Putin sacks deputy defence minister dubbed ‘The Butcher of Mariupol’ as Ukraine progress falters

The news was reported by Russian state-run newspaper journalist, Alexander Sladkov, who said: “This is my friend and I respect him a lot.

“The exact reasons are not yet clear, just as it is not clear whether this is removal from office, a suspension or a transfer to a new place of service.”

Putin has developed a habit of routinely purging the top rungs of his army command, firing his commander of the Eastern Group of Forces, Colonel General Rustam Muradov, earlier this month and sacking ‘General Armageddon’ Sergey Surovikin from his post as head of special operations in January.

In his position of head of the national defence management centre in Moscow at the time of the siege of Mariupol, Mizintsev was sanctioned by Britain and other Western countries for his involvement in the bombardment of the port city.

Harrowing images of a bombing on a maternity hospital that left a pregnant woman and her baby dead and 17 others injured were broadcast worldwide on March 9 last year.

A week later, the Donetsk Regional Theatre was levelled to the ground by Russian bombs, killing 300 people sheltering inside including women and children with some estimates rising to 600 people.

Born in 1962 in the village of Averinskaya in Russia's Volga region, Mizintsev studied in Soviet Ukraine at the Kyiv Higher All-Arms Command School.

Mizintsev would later serve in East Germany, be made a lieutenant general in 2014 and lead Russian military operations in Syria.

The news comes following reports that Russia fired over 20 cruise missiles and two drones at Ukraine on Friday, killing at least 12 people.

The attacks included the first registered strikes against Kyiv in nearly two months, though there were no reports of any targets hit while Ukraine’s air force claimed to have intercepted 11 cruise missiles and two drones over the capital.

Kyrylo Budanov, head of the Ukrainian Defence Ministry’s Main Intelligence Directorate, said that Moscow has “completely switched everywhere to positional defence” as Kyiv plots a 'landmark' counter-offensive.

The Russians have been accused of using nuclear reactors for defensive cover, with the UK Ministry of Defence putting out this statement yesterday: “Imagery shows that by March 2023, Russian forces had established fighting positions on the roofs of several of the six reactor buildings at Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP).

“Russia has likely constructed these positions because it is increasingly concerned about the prospects of a major Ukrainian offensive.

“The move highly likely increases the chances of damage to ZNPP safety systems if fighting takes place.

“However, direct catastrophic damage to the reactors is unlikely under most plausible scenarios involving infantry weapons because the structures are very heavily reinforced.”

Many analysts believe that Ukraine will attempt to push Russia back to the Black Sea in a move that would isolate Russian occupiers in Crimea, to which Putin has threatened the use of nuclear weapons.