A top Russian commander has been sacked after allegedly misleading Vladimir Putin over battlefield successes and faking wins.
Colonel-General Gennady Anashkin, 55, was head of the South group of Russian armed forces fighting in eastern Ukraine.
Anashkin was stripped of his post but the country’s defence ministry suggested his removal after just six months was a “planned rotation.”
Insiders told pro-Putin Telegram channels that the General was dismissed for “misleading the higher command” and “concealing the real situation” in the war.
One of these Telegram channels, Rybar, claimed the commander has also sealed the fate of his soldiers in supposed suicide attacks where hundreds of his men died for little military gain, according to The Telegraph.
Anashkin reportedly did this by sending hundreds of his men to the frontline ill-equipped for battle.
Another channel, Military Informant, claimed the commander also provided inaccurate reports of his wins and losses.
The channel said: “Very recently, false reports about supposedly deep successful breakthroughs began to come from Siversk.”
He is accused of claiming frontline villages – Belogorovka, Grigorovka, Serebryanka, Zolotarevka, Verkhnekamenskoye, and Vyemka – had been taken by Russia, when they were still in Ukrainian hands.
There are also claims he was close to Generals who had fallen foul of Putin and his high command.
Some Russian military bloggers have praised the apparent removal of Anashkin suggesting it could lead to improvements in the army.
Anashkin comes from a long Russian military background as he commanded the Russian ‘peacekeeping contingent’ in Nagorno-Karabakh from 2021 to 2022.
He was also handed a Hero of Russia award, which is the highest title in Russia, for leading airborne units during his country’s war with Georgia in 2008.
This comes following days of increased violence in the war between Russia and Ukraine.
Ukraine fired long-range missiles into Russian territory for the first time overnight on Monday.
Kyiv also fired British Storm Shadow missiles on Wednesday.
A Russian general and 500 North Korean troops were reportedly killed by one of these Storm Shadow missiles.
Lt-Gen Valery Solodchuk and 18 of Putin’s officers were believed to have been killed in the strike.
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