Putin fires general who lied about progress in Ukraine: reports

Russian President Vladimir Putin fired one of his senior generals for giving false and misleading reports on the Kremlin’s progress in Ukraine, according to Russian media and war bloggers.Colonel General Gennady Anashkin, the commander of the Southern Forces Group, was ousted from his position on Sunday over Russia’s failure in trying to swiftly take Ukraine’s Siversk area, in Donetsk.

Russian war bloggers, who have become a key source of information on the chaotic battlefield, claimed Anashkin lied about Siversk being ready to fall, leading poorly prepared Russian troops to walk into a slaughter for little tactical gain.When firing Anashkin, Russian Defence Minister Andrei Belousov was quoted as saying, “You can make mistakes, but you cannot lie.” The Russian Ministry of Defense has yet to comment on Anashkin’s ouster, with some Russian state media reporting that he was removed as part of a planned rotation in the military.

Anashkin’s exit comes months after pro-Russian war bloggers first began raising alarms over the situation in Siversk, a key city Moscow has been trying to take over as part of its westward expansion.“Only the lazy did not write about the problems there: overall, it took the system about two months to react properly,” Rybar, a respected pro-Russian blogger wrote on Telegram.

“Anashkin was removed from office for false reports in the Seversk direction,” he added, using the Russian name for the city.The bloggers also claimed that other commanders fighting in the region have lied about Siversk, claiming there was a pervasive culture of exaggerating battlefield successes within the Russian military, according to the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank.

This issue was likely the cause behind the Ministry of Defense’s false claim in May that its army had taken Bilhorivka, located just east of Siversk.Reports from over the weekend show that Russian soldiers are still fighting near Siversk and Bil...