Russia sacks military leader

 Independent:

Chief of the Russian general staff, Valery Gerasimov, has been suspended amid the Kremlin’s faltering invasion, a senior Ukrainian official has claimed.

Oleksiy Arestovych, a military adviser to Ukraine's president, said “preliminary information” suggested Gen Gerasimov had been removed from his post while Vladimir Putin and his inner circle assessed whether he should be allowed to continue to lead the country’s armed forces.

There has been no official confirmation of the reported sacking, although speculation about a purge of senior military commanders increased after Gen Gerasimov was absent from Russia’s annual Victory Day parade on Monday.

Russian armed forces have suffered several major setbacks in their war, failing to take Kyiv early on and enduring heavy losses – both in lives and equipment.

In the wake of their failure to seize the capital, Russian forces pulled back and regrouped – and switched their focus to Ukraine's eastern Donbas, a region where Moscow-backed separatists have fought Ukrainian troops for eight years.

But Russia's advance there has been slow, too, and Western officials say Russia has not managed to take any cities.
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It is easier for Putin to blame his generals than for home to take responsibility for the failures.  Putin has been the one in charge for decades. 

See, also:

Putin's latest battlefield humiliation: Ukraine thwarts Russian battalion's river-crossing and destroys at least 58 vehicles inflicting heavy casualties as Donbas offensive stalls and Kyiv's troops counter-attack