A senior Russian commander has committed suicide, after becoming deeply depressed by the behaviour of his fellow officers.
The corpse of Yury Annenkov was found in a forest in Balashika at the end of last week.
He was the head of the 678th Communications Centre of the Russian Aerospace Forces, where he had served for around twenty years.
Vodka bottles and pills were reported to have been found next to the body.
Additionally, the deceased man had left a suicide note at his home, which was later found by his relatives.
A Russian insider source claimed that recently there had been a conflict within the unit’s leadership.
The source wrote on the Telegram channel VCHK-OGPU: “Recently, Yury was deeply depressed and shared that the conditions in the service were unbearable: lack of rest and inadequate command behaviour.”
They added that family members and fellow officers were waiting to be interviewed by the authorities about the suicide and “the criminal orders of the (other) commanders because of which the officer killed himself.”
The commander was described as being one of the few officers who had tried to resist the “chaos and disorder” within the unit after the outbreak of war in February 2022.
Since the end of 2023, there has been a steady upward trend in the number of suicides among Russian military personnel on the front lines.
The Telegram channel Ukraine Happening Pictures, as of September 21, 2024, counted a total of 130 cases filmed on video from drones.
A Ukrainian military intelligence officer recently told the Kyiv Post that suicide in the ranks of the Russian army was increasing.
“Some are deliberately driven to such a step by bullying, threats, and a sense of total hopelessness,” he said.