Putin incorporates the ‘butcher of Mariupol’ into the vital winter campaign in Ukraine

Vladimir Putin decided yesterday to dismiss the Deputy Minister of Defense, General Dmitri Bulgákov, in charge of the logistics of the Armed Forces. The order does not clarify the reason for the dismissal, but, according to the opinion of experts on social networks, it would have to do with the serious problems in guaranteeing supplies of ammunition and supplies to the forces fighting in Ukraine, which made it possible the success of the recent Ukrainian counter-offensive in the Kharkov region.

Bulgakov will be replaced by General Mikhail Mizintsev, branded by kyiv as ‘the butcher of Mariupol’, since he led the offensive to take this port city on the Sea of ​​Azov, in which few buildings remain standing and, according to the Ukrainian government, tens of thousands of civilians perished.

close to the president

Until now, Mizintsev held the position of head of the National Defense Command Center. Considered one of the members of the General Staff closest to the president, he has already commanded operations of the Russian Army in Syria. After the purge of Bulgakov, Putin seems headed to put trusted men in charge of the different operations that are planned for the imminent winter campaign of his “special operation”.

Mizintsev is 59 years old, with graying hair and blue eyes. He graduated from the Suvorov cadet school in the city of Kalinin in 1980 and from the kyiv Military Academy in 1984. The three-star general served as head of a tank company in the then German Democratic Republic and later as head of a motorized battalion in the South Caucasus until 1993.

He was currently in charge of announcing the evacuations by Russia every day, of attacking the West and denouncing alleged war crimes and provocations by Ukraine. In addition, he is in charge of an entity that regulates control and coordination of the Armed Forces.