Vladimir Putin has fired one of his top military men over some of the bloodiest and most ‘pointless’ losses of soldiers in Ukraine.
Lieutenant General Sukhrob Akhmedov, 51, has been stripped of his post as Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Navy for Coastal and Land Force.
It comes months after Putin personally awarded the commander Russia’s highest military honour – Hero of Russia – apparently for successes in the Kursk region.
But now he has been axed amid public criticism of his catastrophic losses around Pokrovsk in occupied Ukraine.
The commander has been blamed for some of the bloodiest and most pointless losses of the war.
He’s been openly accused of the failed marine assault near Pokrovsk late last year — a mechanised charge that Ukrainian forces shredded in minutes.
Tanks burned, armoured vehicles were destroyed, and survivors filmed the aftermath.
The Putin favourite was also blamed for a deadly 2023 incident near Kremenna, where soldiers were left standing in formation in the open for hours while awaiting his ‘motivational speech.’
Ukrainian artillery spotted the gathering and killed dozens of the Russian soldiers.
Russian Telegram channel Rybar wrote: ‘Akhmedov and company are to blame for the mass deaths of personnel during one of the formations near Kremenna in June 2023.
‘But given the nepotism that was flourishing in the court-based Western Military District at that time, this matter was swept under the rug.’
For many Russian soldiers, the ‘Hero of Russia’ award has become a symbol of everything rotten in the system: loyalty rewarded, incompetence promoted, casualties ignored.
Putin’s forces are continuing to struggle in their bid to annex more of Ukraine, facing heavy losses and increasing attacks on Russian soil.
The governor of Belgorod, Russia, which borders Ukraine, told his residents to prepare to flee as Ukrainian strikes continue.
Ukrainian strikes have left more than half a million people without electricity and nearly 200,000 without water and sewerage, according to officials.
Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov admitted this was the first time the Belgorod region had faced problems on such a scale.
Even mobile networks partially collapsed. Authorities admitted over 60% degradation in cellular service, despite regulations requiring backup power.
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