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The disappearance of top Russian generals dating back to September has sparked questions about their whereabouts amid the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war. Russian and Ukrainian forces have presented different public findings since the purported death of Russian Admiral Viktor Sokolov, who Kyiv said was one of 34 Russian officers killed in late September by a missile strike executed against the headquarters of the Russian Navy's Black Sea fleet in annexed Crimea. Sokolov was viewed by Ukrainian forces as a high-value target. The lack of visibility by Russia's top general, Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov, has additionally caused wonderment regarding...

Ukraine claims its forces “seriously wounded” a high-profile Russian figure as part of a special forces mission into border city Belgorod. Vladimir Putin’s forces sustained heavy losses in the Russian city as Ukraine bombarded the city, Ukraine's military chief has claimed. Hundreds of Russians have been evacuated from Belgorod after a reported barrage of shelling from the Ukrainian army in recent days. Kyiv spymaster Kyrylo Budanov said: “Not disclosing details, I can say that one of the very seriously wounded [in Russia’s Belgorod region] was quite a significant personality. “They immediately requested a helicopter to evacuate him directly to Moscow,"...

Russia has yet to comment on a swirl of unconfirmed rumours that Vladimir Putin's top war commander General Valery Gerasimov was killed in a strike on a military command post in Crimea on Thursday. An explosion and a trail of smoke were visible in a clip of a suspected Storm Shadow strike at the military site in Yukharin Balka. Another target in the village of Uyutnoye, near Yevpatoria was also reportedly hit. A flow of ambulances was reported by Ukrainian sources at both locations, and Putin-appointed Sevastopol governor Mikhail Razvozhayev said: 'It was the most massive [attack] in recent times.'...

President Vladimir Putin has ordered Wagner fighters to sign an oath of allegiance to the Russian state after a deadly plane crash believed to have killed Yevgeny Prigozhin, the volatile chief of the mercenary group. Putin signed the decree bringing in the change with immediate effect on Friday after the Kremlin said that Western suggestions that Prigozhin had been killed on its orders were an "absolute lie".

Russia sacked two generals in the past week, as Moscow’s Ministry of Defense reportedly continues to purge its top officers, pointing to a growing disarray in the military leadership following the aborted rebellion by the Wagner mercenary group. Russian Minister of Defense Sergei Shoigu canned Maj. Gen. Vladimir Seliverstov, commander of the Tula Airborne Division, this week, according to Belarusian news outlet Charter97. The governor of the Tula region, which borders Moscow, Alexei Dyumin, tried to stand up for Seliverstov, who was involved in the battles in Bakhmut, but to no avail, according to the Russian publication VChK-OGPU. Seliverstov’s reported...

Russian dictator Vladimir Putin has sacked a top general in charge of the war against Ukraine as he continues his purge of the top brass following Wagner's attempted coup last month. General Valery Gerasimov, 67, has been ousted as conflict commander less than six months after he was appointed. He has been replaced by Colonel-General Mikhail Teplinskiy, according to Russian media. -snip- During his ill-conceived war, the Russian despot has fired several leaders including Colonel-General Mikhail Mizintsev, also known as 'The Butcher of Mariupol', as well as General Rustam Muradov who was behind the massacre in Vuhledar earlier this year....

Russia's most senior generals have dropped out of public view after a failed mercenary mutiny aimed at toppling the top military brass, amid a drive by President Vladimir Putin to reassert his authority. Unconfirmed reports say that at least one person has been detained and is being questioned. Armed forces chief of staff General Valery Gerasimov has not appeared in public or on state TV since the aborted mutiny on Saturday when mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin demanded Gerasimov be handed over. Nor has he been mentioned in a defence ministry press release since June 9. Gerasimov, 67, is the commander...

A top Russian general has 'vanished' amid claims he had advance knowledge of the weekend armed revolt which threatened Vladimir Putin's regime. One theory is that General Sergei 'Armageddon' Surovikin is under interrogation over a plot to oust defence minister Sergei Shoigu amid a hunt to purge the enemies within. Surovikin, 56, is the second-in-command of the Russian armed forces. He has known links to 'coup leader' Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Wagner mercenary army chief. US officials briefed on American intelligence said a top Russian general had advance knowledge of Prigozhin's plans to rebel against Shoigu and chief of the armed...

Vladimir Putin vowed to hunt down the leaders of an armed mutiny which threatened to topple his regime as the Russian dictator broke cover for the first time since the chaos engulfing his country. In a short pre-recorded TV address to the nation, the warmonger denounced the Yevgeny Prigozhin's attempted Wagner mutineers as 'criminals' and warned he would bring them to 'justice'. -snip- Putin made no mention of Prigozhin, who is believed to have fled to Belarus after agreeing to stand down his march on Moscow after negotiating a deal with Moscow brokered by Belarusian strongman Alexander Lukashenko.

Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin has broken his silence after abandoning his armed uprising on Saturday evening, insisting that he marched on Moscow to stop the Kremlin taking control of his mercenary army and denying a plot to overthrow Vladimir Putin. Speaking in an 11-minute audio clip posted on Wagner-affiliated Telegram channels, Prigozhin claimed the armed uprising was a 'master class' on how Russia's assault on Kyiv should have looked. He said he only called off his group's surge for the Russian capital to avoid spilling Russian blood, adding that the uprising was intended to register a protest at the ineffectual...

Russia's most powerful mercenary said on Sunday that his Wagner fighters would not sign any contract with Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu, publicly refusing an attempt by the defence ministry to bring his fighting force under its sway. -snip- The defence ministry on Saturday said Shoigu had ordered all "volunteer detachments" to sign contracts with his ministry by the end of the month, a step it said would increase the effectiveness of the Russian army. Though the ministry did not mention Wagner in its public statement, the Russian media reported that it was an attempt by Shoigu to bring the mercenaries...

Russia appears to have moved to take direct control of Wagner, after months of infighting between defence officials and the private military group. Deputy Defence Minister Nikolai Pankov said on Saturday "volunteer formations" will be asked to sign contracts directly with the ministry of defence. The vaguely worded statement is widely believed to target the group. But in a furious statement on Sunday, Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin said his forces would boycott the contracts. The private military group has played a major role in the war in Ukraine, fighting on the side of Russian forces. But Prigozhin, who is said...

Mercenary chief of the Wagner Group, Yevgeniy Prigozhin, has threatened to keep his men from returning to Ukraine if Moscow continues under the leadership of "clowns," widening the rift that has been growing between his group and military command. "If the whole chain (of command) is 100% failed and will only be led by clowns who turn people into meat, then we will not participate in it," Prigozhin said during an interview to celebrate his 62nd birthday. "It has been a tough year," he added, confirming that his men will leave the city of Bakhmut on June 5 after handing...

The head of Russia's Wagner mercenary group said on Sunday that his forces had captured all the territory in the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut as promised and would leave the conflict zone later this week. "Wagner has made no advances. Wagner today captured no territory. We have captured all the territory we promised to capture, right up to the last centimetre," Yevgeny Prigozhin said in an audio message posted on Telegram messaging app. "As we stated yesterday. We are handing over our positions to (Russia's) Defence Ministry and on the 25th (of May) we are leaving the conflict zone."

The leader of Russian paramilitary group Wagner threatened to withdraw his troops from the front line in Ukraine, citing growing losses, in a move that raises fresh tensions between Moscow’s military leaders ahead of an expected offensive by Kyiv’s forces. Wagner founder Yevgeny Prigozhin said his forces would leave their positions in the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut on May 10 after delivering an expletive-riddled broadside against Moscow’s military leadership, which he accused of withholding ammunition.

Yevgeny Prigozhin, leader of Russia's Wagner Group mercenary force, said in a sudden and dramatic announcement on Friday that his forces would pull out of the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut that they have been trying in vain to capture since last summer. Prigozhin said they would withdraw on May 10 - ending their involvement in the longest and bloodiest battle of the war - because of heavy losses and inadequate ammunition supplies. He asked defence chiefs to insert regular army troops in their place. "I declare on behalf of the Wagner fighters, on behalf of the Wagner command, that on...

Standing in a field of corpses, Russian mercenary boss Yevgeny Prigozhin on Friday published an expletive-ridden video personally blaming top defence chiefs for losses suffered by his Wagner Group fighters in Ukraine. Prigozhin's tirade reignited and escalated a long-running feud with Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of General Staff Valery Gerasimov, whom he has repeatedly accused of starving his forces of ammunition. Prigozhin appeared next to dozens of bloodied corpses that he said were those of Wagner fighters. His expletives were bleeped out in the video published by his press service. "We have a 70% shortage of ammunition. Shoigu!...

The head of the Wagner private militia on Monday renewed his appeal to Russia's defence ministry to increase ammunition shipments to his fighters trying to seize the city of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine. Yevgeny Prigozhin has frequently clashed with Moscow's defence establishment over the conduct of Russia's campaign in Ukraine and what he says is insufficient support being provided to his Wagner soldiers. In a video posted on his Telegram channel, Prigozhin said he needs at least 300 tonnes of artillery shells a day for the assault. "Three hundred tonnes a day is 10 cargo containers - not a lot...

Classified documents from a Pentagon intelligence report have appeared on messaging app Discord since February with top Russian officials reportedly wanting to sabotage Vladimir Putin. The Kremlin plans to "throw" Vladimir Putin's Ukraine war while he's allegedly receiving chemotherapy, leaked Pentagon documents claim. -snip- According to the leaked documents, which have since been removed from the platforms, Russian National Security Council Secretary Nikolay Patrushev and Russian Chief of the General Staff Valeriy Gerasimov want to "throw" the president's war while he's getting treatment for cancer. The memo says: "[The source] on 22 February indicated that Gerasimov reportedly planned to continue...

A Russian commander who presided over attacks in Ukraine that led thousands of men to slaughter has been dismissed from his post, Western officials have claimed. General Rustam Muradov had led Russia's Eastern Group of Forces (EGF) for almost a year, having taken up the role after his predecessor's attempt to assault Kyiv in the first weeks of the war. Muradov, a close ally of Russia's military chief Valery Gerasimov, earlier this year launched an attack on the mining town of Vuhledar in the eastern Donetsk region. His tactic, a frontal assault in broad daylight, ended in utter disaster. Survivors...