The news out of Ukraine keeps getting more interesting, Generally speaking. There are reports that General Valery Gerasimov has been injured outside of Izyum. General Gerasimov is not just another field General. Rather, he is the Russian Army Chief of Staff who Putin sent to The Donbas to personally oversee Russia’s flailing war effort earlier this week.
Here is another report on the incident…
www.dailymail.co.uk/…
Vladimir Putin's top military commander has been flown out of the war zone with shrapnel wounds after being to sent to Ukraine by the Russian president to secure victory, a former Russian internal affairs minister has claimed.
Valery Gerasimov, the chief of staff of the Russian army, was today wounded in Izyum in Ukraine's Kharviv region, which has been at the centre of intense fighting since Russia's invasion….
An unofficial Russian source reported that Gerasimov sustained 'a shrapnel wound in the upper third of the right leg without a bone fracture.
'The shard was removed - there is no danger to life,' he said.
But Gerasimov's injury was severe enough to have him flown away from the frontlines and back to Russia to undergo further treatment, marking another embarrassing defeat for Putin's forces.
Here’s another source: www.kyivpost.com/…
Official Ukrainian sources on May 1 said devastating artillery strikes on a Russian military headquarters may have injured the senior general in the Russian Army, Valery Gerasimov, along with killing or wounding dozens of other military personnel, many of them senior members of the officer’s corps.
A statement from Ukraine’s Army General Staff (AGS) said a pair of surprise bombardments hit Russian military command centers in the Izyum are of Kharkiv region during overnight April 30-May 1….
Social media sites in Russia appeared to confirm Gerasimov had indeed been wounded, most accounts stemming from a public post by Russian political scientist Valery Solovey, who said: “Gerasimov received a shrapnel wound in the upper third of the right shin without a bone fracture. The fragment was removed, there is no danger to [his] life.”
General Gerasimov is not just another field General. Rather, he is Russia’s leading war theorist, best known as the namesake of the Gerasimov Doctrine of hybrid warfare, pursuant to which Russia now includes political, economic, informational, humanitarian and other non-military activities in a total war strategy. The doctrine became known after its publication in February 2013 and Russia’s subsequent hostile actions against Ukraine in 2014 which were carried out in a manner consistent with the doctrine.
At this point, neither the claim that he has been injured in combat nor the extent of his injuries have been verified, so the story may just be the Ukrainians screwing with the Russians. However, it’s a story of such importance to Russia’s war effort that both sides have an interest in either confirming or denying it. Thus, I expect that more information will likely become available shortly.