Top Russian commander who bragged the war would be over ‘in a few hours’ is killed in Ukrainian strike
Lieutenant General Yakov Rezantsev, 48, commander of the army’s 49th combined arms division, has been killed in the ongoing hostilities in Ukraine.
He was reportedly taken out in a strike by the Ukrainian armed forces, sources in Kyiv said.
The news means, the Russian army has now lost a staggering 16 military commanders in a month, as Putin’s invading forces suffer heavy losses at the hands of Ukrainian defenders.
Rezantsev, who bragged on just the fourth day of the war that it would be over in a matter of hours, was apparently killed after the Ukrainian army destroyed the commanding post of the 49th Russian Army in southern Ukraine.
A soldier claimed Rezantsev told them on the fourth day of their deployment: ‘It’s no secret to anyone that there are only a few hours until this special operation is over.’
‘And now those hours are still going.’
A senior NATO military officer said the alliance estimates that Russia has suffered between 30,000 and 40,000 battlefield casualties in Ukraine through the first month of the war, including between 7,000 and 15,000 killed.
Rezantsev is the fifth Russian general that Ukraine claims to have killed since Russia invaded their country.
Major-General Oleg Mityaev, 47, commander of the army’s 150th motorised rifle division, died fighting in the besieged city of Mariupol while Major General Vitaly Gerasimov, 45, was killed on March 7 outside the eastern city of Kharkiv.
