Two top Russian military officials have been killed in Ukraine in addition to the general already taken out by snipers, Western intelligence officials claimed Friday.
A divisional commander and regimental commander died as a convoy of Russian tanks and other vehicles continued to struggle while heading for the capital city of Kyiv, multiple reports said, citing the Western sources.
The announcement came a day after the revelation that a Ukrainian forces sniper killed Maj. Gen. Andrei Sukhovetsky, deputy commander of the Combined Arms Army of the Central Military District and an appointee of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“My assessment would be that those commanders have been killed because they’ve had to go further and closer to the front,” an unnamed Western official told Sky News.
“That’s an indication of some degree of frustration and some degree of lack of progress, and they’re trying to impose their sort of personality on the battlefield and putting themselves at personal risk.”
Russia has been underreporting its casualties in Ukraine, the Evening Standard said. Armored vehicles and a military transport plane, for example, have been shot down during the conflict, officials told the newspaper.
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Russia’s slower-than-expected progress in the invasion may mean the invading force is ramping up the ferocity of its attacks. The Standard said Western officials worry residential areas may see increased shelling and strikes.
The Russian convoy, 18 miles from Kyiv, has been attacked by Ukrainian resistance, the Standard said. Ukrainian forces have also blown up bridges to slow the 40-mile convoy down.
“You’ve got now in effect an enormously large traffic jam with some vehicles that have been damaged or destroyed,” an official told The UK Sun.
