Russia-Ukraine Flash Report for 5-1-22 14:00 PDT - General Gerasimov Wounded?
Added 2022-05-01 21:14:13 +0000 UTCA lot of chatter on social media and claims from the Ukrainian General Staff that Russian General Valery Gerasimov, the Chief of General Staff for the Russian military was wounded in the same attack that killed Major General Andrei Simonov on April 30.
ASSESSMENT: The details of the planning, targeting, how General Simonov was tracked, and video of the attack itself adds significant weight to reports that General Simonov was killed in action yesterday. Unlike the reports of Kherson where we used the words, "reported" and "claimed" because the attack itself lacked a lot of details, there are a lot of receipts.
ASSESSMENT: We have received what we believe to be very credible intelligence that General Valery Gerasimov is alive and well and has likely left Ukraine. We hadn't reported General Gerasimov being in Ukraine because we had significant doubt about the authenticity of the reports.
Open Source Intelligence and ground reports were able to track two Russian military transport planes arriving in Belgorod last night. Earlier today two Mi-8 transport helicopters left the Izyum area, close to Zabavne with Ka-52 attack helicopter escort. They flew to Belgorod.
There are reports we trust that Gerasimov was seen on the tarmac, boarding one of the transports and was moving under his own power. If he was wounded, it isn't significant.
If the claims by the Ukrainian General Staff was an attempt to flush Gerasimov into the public eye and provide confirmation that he has been supervising on the Izyum front - mission accomplished.
