On September 24, the Russian Ministry of Defense confirmed the death in Syria of the senior group of Russian military advisers, commander of the 5th Army of the Eastern Military District of the RF Armed Forces, Lieutenant General Valery Asapov. The military leader died during the operation to liberate the Syrian city of Deir ez-Zor from the militants of the Islamic State (banned in Russia) and was posthumously "introduced to a high state award."
Only officially confirmed losses
In a statement from the agency, in dry military language, it is noted that Lieutenant General Valery Asapov was fatally wounded from a mine explosion "as a result of a sudden mortar attack by ISIS militants" when "he was at the command post of the Syrian troops, assisting the Syrian commanders in managing the operation to liberate the city" .
There are no additional details of what happened, just as there is no exact date of the death of the Russian. According to a Kommersant source, this happened on September 23 and “the general was literally torn to pieces, nothing was left of the man, since he was at the forefront.” On September 16, relatives of Vladimir Tarasyuk, a contract soldier from Bratsk, who died in Syria, told the media that “a general and a colonel” were killed in the car with him.
The radio station Moskva Speaks was the first to report Asapov’s death: the headquarters of the 5th Army said that when the shell hit the command post, two colonels died along with the general. In social networks, they also wrote about the death of the translator, but the military department did not officially comment on this information.
Later, a source from the Moskva Speaks radio station voiced a version that immediately appeared on Twitter: Valery Asapov could become a victim of betrayal.
Officially, Asapov became the 38th Russian who died in the SAR since the beginning of the military operation, and the highest-ranking one. In February 2017, during active hostilities in the Palmyra region, Major General Pyotr Milyukhin of the Russian army was seriously injured - he lost both legs and an eye during the explosion. At that moment, he was directly subordinate to the commander of the Western Military District, Andrei Kartapolov, who heads the Russian group in Syria.
For those who follow the war in Syria, the work of Russian military advisers outside military installations in Khmeimim and Tartus is not new. Moreover, it began before the Ministry of Defense officially recognized the actions "on the ground" of the GRU special forces and the Special Operations Forces. Officially, the command structure of the Russian group in Syria consists of three levels.
The first is the combat control group at the National Defense Control Center in Moscow. He is engaged in the collection and processing of information and daily reports to the top Russian military leadership.
The second is the command of a grouping of troops in Syria. It is responsible for the coordinated actions of the Aerospace Forces and various ground units, and also interacts with regional military centers in Jordan, Turkey, Israel, and Qatar.
The third is precisely the operational groups of advisers in tactical areas from senior officers and generals. They work with the formations of the Syrian armed forces - corps, divisions, brigades, and also help plan and coordinate operations with the involvement of various pro-government formations. A few months ago, a photo of a certificate and an order to award the medal "For a special operation" to Simon Ibrahim Al-Waqil (one of the commanders of the National Defense Forces militia) appeared on social networks, signed by the commander of the Syrian 5th Assault Volunteer Corps - Commander of the 49th Combined Arms Army of the Southern Military district of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, Lieutenant General Sergei Sevryukov.
Former commander of the 58th Army of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, Lieutenant General Viktor Sobolev, especially for the site:
YouTube
In fact, there are no rules that would regulate the number of military guards of a military adviser and his presence in the disposition of troops. The distance at which the command post should be deployed is regulated by statutory documents, but the configuration of the front is constantly changing, especially when fighting against irregular formations. Accordingly, the situation is changing rapidly. The commander, if he is an adviser, should be next to the one he advises - the commander of a division or corps. For example, in South Ossetia, the commander of the army, Lieutenant General Anatoly Khrulev, was injured during the shelling of a column. In principle, he was not supposed to be there, but he wanted to see everything with his own eyes.
Of course, the death of the chief adviser and commander of the army is an extraordinary case, but, unfortunately, the situation changes quickly in a war, especially when it comes to the Syrian desert. And the enemy and his special services are on the alert, of course, they want to inflict damage, especially since with good guidance from mortars, you can conduct fairly targeted fire at targets several kilometers from the line of direct fire contact.
We have almost all the commanders of the armies and even the districts went through Syria. On the one hand, they, of course, acquire invaluable combat experience. As Suvorov said, for one beaten they give two unbeaten. On the other hand, in my opinion, it is not very good that the commanders abandon their formations and go for quite a long time to lead operations that are carried out by no one knows who - the Syrian army units, or what is left of them, militias, etc.
The situation is changing rapidly
In Syria, the advanced is everywhere - therefore, the probability of getting a mortal wound there anywhere is quite high. So, during the civil war in Syria, many Iranian brigadier generals of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps died. However, "brigadier general" is a rank that has no analogues in Russia, something between a colonel and a major general. That is, this is a senior officer, the primary general rank in a number of armies of the world. Another thing is that the Eastern armies differ from the Western ones mainly in that in the former, the factor of faith, namely, martyrdom, is of great importance. For example, in the Islamic tradition, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad - Imam Hussein - bears the title of "lord of the martyrs." And the person who died for his faith instantly becomes like Imam Hussein, he becomes a national hero.
Also in Syria, the US military has repeatedly died, who advise the fighters of the Kurdish-Arab alliance "Syrian Democratic Forces" in battles with IS and themselves take part in military operations. For example, in 2016, the Pentagon reported that a soldier was fatally wounded after an improvised explosive device detonated near the city of Ain Issa in Raqqa province. Another thing is that when training and commanding the local population fighting against radical formations, the Americans rely on their special forces soldiers.
