An elite battalion of Ukrainian intelligence is liquidating senior officers of the Russian Federation

According to the liga.net portal, one of the members of the Shaman Battalion in an interview with The Times revealed the new task of the Main Intelligence Directorate battalion: eliminating high-ranking Russian officers.

"We have increased the number of targets, missions for specific people or targets, such as buildings where a general or someone like that is in Russian territory."

The Shaman Battalion was created on February 23, 2022. The commander, like several other fighters of the "Shaman" battalion, has been involved in hostilities since 2014.

The mission of the Shaman Battalion is to destroy the infrastructure necessary for the Kremlin's military operations. To this end, countless secret raids were made on Russian territory, where special forces were dropped by helicopter at night, crossing the border at low altitude. Elite Ukrainian Special Forces conducted airstrikes in the deep rear of the Russian army, in particular on Russian territory.

The tasks of the battalion also include coordinating less experienced infantry, training recruits, with particular emphasis on tactical technologies.

The unit of the Main Intelligence Directorate Shaman eliminates Russian officers: what is known?

A 30-year-old sergeant named Smart, who was involved in the planning of the mission, showed the journalist the footage of the ambush and added that over the past six months members of the unit had carried out more than a dozen similar operations with success.

In addition, since the beginning of the full-scale war, Ukraine has announced the liquidation of 15 Russian generals. The Russian Federation has confirmed the deaths of six of them. Most of these generals were eliminated near the front lines, notes The Times.

The Shaman Unit did not name the targets they eliminated, but the Journal has received clues about this from other sources. The Times writes that it may be about the commander of the 1009th Motorized Rifle Regiment, Colonel Vladimir Kuznetsov, who was ambushed and eliminated in the Belgorod region of Russia while driving his official car. In July, there was also information about the liquidation of FSB lieutenant colonel Andrei Skuratov, whose car drove into a mine in the Bryansk region near the border with Ukraine.

How does the elite GUR Shaman Battalion do their job? Operation details

Members of the Shaman unit sometimes accompany pro-Ukrainian partisans from Russia and cross the border when they do not have their own tasks, says the major of the Main Intelligence Directorate.

"The eradication teams that work best are six-man squads deployed in helicopters" - said a GUR fighter nicknamed Smart. According to him, these are American Black Hawk helicopters equipped with a pair of M-240 machine guns.

Other missions require teams to walk back and forth, so soldiers must complete a grueling 30-mile (~48.2 km) training hike with a full backpack before they are deemed fit for military duty.

According to a GUR officer, intelligence is the key to the operation's success.

"You know that the Russians love money and hate their generals, so we can get a lot of useful information from the inside. And we have a lot of useful equipment. The guys are always carrying kamikaze FPV drones, sometimes they can destroy even a very powerful car" - he said.