News Ukraine can use

Fog of war and all that. Early reporting on any development surrounding Ukraine should be treated with skepticism.

Fired for unknown reasons

An investigive reporter from the Dutch Bellingcat investigative group has breaking news this morning (still unconfirmed by other agencies):

Three independent sources report that the deputy chief of Russia's Rosgvardia (a unit of RU's interior army which has had tremendous losses in Ukraine), Gen. Roman Gavrilov has been detained by FSB. Gavrilov had also previously worked in FSO, Putin's security service.

— Christo Grozev (@christogrozev) March 17, 2022

A Russian government news outlet quickly contested the report, saying that Gavrilov was not detained, merely “fired for unknown reasons.” State Duma deputy Alexander Khinshtein says “he recently spoke to him personally,” per the report. Personally!

Deep s**t

Detained or merely fired….

While it's hard to guess what exactly the purge/reshuffling at the top of the siloviks will result in, one thing is clear: it's doubtless that Putin recognizes the deep s**t this operation is in. I.e. it's so bad that he changes horses in midstream – a big no-no during war.

— Christo Grozev (@christogrozev) March 17, 2022

Ukraine officials report survivors from the Mariupol theater attack, but no deaths are confirmed. A basement bomb shelter may have survived the attack. Local officials say hundreds may have been sheltering there, “including children and elderly people.”

Reuters:

Petro Andrushchenko, an adviser to the city’s mayor, said some people had survived the blast.

“The bomb shelter held. Now the rubble is being cleared. There are survivors. We don’t know about the (number of) victims yet,” he told Reuters by phone.

He said rescue work was under way to reach survivors and establish the number of casualties, which was still unknown.

Russia has denied bombing the theatre.

Again, fog of war. Still awaiting images of survivors and bodies. Not to be grisly, but to confirm reports from the site are not exaggerated.

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