Denis Lyamin replaced Ivan Popov in the leadership of the 58th Army of the Southern Military District
Photo by Reuters
Major General Denis Lyamin has been appointed the new commander of the 58th Army of the Southern Military District. This became known from the sensational speech of his predecessor in this position, Major General Ivan Popov. In a closed chat on July 12, he addressed his colleagues with a farewell speech, starting with the news that a couple of days ago Lyamin joined the command of the military association.
Despite all the emotionality of a pre-recorded voice message, it would hardly have been noticed by those for whose ears it was not originally intended. However, the audio file was posted by other people on other information resources. Thanks to their "help", the message began to walk on the Internet, becoming "viral". Fragments of his transcript were published on newspaper pages.
Deputy of the State Duma Andrey Gurulev, himself a former commander of the 58th Army, acted as a distributor of Popov's appeal to his colleagues. Gurulev posted it on his Telegram channel. Soon the secretary of the General Council of United Russia, First Vice-Speaker of the Federation Council Andrey Turchak joined the topic. Through his own Telegram channel, Turchak explained: "General Popov's appeal was non-public and posted in private chats of commanders and fighters of the 58th Army. The fact that "deputy" Gurulev somehow got it and made a political show out of it, let it remain on his conscience" (quote according to ITAR-TASS). Turchak, who heads the working group on SVO issues, also noted that Popov is one of the commanders "of whom the country can be proud."
A high opinion of the now former commander was expressed by several other authoritative personalities. Among them is the head of the Zaporozhye public movement "We are together with Russia" Vladimir Rogov.
In the appeal, Popov mentions the order of the Minister of Defense about his "removal" after disagreements with his superiors. They concerned combat work, logistics, the effectiveness of counter-battery warfare, the lack of artillery reconnaissance stations, etc. Since the duration of the appeal is a matter of minutes, it does not contain any details that would give out military secrets or reveal any secrets. And in the production plan, this is said by many and openly and even discussed "on camera" during the conversation of the Supreme Commander with military officers in the Kremlin on June 13 (" Conversation about the special operation ", HBO from 06/22.23).
Unfortunately, this is not all the news about the 58th Army. The day before the repost of the former commander's appeal, the same Andrei Gurulev (and earlier the adviser to the mayor of Mariupol, Pyotr Andryushchenko) confirmed the death of the deputy commander of the Southern Military District Oleg Tsokov (note that the official information of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation was not received either about the appointment of the general to this post or about his death). As far as we know, the Lieutenant General was killed as a result of a strike by British Storm Shadow cruise missiles on the command post of the 58th Army in the Berdyansk area. "Moreover, this is a man who has been in such scrapes that few people have dreamed of. He was extremely seriously wounded last year, he was barely pulled out, and, in fact, he could not go to the front today for health reasons, he could have been written off. He said: no, guys, I'll be there – and again went to fight the Nazis. Unfortunately, he died heroically. This person deserves enormous respect, has a crazy authority in the armed forces, and this is true," Andrei Gurulev said on the air of the program "60 minutes".
As you know, the 58th Army is part of the Southern Military District, its headquarters is located in Vladikavkaz. The military units included in the operational association take part in their own. Its fighters thwarted the plans of the command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) to reach the Sea of Azov during the main strike as part of the counteroffensive that has been underway since June 4.
South of the city of Orekhov in the Zaporozhye region, the enemy for the first time used German Leopard-2 tanks, American M2 Bradley infantry fighting vehicles, French AMX-10R wheeled armored vehicles with a 105 mm gun and a number of other military equipment supplied by NATO countries in large numbers.
The first photos and video frames of burning "leopards" came from the Zaporozhye fields. Acting head of the Zaporozhye region Yevgeny Balitsky recently said that the situation on the line of contact remains "stably tense." According to him, the enemy concentrates its main efforts on the Lugovoye – Malye Shcherbaki and near the village of Pyatikhatki. "During the artillery fire, the enemy suffered a fire defeat by the forces of our 58th army and the Sudoplatov battalion," Balitsky explained. – The enemy's losses are significant, he fails to achieve his goals."
During June, the most intense and bloody battle of its own took place in the Zaporozhye and neighboring South Donetsk direction. Here the enemy lost most of the 1,244 destroyed tanks and armored vehicles, which the Russian Defense Minister, Army General Sergei Shoigu, said on July 11. He estimated that during the summer counteroffensive, the losses of the AFU amounted to more than 26 thousand servicemen and 3 thousand units of various military equipment, including 1,244 armored combat vehicles. "Among them are 17 German Leopard tanks, five French wheeled AMX tanks and 12 American Bradley infantry fighting vehicles," the minister said. "In general, the enemy has not achieved its goals in any of the directions," Shoigu summed up.
According to the calculations of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, in May the losses of the Armed Forces amounted to more than 16 thousand soldiers (against 15 thousand in April) and 400 armored vehicles. In short, statistics indicate a significant increase in the intensity of the armed struggle. Russian President Vladimir Putin shared an interesting figure with the viewers of the Rossiya 24 TV channel. In an interview with the host of the July 13 issue, he said that since the beginning of the Ukrainian offensive on June 4, 311 enemy tanks have been destroyed.
Although the enemy does not give up trying to move forward, the command in Kiev has come to realize the impossibility of breaking through the defense line in the Zaporozhye region, where long-term firing positions are equipped, numerous minefields are exposed. Therefore, the APU began to try their luck closer to Donetsk, Soledar and Artemovsk. This is reflected in the daily statistics of enemy losses provided by the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation. So, in the summary of the military department for July 14 and 15, the total number of dead servicemen of the Armed Forces of Ukraine is given 670 and 645, respectively, and the figures for three "southern" directions (Kherson, Zaporozhye and South Donetsk) were 240 and 280, and for one Donetsk - 315 and 280.