Disaster: This general killed more Russians than Ukrainians did.

For years, Russia’s war effort has been shaped as much by internal command culture as by Ukrainian resistance on the battlefield. A system built on false reporting, personal loyalty, and the concealment of losses has repeatedly rewarded failure instead of correcting it. This environment allowed certain commanders to survive disaster after disaster, advancing not through results, but through narratives crafted upward. Over time, the gap between reported success and battlefield reality grew so wide that it began to threaten the credibility of the military leadership itself. When losses reached a scale that could no longer be hidden, internal protection mechanisms started to crack. The events that followed reveal how Russia’s command system ultimately turns on its own architects once denial becomes impossible.

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