Vladimir Putin’s top military commander injured, forced to evacuate from war zone

Vladimir Putin’s top military commander has been flown out of the war zone with shrapnel wounds after being sent to Ukraine by the Russian president to secure victory, a former Russian internal affairs minister has claimed.

Valery Gerasimov, the chief of staff of the Russian army, was on Sunday wounded in Izyum in Ukraine’s Kharviv region, which has been at the centre of intense fighting since Russia’s invasion. The chief of staff’s injury came just one day after Russian Major General Andrei Simonov, 55, was killed in Kharkiv, according to an adviser to Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky