The Russian Ministry of Defense carries out new changes among its high command. This Sunday he announced the dismissal of General Mikhail Mizintsev, who in the West has been nicknamed the “Butcher of Mariupol” for having been at the head of the Russian troops that besieged and finally took this city on the Azov Sea a year ago.
The military leaves the position of Deputy Defense Minister responsible for Logistics, and will be replaced by General Colonel Alexéi Kuzmenkov, who until now was number two in the National Guard.
The name of Mizintsev thus joins the list of senior commanders of the Russian Armed Forces who have spent a short time in their post and who have been dismissed or rotated for various positions of responsibility during the Russian military campaign in Ukraine.
Mizintsev took over the logistics of the Russian Army at the end of September last year.
Days later, the appointment of Sergei Surovikin as military chief of all the forces deployed in Ukraine was also very striking. Apparently he arrived to prepare the forced withdrawal from the northern third of the Kherson province and, above all, to punish Ukraine, since his arrival began with the start of the massive bombing of energy infrastructures and cities with missiles.
Surovikin had combat experience in conflicts in the 1990s, such as the Tajikistan civil war or the Chechen wars. And more recently in Syria. Human rights organizations, such as Human Rights Watch, attribute a reputation for “brutality” and “cruelty” to him.
He replaced another “butcher of Syria”, Alexander Dvornikov. But Surovikin was dismissed months later, and his post was taken over by the Chief of the Defense Staff, General Valery Gerasimov.
In that line of military hardness, Mizintsev is remembered for commanding the brutal siege of the port city of Mariupol. This fell in May 2022, which was key for Russia to unite its continental territory with the Crimean peninsula by land along the Azov Sea, annexed in 2014. For its actions, it is sanctioned by Western countries.
The Google Maps service has recently updated its images of Mariupol, obtained for the first time since the start of the fighting. The President of Ukraine, Volodimir Zelensky, uploaded them to his social networks this Saturday to compare how the city was in 2021 and how it looks now, in 2023. “Almost half a million people used to live there. And now there are practically no houses left intact,” Zelensky said. “The Russian terrorist state did everything possible to destroy this city. More than 90% of Mariupol has been destroyed,” he said in his message.
General Colonel Alexei Kuzmenkov will be “Deputy Defense Minister, responsible for Logistics,” says the Russian Defense Ministry statement.
Born in Donetsk in 1971, in his new position Kuzmenkov will oversee everything related to the supply and supply of Russian troops, a position that could be crucial if the fighting on the front intensifies and, as has been announced for some time, gives The Ukrainian counteroffensive begins, which will try to recover the territories now controlled by Russia in the provinces of Luhansk and Donetsk (east) and Kherson and Zaporizhia (south).