Commander of the 58th Army of the Russian Federation (fighting on the Zaporozhye front) has been dismissed

The commander of the 58th combined arms army of the Russian Federation, Major General Ivan Popov, said that he had been removed from his post. He said this in an address to the military personnel, which was distributed by State Duma deputy Andrei Gurulev, who also commanded the 58th army in the past.

“I’m telling you honestly, a difficult situation arose with the senior management, in which it was necessary to either remain silent and lose heart and say what they wanted to hear, or call a spade a spade,” Popov said in his address.

According to him, he "harshly" outlined all the problematic issues in the Russian army "in combat work, in support." "He focused on the main tragedy of modern warfare - the lack of counter-battery combat, the lack of artillery reconnaissance stations and the mass deaths and injuries of our brothers from enemy artillery," Popov said.

"In this regard, senior commanders, apparently, sensed some kind of danger in me and quickly, in one daylight, concocted an order, the Minister of Defense signed the order and got rid of me. As many regiment and division commanders said today, our army could not be penetrated from the front by servicemen of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, we were struck from the rear by our senior commander, treacherously and meanly decapitating the army at the most difficult and tense moment," Popov added.

Earlier, the Grey Zone Telegram channel, associated with the Wagner PMC, reported on Popov's suspension. According to it, Popov was suspended after he gave a report to the Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces Valery Gerasimov and, in particular, proposed rotating Russian units located on the front line. In response to the report, claims Grey Zone, Gerasimov said that Ivan Popov "is engaged in disinformation and panic."

• The annexed city of Berdyansk in Ukraine's Zaporizhia region was shelled several times on July 11. Russian sources reported that Lieutenant General Oleg Tsokov, commander of the 144th Motorized Rifle Division, was killed in the shelling of Berdyansk with long-range Storm Shadow missiles. State Duma deputy Andrei Gurulevconfirmed Tsokov's death.