A Russian army general has been killed in the ongoing fighting in Ukraine in another sign of the high toll of the invasion on the Russian side.
Major General Vladimir Petrovich Frolov, deputy commander of the 8th Army, is the eighth Russian general-ranking officer to have been killed since the beginning of the invasion of Ukraine on 24 February.
At least six more Russian general-ranking officers have been killed in Ukraine, according to Western assessment. Reports of the death of the seventh general are disputed.
Here are the Russian generals killed so far.
Major General Vladimir Petrovich Frolov is the most recent general to have been killed. He was given a military funeral in Russia’s St Petersburg on Saturday.
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Lieutenant General Yakov Rezantsev was killed in a Ukrainian strike on the Chornobaivka airbase near the city of Kherson, according to reports.
He was the commander of the 49th combined army of Russia's southern military district and was a veteran of Russian military engagements in Syria, where the country supports longtime President Bashar al-Assad.
Andrei Mordvichev, the commander of Russia's 8th combined army of the southern military district, was reportedly killed in a strike on the Chornobaivka airbase near Kherson.
Major General Oleg Mityaev was killed near the besieged city of Mariupol, according to reports. He commanded Russia's 150th motorised rifle division.
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Major General Andrei Kolesnikov, commander of Russia's 29th combined army was killed in fighting on 11 March, according to official Ukrainian sources cited by BBC. The circumstances of his death are not known.
Major General Vitaly Gerasimov, chief of staff of Russia's 41st combined army, was killed on 7 March near the city of Kharkiv. He was a veteran of conflict in Chechnya, the Russian operations in Syria, and the 2014 annexation of Crimea.
Major General Andrey Sukhovetsky, a deputy commander of Russia's 41st combined army – the same formation as Maj. Gen. Gerasimov’s mentioned above – was killed in sniper fire on 3 March, according to reports. He was also a veteran of Russian deployment in Syria and the 2014 annexation of Crimea.
The death of Major General Magomed Tushayev of the Chechen national guard is disputed, according to BBC.
Generals' deaths highlight poor Russian war efforts
Experts have highlighted that this suggests that morale among the Russians might be low that’s forcing Russian generals to move to the front lines. This in itself is representative of how the Russian war against Ukraine has not gone according to plans.
The Wall Street Journal quoted a person close to Ukraine’s President Volodomyr Zelenskyy as saying that Russians generals were not simply in the wrong place at the wrong time but they were being targeted by the Ukrainians. The person said that Ukrainians have a dedicated military intelligence team to target Russian officers.
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"They look for high profile generals, pilots, artillery commanders," said the person.
The Russian war efforts in Ukraine have suffered from poor strategies and tactics, which include a lack of synergy between various attacking elements, and poor tactics such as frontal assaults by closely packed tanks that have been targeted by Ukrainian drones.
