wreckage as it was destroyed at Pavlevka.
The mining town of Fuldar, which had a population of 14,000 before the war and was situated on higher ground, was fortified with artillery three months after the attack.
Tom Cooper, a military historian who studied the battle, describes Voldar as “a great, tall fortress in the middle of an empty, flat desert”.
The Russian advance was easily spotted from tall buildings as it crossed open fields towards the town, which was built to service a nearby coal mine, said Evgeny Nazarenko, a spokesman for one of the defending Ukrainian units.
“We are at the top and they are at the bottom. It is quite visible,” he said.
The advancing Russians were smashed by artillery fire, drone bombs and land mines, after Muradov reportedly ordered the tanks to move forward in single file due to a lack of mine-clearing equipment.
A Russian military source told The Moscow Times: “Muradov was suspended because he was a crazy idiot who was able to… order the soldiers to go to certain death.” Many people complained about it.
But removing top Russian leaders from office is nothing new.
The current commander of the Russian army, Valery Gerasimov, replaced “General Armageddon” Sergei Surovikin in January – just three months after Surovkin himself came to the post.
