Vladimir Putin fires top Russian general behind Vuhledar massacre

A Russian commander who spearheaded attacks in Ukraine that massacred thousands of men has been sacked, Western officials have claimed.

General Rustam Muradov had commanded Russia’s Eastern Group of Forces (EGF) for nearly a year, assuming the role after his predecessor’s attempt to attack Kiev in the early weeks of the war.

Muradov, a close ally of Russian military chief Valery Gerasimov, launched an attack on the mining town of Vuhledar in the eastern Donetsk region earlier this year.

His tactic, a frontal assault in broad daylight, ended in unmitigated disaster.

Survivors claim that a marine brigade of 5,000 men was nearly wiped out and at least 130 armored vehicles, including 36 tanks, were destroyed.

Shocking aerial footage captured by Ukrainian drones showed corpses and twisted wreckage of vehicles lying in the fields around the city.

Muradov was also involved in planning a similar doomed attack on the village of Pavlivka, reportedly shooting hundreds of Putin’s troops.

Britain’s Ministry of Defense (MoD) said his departure was the highest military discharge of 2023 to date, but warned there are likely to be more as Moscow fails to meet its objectives in eastern Ukraine.

Shocking aerial footage captured by Ukrainian drones in the aftermath of the attack showed twisted wreckage of armored vehicles littering the fields on the outskirts of Vuhledar

Video evidence shows how Russia suffered catastrophic military losses after its armored vehicles were ambushed in Vuhledar

Former Russian intelligence commander Igor “Strelkov” Girkin posted: “The losses turned out to be one-sided, the Ukrainians shot the attackers “like in a shooting gallery.” Our fighters could not inflict any counter losses on them…’

“The Russian Ministry of Defense has most likely fired Colonel General Rustam Muradov as commander of the Eastern Group of Forces (EGF) in Ukraine,” an intelligence service update reads.

“The EGF under Muradov has suffered exceptionally heavy casualties in recent months as ill-conceived attacks repeatedly failed to take the city of Vuhledar in Donetsk Oblast.”

Muradov’s resignation will be applauded by hordes of Russian military commentators, bloggers and media personalities, who in the days following the Vuhledar massacre in February called for public show trials to punish the commanders and generals behind the losses.

“Some of them are complete idiots – all the mistakes made before were repeated,” said Igor “Strelkov” Girkin, a Russian former intelligence officer who helped organize the 2014 pro-Moscow uprisings in Donetsk and Crimea.

Girkin complained that Russian soldiers – including many of their best marines, special forces soldiers and tank crews – were mowed down “like turkeys on a firing range” while Ukrainians moved into higher positions “without much effort.”

One particular Russian unit – the Pacific Fleet’s 155th Marine Brigade – lost hundreds of men in Muradov’s ill-conceived attack on Pavlivka in late 2022.

Mutinous survivors then wrote a letter to the regional governor blaming Muradov for their alarming casualties and asking to replace him, but their pleas fell on deaf ears.

Just months later, the 155th Brigade was sent to Vuhledar by Muradov and almost completely destroyed.

“The 155th Brigade has already had to be remanned three times,” said Colonel Oleksiy Dmytrashkivskyi, a Ukrainian military spokesman.

Putin has been quick to fire several senior military officials who failed to achieve his wild goals in Ukraine

This is when a Russian armored vehicle explodes in the fields near Vuhledar

You can see a group of Russian soldiers climb on top of a tank and jump down before running away from the burning wreckage that was destroyed in Pavlivka.

The mining town of Vuhledar, home to 14,000 people before the war and located on high ground, was reinforced with artillery after enduring three months of attacks.

Tom Cooper, a military historian who has studied the battle, describes Vuhledar as “a great, high fortress in the middle of an empty, flat desert.”

Evgeny Nazarenko, spokesman for one of the defending Ukrainian units, said the Russian advance could be easily seen from tall buildings as they crossed open fields into the town built to serve a nearby coal mine.

“We are at the top and they are at the bottom. They are perfectly visible,” he said.

The advancing Russians were crushed by artillery fire, drone bombs and land mines, after Muradov reportedly ordered tanks to advance in single file due to a lack of demining equipment.

A Russian military source told The Moscow Times: “Muradov was suspended because he was a mad idiot who was able… to order soldiers to certain death. Many people complained about him.’

The removal of top Russian commanders from their posts is not new.

The current head of the Russian army, Valery Gerasimov, replaced “General Armageddon” Sergei Surovikin in January – just three months after Surovikin himself rose to the position.