Washington
\nThe war in Ukraine is proving extraordinarily lethal for Russian generals, the gray men bedecked in service medals, who are being aggressively targeted by Ukrainian forces and killed at a rate not seen since World War II.
\nUkrainian officials say their forces have killed seven generals on the battlefield, felled by snipers, close combat and bombings.
\nIf true, the deaths of so many generals, alongside more senior Russian army and naval commanders \u2014 in just four weeks of combat \u2014 exceeds the attrition rate seen in the worst months of fighting in the bloody nine-year war fought by Russia in Chechnya, as well as Russian and Soviet-era campaigns in Afghanistan, Georgia and Syria.
\n\u201cIt is highly unusual,\u201d said a senior Western official, briefing reporters on the topic, who confirmed the names, ranks and \u201ckilled in action\u201d status of the seven.
\nIn all, at least 15 senior Russian commanders have been killed in the field, said Markiyan Lubkivsky, a spokesperson for the Ukraine Ministry of Defense.
\nNATO officials estimated earlier this week that as many as 15,000 Russian troops have been killed in four weeks of war, a very high number. Russia has offered a far lower figure, reporting Friday that only 1,351 of its fighters had died. The Russian government has not confirmed the deaths of its generals.
\nIf the numbers of senior commanders killed proves accurate, the Russian generals have been either extremely unlucky or successfully targeted \u2014 or both.<\/p>\n
Shooting generals is a legitimate tactic of war \u2014 and it has been openly embraced by Ukrainian officials, who say their forces have been focused on slowing Russian advances by concentrating fire on Russian command-and-control units near the front lines.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Washington The war in Ukraine is proving extraordinarily lethal for Russian generals, the gray men bedecked in service medals, who are being aggressively targeted by Ukrainian forces and killed at a rate not seen since World War II. Ukrainian officials say their forces have killed seven generals on the battlefield, felled by snipers, close combat […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-251712","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n