Russian President Vladimir Putin has lost faith in his top general and has fired other senior commanders for their high-profile and embarrassing failures on the battlefield in Ukraine, British intelligence believes.

U.K. military intelligence reports Tuesday morning that the Kremlin has fired Lt. Gen. Serhiy Kisel, commander of the elite 1st Guards Tank Army, for failing to capture Kharkiv. International attention has focused on the strategically critical northeastern Ukrainian city in recent days following news Ukrainian forces capitalized on Russia’s retreat and had pushed the invading troopss back to their border. The commander of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, Vice Admiral Igor Osipov, has also come under suspension likely for allowing the flagship cruiser Moskva to sink in April from an apparent missile attack – for which the Ukrainian military claims credit.

Perhaps most notably, Valeriy Gerasimov, the chief of the Russian General Staff – a position roughly analogous to the U.S. chairman of the Joint Chiefs – remains in his post but, British intelligence believes, “it is unclear whether he retains the confidence of President Putin.”

The damning assessment follows reports that at least a dozen Russian generals have died on the battlefield – a seemingly stunning fact that the Pentagon has downplayed as indicative of how the Kremlin goes to war combined with the dysfunctional state of a Soviet-era army.

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