March 9, 2022: -On Monday, Ukraine’s defense intelligence agency said that its country’s forces had killed Russian Army Major General Vitaly Gerasimov and that different senior Russian Army officers “were also killed or wounded” in action near Kharkiv.

The intelligence agency identified Gerasimov as the chief of staff and first deputy commander of the 41st Combined Arms Army.

According to the agency’s post announcing his demise, he previously participated in the second Chechen war and Russian military actions in Syria.

The agency, which said Gerasimov had been “liquidated,” claimed that data obtained related to his death “show huge problems with communication” in Russia’s army, “and with the evacuation of their defeated units.”

The post is containing embedded audio files purporting to be intercepted communications amid Russians discussing Gerasimov’s death near Kharkiv, the second-largest city in Ukraine.

The online investigative news outlet Bellingcat reported that the phone number of the person receiving that call belongs to a senior officer in the FSB, Russia’s national security agency, linking to the phone by open-source data.

The reported killing comes days after one more deputy commander of the 41st Combined, Gen. Andrei Sukhovetsky, was fatally shot by a Ukrainian sniper. Sukhovetsky was commanding general of Russia’s 7th Airborne Division.

Russian President Vladimir Putin in the previous week confirmed Sukhovetsky’s death.