Russia has suffered its worst massacre of army commanders since the Second World War

As Russia's invasion of Ukraine enters its second month, Vladimir Putin's Russian Army has lost another commander, making him the 15th of Putin's senior military leaders to be murdered.

Colonel Alexei Sharov is the latest high-ranking Russian official to perish in the country's largest loss of military leaders since World War II. Ukrainian military forces reported his death on social media on Tuesday.

Sharov, the commander of the Russian Marines' 810th Guards Separate Order of Zhukov Brigade, was purportedly murdered in Mariupol, a city where over 100,000 people have been trapped by the invading Russians.

As of midnight on March 19, at least 902 civilians had been killed and 1,459 injured in Ukraine, according to the UN human rights office.

According to the United Nations Refugee Agency, ten million people have been displaced, with nearly 3.4 million leaving the country.

Since the invasion began, Russian media announced that they had lost around 10,000 troops, however, the tabloid magazine Komsomolskaya Pravda has since claimed that this was a hoax and that this was not the fact.

Since reporting on March 2 that 498 soldiers had been killed and 1,597 injured, Russia has not officially updated its casualty estimates. Since then, Ukraine's army and volunteer defense groups have resisted the offensive even more vehemently.

Colonel Nikolay Ovcharenko, Commander of the 45th Engineering Regiment, died the day before Sharov.

According to The Sun, Sharov is the fifth colonel to die in the invasion, bringing the total number of Russian military leaders killed to 15. According to Foreign Policy, Moscow has had its highest rate of top-level casualties since World War 2.

Russian top military officials killed during the invasion 

• Lieutenant General Andrei Mordvichev
• Major General Vitaly Gerasimov
• Major General Andrei Kolesnikov
• Major General Andrei Sukhovetsky
• Major-General Oleg Mityaev 
• Colonel Nikolay Ovcharenko
• Colonel Sergei Porokhyna
• Colonel Sergei Sukharev
• Colonel Andrei Zakharov
• Colonel Konstantin Zizevsky
• Lieutenant Colonel Yuri Agarkov
• Lieutenant Colonel Denis Glebov
• Lieutenant Colonel Dmitry Safronov
• Major Viktor Maksimchuk
• General Magomed Tushaev
• Captain Andrey Paliy
• Captain Alexey Glushchak
• Colonel Alexei Sharov

The announcement comes as Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky claimed that 100,000 people remain trapped in Mariupol, which is besieged and under daily attack, in "inhumane conditions."

The Ukrainian president noted in his customary evening address that one group escaping along an agreed-upon humanitarian path was "just kidnapped by the occupiers."

'There are roughly 100,000 people in the city - horrible conditions, complete blockage, no food, water, medicine, nonstop shelling,' he added.

Zelensky reportedly accused Russian forces of not only stopping a humanitarian convoy attempting to deliver desperately needed aid to Mariupol but also capturing 15 of the aid mission's bus drivers and rescue personnel, as well as their vehicles, according to another Ukrainian official.

The Russians had agreed to the path ahead of time, according to the Ukrainian president.

In a nightly video message to the nation, he added, "We are trying to organize stable humanitarian corridors for Mariupol civilians, but practically all of our endeavors, sadly, are sabotaged by the Russian occupiers, by shelling or deliberate terror."

Two super-strong bombs' were dropped on Mariupol yesterday as officials attempted to evacuate thousands of residents from the besieged city, which humanitarian workers have described as a 'hell-scape strewn with dead bodies.'

War casualties in Russia

Major General Andrei Kolesnikov: Commander of the 29th Combined Army Army

Major General Vitaly Gerasimov: First deputy commander of Russia's 41st army who took part in operations in Syria and Crimea

Major General Andrei Sukhovetsky: Deputy commander of the 41st Combined Arms Army of the Central Military District killed during a special operation by a sniper

Major-General Oleg Mityaev: Commander of the army's 150th motorized rifle division, died fighting around the besieged city of Mariupol

Major General Andrei Kolesnikov of the 29th Combined Arms Army was killed last week in another blow to the Kremlin. Image Credit

Major General Vitaly Gerasimov (left) was killed last week and was the first deputy commander of Russia's 41st army. Major General Andrei Sukhovetsky (Right), 47, deputy commander of the 41st Combined Arms Army of the Central Military District, was also killed in Ukraine 

Major-General Oleg Mityaev, 47 (left and right), was killed by Ukrainian troops near Mariupol - Kyiv has said

Colonel Andrei Zakharov: Killed in a Ukrainian ambush near Kyiv

Lieutenant Colonel Dmitry Safronov: Leader of marine brigade killed after Ukrainian forces recaptured Chernihiv

Lieutenant Colonel Denis Glebov: Leader of air assault troops killed in Chernihiv

Colonel Konstantin Zizevsky: Leader of air assault troops killed in the south of Ukraine

Lieutenant Colonel Denis Glebov (left) and Lieutenant Colonel Dmitry Safronov (right) died in a battle in Chuhuiv and 

Colonel Konstantin Zizevsky (left), who led air assault troops, and Captain Alexey Glushchak of the GRU intelligence service, who perished fighting near Mariupol, both died in the south of Ukraine.

Colonel Andrei Zakharov (right, with Vladimir Putin) was killed in an ambush outside Kyiv during the war's early days.

General Magomed Tushaev: Chechen special forces leader killed in an ambush near Hostomel.

Vladimir Zhonga: Leader of neo-Nazi Sparta Battalion backed by the Kremlin.

Georgy Dudorov: Deputy commander of the reconnaissance company for the 137th regiment of the 106th Tula Guards Airborne Division.

Aleksey Aleshko: Paratroop intelligence officer that was a graduate of the prestigious Ryazan Guards Higher Airborne School.

Vladimir Zhoga, the leader of a military group from the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic, was murdered near Volnovakha, while Chechen general Magomed Tushaev was killed in an ambush on an armored column.

Aleksey Aleshko (right), a paratroop intelligence officer, and Georgy Dudorov (left), deputy commander of an airborne reconnaissance division, were also slain.

Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said there won't be enough space for everyone to leave the city on Tuesday, despite estimates that up to 300,000 people are still there, but that 'we will strive to carry out the evacuation until we have gotten all the population.'

Two super-strong bombs' hit the port city as the evacuation began, local officials said, without specifying whether anyone was killed. 'It is evident that the occupants do not care about Mariupol; they intend to raze it to the ground and convert it to ashes,' they claimed.

It comes as UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for an end to the 'absurd war' that began almost precisely a month ago when Vladimir Putin gave the order to invade, warning that the conflict is 'going nowhere fast and that the Ukrainian people are 'suffering in misery.'

'Continuing the conflict in Ukraine is ethically repugnant, politically unjustifiable, and militarily absurd,' Guterres said. 'Ukraine cannot be conquered city by city, street by street, house by house, even if Mariupol falls.'

This is an unwinnable conflict. It will have to shift from the battlefield to the negotiating table sooner or later. 'It's past time to put an end to this ridiculous conflict,' he continued.

In a video speech to lawmakers yesterday, President Zelensky said Ukraine is "on the verge of surviving" its conflict, and urged Italy to cease being a "resort for killers" by banning Russian ships from its ports.

Zelensky asked Italian lawmakers to freeze all Russian elite assets and institute a full trade embargo, beginning with oil, in a speech to the Italian parliament.

h/s: Russia suffers its worst massacre of military leadership since the Second World War | Daily Mail Online