Top Russian general killed in Ukraine

A high number of Russian generals have been killed during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. As of 11 July 2022, Ukrainian sources claimed that 14 Russian generals had been killed during the invasion. Although some claims were rebutted, the loss of even two general officers is rare. The scale of these losses is unprecedented since World War II.[1] This has been attributed to Russian senior commanders going to the field to address "difficulties in command and control" and "faltering Russian performance on the front line",[3] insecure communication by Russian forces,[4] and United States military intelligence that allowed the Ukrainians to target Russian officers.[5]

List

Russia has confirmed the death of four generals. Ukraine has claimed the deaths of four additional generals which Russia has neither confirmed nor denied.

Name	Rank	Position	Date reported	Status	Notes
Andrei Sukhovetsky	Major General[a]	Deputy Commander, 41st Combined Arms Army	1 March 2022[7]	Confirmed	Shot by a sniper at Hostomel[8][9] on 28 February 2022.[10][11] Had previously been involved in the Russian military intervention in the Syrian civil war, and 2014 Russian annexation of Crimea.[12] His death was reported by a retired Russian intelligence officer on Twitter on 1 March[7] and by Russian online tabloid Pravda.ru on 3 March 2022.[13]
Andrei Kolesnikov	Major General	Commander, 29th Combined Arms Army	11 March 2022[14]	Claimed	Killed somewhere near Mariupol.[14]
Oleg Mityaev	Major General	Commander, 150th Motorized Rifle Division	15 March 2022[12][15]	Claimed	Killed somewhere near Mariupol.[12]
Yakov Rezantsev	Lieutenant General[b]	Commander, 49th Combined Arms Army	25 March 2022[16]	Claimed	Ukrainian officials claimed he was killed as a result of a Ukrainian strike on the command post of the 49th Combined Arms Army in the Chornobaivka airfield in the Kherson Raion.[17][16]
Vladimir Frolov	Major General	Deputy Commander, 8th Guards Combined Arms Army	16 April 2022[18]	Confirmed	No information about his death was released prior to the notice of his funeral at Serafimovskoe Cemetery, St. Petersburg.[19][20][21]
Andrei Simonov	Major General	Chief of Electronic Warfare Troops, 2nd Guards Combined Arms Army	30 April 2022[22]	Claimed	Killed during an artillery strike on a command post of the 2nd Combined Arms Army, in the vicinity of occupied Izium.[22]
Kanamat Botashev	Major General (retired)	Unclear	22 May 2022[23]	Confirmed	Killed in the Luhansk region when his Su-25 was shot down by a FIM-92 Stinger missile[24] Botashev had been previously discharged from the Russian Air Force for crashing a Su-27.[25] Ukrainian sources suggested that he might have been deployed as part of the paramilitary organization Wagner Group.[26]
Roman Kutuzov	Lieutenant General (posthumous)	Commander, 1st Army Corps, Donetsk People's Militia[27]	5 June 2022[28]	Confirmed	Reported by Russian state television reporter Alexander Sladkov on the Telegram messaging app.[28] Kutuzov was reportedly killed near the village of Mykolaivka, Popasna Raion, Luhansk Oblast.[29][28] Kutuzov's promotion from major general was announced posthumously.[30][31]

1. ^ One-star general, equivalent to lowest General rank in Nato armies most commonly named a variant of Brigadier general e.g. brigadier generals in the United States militaries and brigadiers in the British military.[6]
2. ^ Two-star general, equivalent to a rank mostly referred to in a variant of Major General in Nato armies e.g. major general the United States militaries.

On 23 April 2022, Ukraine's Ministry of Defence claimed a strike on a Russian 49th Combined Arms Army command post in Kherson Oblast killed two generals and critically injured one. The names of the two generals were not released at the time of the report.[32][33]

Rebutted reports

The reported deaths of three Russian generals have been rebutted.

Name	Rank	Position	Date reported	Initial report	Correction
Magomed Tushayev	Major General	Commander, Chechen National Guard units	26 February 2022[34]	Claimed killed during an SBU Alpha Group ambush of a convoy around Hostomel, northwest of Kyiv.[35]	Death disputed by the Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov who posted a video said to show Tushayev alive[36][37] and a Chechen-based media outlet which posted a video of Tushayev denying his death on 16 March 2022.[38] Later, BBC News Russian reported he was still alive.[39]
Vitaly Gerasimov	Major General	Chief of Staff, 41st Combined Arms Army	8 March 2022[40]	Claimed killed outside Kharkiv. Had previously been involved in the Second Chechen War, Russian military intervention in the Syrian civil war, and 2014 Russian annexation of Crimea.[12] CNN said it had not independently verified Gerasimov's death and US officials had not confirmed it.[41]	On 23 May 2022, Russian media reported that Gen. Gerasimov was awarded with the Order of Alexander Nevsky while dismissing claims of his death.[42][43] Later, BBC News Russian reported he was still alive.[39]
Andrey Mordvichev	Lieutenant General	Commander, 8th Guards Combined Arms Army	18 March 2022[44]	Claimed killed in a Ukrainian artillery strike on the Chornobaivka airfield in the Kherson Raion, according to "preliminary information" from Ukraine.[45]	On 28 March 2022, footage appeared reportedly showing Kadyrov meeting with Mordvichev and other commanders in Mariupol.[46][47] Later, BBC News Russian reported he was still alive.[39]

Analysis

Russian state television reporter Alexander Sladkov reported on the death of General Kutuzov.

Analysts at the Jerusalem Institute for Security and Strategy and the French Institute of International Relations found that the number of Russian generals killed during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine suggests that poor morale among Russian forces and a slow advance into Ukraine forced high-ranking officers to put themselves at risk in an effort to achieve military objectives.[14][48] UK intelligence attributed the deaths of senior commanders to their going to the field to personally lead operations to address "difficulties in command and control" and "faltering Russian performance on the front line."[3] Western governments say at least ten Russian generals have been killed, which they attribute to major strategic errors.[49]

In addition to these flag officers, many other senior officers have been killed by Ukrainian forces; on 23 March, Ukrainian official Mykhailo Podoliak stated that their forces had killed "dozens of colonels and other officers".[50][51] That day, The Times counted five Russian colonels killed in Ukraine so far.[52] On 11 May, The Independent reported a total of 42 colonels allegedly killed.[53] By the end of April, at least 317 Russian officers had been killed, a third of them majors, lieutenant colonels, and colonels.[54] A Ukrainian official told The Wall Street Journal that a unit of Ukrainian military intelligence was collecting information on the positions of Russian officers, including generals, artillery commanders, and pilots.[12][6] High-ranking casualties in the Russian Navy include Captain 1st Rank Andrei Paliy, deputy commander of the Black Sea Fleet.[55][56] Anton Kurpin, the commander of the Russian cruiser Moskva, has also been reported as killed, although Russia has not confirmed this.[57]

The Russian military is top-heavy, with generals playing a larger role in day-to-day operations than in other militaries.[6][58] Russian battalion commanders were given more authority only three years before the invasion.[12] According to analysts and Western officials, Russia had deployed approximately 20 general officers to Ukraine.[12][59] Michael McFaul, former U.S. ambassador to Russia, described the number of Russian generals killed as "a shocking number",[59] while General David Petraeus, the former director of the CIA and commander of Coalition troops in Iraq, remarked that it is "very uncommon" for so many generals to be killed and that the Ukrainian military was "picking them off left and right".[60] The Washington Post stated that generals were "killed at a rate not seen since World War II".

The deaths of Russian officers on the front line have been attributed to a number of Russian vulnerabilities in Ukraine, including the use of unsecured communications and the movement of officers to the front line to boost flagging morale and address discipline issues, such as looting.[12][59][58] The use of unsecured phones has been attributed to the failure of Russia's secure telephone technology system, Era.[4] In March 2022, two American military officials told The New York Times that Russian generals in Ukraine frequently had conversations on unsecured phones and radios, and that in at least one instance, a general and his staff were killed after the Ukrainians intercepted a call, geolocated it, and attacked the location.[59] The New York Times also reported that U.S. intelligence has provided real-time intelligence to help the Ukrainian military target Russian generals.[61]

See also

• Army ranks and insignia of the Russian Federation
• Casualties of the Russo-Ukrainian War
• Military history of the Russian Federation
• Order of battle for the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine
• Combatants of the war in Donbas
• List of military engagements during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine
• Timeline of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine

References

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6. ^ a b Anna Mukhina; Mark Krutov (3 March 2022). ""Звоните в ФСБ". В Россию пошли первые "похоронки"" ["Call the FSB." The first "funerals" went to Russia]. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (in Russian). Archived from the original on 5 March 2022. Retrieved 4 March 2022.
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20. ^ ШАРЫПОВА, Ангелина (16 April 2022). "В Петербурге простились с генерал-майором, погибшим во время спецоперации на Украине" [In St. Petersburg, they said goodbye to the Major General, who died during a special operation in Ukraine]. spb.kp.ru (in Russian). Retrieved 16 April 2022.
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38. ^ a b c От генералов до добровольцев: потери России в Украине к началу июня Archived 31 May 2022 at the Wayback Machine
    Груз 200: что известно о потерях России в Украине к середине июня Archived 10 June 2022 at the Wayback Machine
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External links

• List of Russian Senior Officer killed during the invasion (including puppet forces)

How many Russian generals have died in Ukraine?

Who is Russia's top general?

How many Russian generals died?