- Ukraine said it had killed Maj. Gen. Vitaly Gerasimov in Kharkiv on Monday.
- The defense ministry released intercepted audio of what it said were two FSB officers discussing the death.
- Ukraine has been trying to negotiate a cease-fire with Russia.
Ukrainian military intelligence said it had killed a top Russian general on Monday, in what would be the second high-ranking loss since the invasion began.
Maj. Gen. Vitaly Gerasimov, the first deputy commander of Russia’s 41st army, was killed in Kharkiv, the intelligence unit of the Ukrainian defense ministry said in a statement.
Christo Grozev, the executive director of the open-source investigative outlet Bellingcat, tweeted Monday that a Russian source had confirmed Gerasimov’s death. There were no specifics on the death, and neither Russian officials nor state-run media have confirmed the death.
Alongside the statement, the Ukrainian defense ministry released audio of an intercepted phone call between what it said were two Russian Federal Security Service, or FSB, officers discussing the death and criticizing Russia’s secure military-communication platform.
Ukrainian intelligence was able to intercept the call because the FSB officer used a phone with a generic SIM card because their secure telecommunications system wasn’t working, Grozev said.
“Can you get on a secure channel?” one of the officers is heard asking, to which the other replied: “The secure doesn’t work here, we can’t get anyone.”
Grozev said Bellingcat had identified the more senior of the two FSB officers as Dmitry Shevchenko. Shevchenko swore after learning of Gerasimov’s death on the call, according to Grozev.
Gerasimov, who was awarded medals for service in Syria, Crimea, and Chechnya, had met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin on February 27 to discuss the Ukraine offensive, the state-run TASS news agency reported at the time.
The report of Gerasimov’s death follows that of Andrei Sukhovetsky, another deputy commander of Russia’s 41st army, who was killed late last month, according to reports in the Russian media.
The deaths come as Russia appears to be struggling to achieve its objectives in Ukraine amid Ukrainian resistance.
Russian forces have been subjecting Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, to heavy shelling and continuing their assault on the capital, Kyiv.
Ukraine has been trying to secure a cease-fire from Russia so it can set up secure evacuation routes for civilians to flee the country.
Russia has offered some evacuation corridors, but Ukraine has accused it of shelling civilians trying to escape.
In a Monday video address, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russian troops attacking his country were “tired” and “demoralized.”
“We never wanted this war, but it was brought to us,” Zelensky said. “We never dreamed of killing, but we have to knock out the enemy — from our land and from our lives.”
