Ukraine war: The mystery of Russia’s lost generals (and what it reveals)

It is very rare for a general to die in battle, yet Russia has lost at least four in the Ukraine conflict, and possibly as many as eight.

By Olga Ivshina and Kateryna Khinkulova, BBC News Russian

When a sophisticated Russian Su-25 jet was shot down in flames over the Donbas region in May, it ignited a series of questions over the death of the pilot.

Why was a 63-year-old flying such advanced weaponry?

What was a retired man who had left the Russian armed forces around a decade earlier doing in the plane in the first place?

Why had another Russian general lost his life in the firing line? And exactly how many dead Russian generals does that make?

Unravelling this mystery tells us a lot about the condition of Russia's war machine and the human cost of the war, even for the most senior officers.

'Pilot with a capital P'

Major General Kanamat Botashev had been a highly skilled and respected Russian pilot, and despite his rank, advanced age, and retired status, he was back in the cockpit on that fateful day.

The BBC spoke to three of his former subordinates, who said that he "couldn't stay away" from "the special military operation" - a term Russia uses for the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

"He was a Pilot with a capital P," one of Botashev's former colleagues told us. "There are few people on Earth as obsessed with the skies as he was."

"I will always be proud to have served under him," said another.

But the fact that Botashev was taking part in the fighting in Ukraine didn't add up - and not only because of his age.

Maj Gen Kanamat Botashev was not even a serving member of the Russian military - he had been sacked a decade previously…

Dead generals

Botashev is one of various Russian generals who have been killed in the conflict, and although the exact number is much disputed, to lose even one general is highly unusual in modern warfare.

For comparison, when US Major General Harold Greene was killed by an Afghan soldier in an insider attack in 2014, his death marked the first time in more than 40 years that a general had been killed in combat.

Ukraine has at some stage claimed that as many as eleven Russian generals have been killed in the conflict so far, although some reports later proved erroneous: three of those claimed dead by Ukraine later appeared in videos posted online, denying news of their death.

There are currently eight Russian generals reported killed in the fighting, four of whom have been confirmed dead, while four more remain unconfirmed (but neither have their deaths been refuted).

In addition to Botashev, the other three confirmed deaths are:

Major General Andrey Sukhovetsky was reported killed on 1 March. A retired Russian military officer tweeted that Sukhovetsky was shot by a Ukrainian sniper in the Hostomel area, not far from the capital Kyiv. 

Major General Vladimir Frolov was reported killed by the Ukrainian army on 16 April and this was confirmed when a notice about his funeral appeared in the Russian city of St Petersburg. Details of his death have not been reported.

Most recently, on 5 June, a Russian state media journalist posted on Telegram messenger that Major General Roman Kutuzov had been killed leading an assault on Ukrainian forces in Donbas.

Why don't we know how many Russian generals have been killed?

The simple answer is that the Ukrainians do not know for sure, and the Russians won't tell.

For Russia, military deaths are considered state secrets even in peace-time, and it has not updated its official casualty figures in Ukraine since 25 March, when it said that 1,351 Russian soldiers had been killed in the first month of the war.

In a continuing investigative project, using open sources and speaking to families of Russian soldiers, the BBC has compiled a list of over 3,500 casualties, with their names and ranks, indicating that the real figure is most likely a lot higher.

Our research also shows that every fifth Russian serviceman killed is a middle- or senior-ranking officer.

What does this all tell us?

The proportion of high-ranking officer casualties is striking, but then the Russian army has a very large number of senior officers - around 1,300 of general rank in total, although many would never be expected near a theatre of war.

Others have not been so lucky, and a significant number of generals have found themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time.

This may be because high-ranking Russian officers are expected to perform tasks and make decisions which would be taken by lower-ranking officers in other armies, bringing them closer to the front than they might otherwise expect to be.

Western officials have also suggested that low morale among Russian troops has forced the army's hand into throwing their heavyweights forward into the action for moral support.

A shortage of communications equipment has also been blamed for contributing to the danger these officers experience, allegedly forcing them to use traditional phones which brings them closer to the fighting and compromises operational security.

And finally, US media reports say that Ukrainian military intelligence officers are deliberately targeting Russia's officer class with sniper fire or artillery, and that the US has provided intelligence to Ukraine on their whereabouts.

Unauthorised flights

But all of this would be purely academic for Botashev if he had just stayed retired. So how did he find himself in the heat of battle again?

Botashev's career had not been straightforward: in 2012 he was dismissed from the army after crashing a plane he was not meant to be flying.

He had taken to the controls of a jewel in the crown of Russian military technology - a sophisticated Su-27 fighter.

In the Russian military, authorisation to fly a particular type of jet is obtained through many hours of special training.

Botashev was not authorised to fly the Su-27, but somehow he managed to gain access. He lost control of the aircraft mid-flight, but he and a colleague successfully ejected.

He survived the 'misadventure', but knew there would be a price to pay.

What made things worse was the fact that it was not the first occasion he had taken an aircraft he wasn't meant to be flying.

In 2011 he had sneaked into the cockpit of a Su-34 - another advanced Russian jet he did not have a licence for (this time a bomber) - and taken it for an illicit 'joyride'.

Paying back debts

In 2012, a court ruled that Botashev had to pay the state around $75,000 for the crash damage - even though the plane had been worth millions of dollars. When he died last month, he still owed over half of that amount, according to an open-source state database.

Botashev was dismissed from his position and went on to work for DOSAAF, a state army volunteer organisation, dating back to the 1950s. It has links to the Russian army and navy and aims to encourage young people's interest in all things military.

His army pension was around $360 and his salary could not have been much more than that.

With this income he would struggle to repay the significant sum he owed the Russian state, and it has been alleged that at the time of his death, Botashev was working for a private military company.

The Russian authorities deny that such private companies have any links to the Russian state.

Read this story in Russian here.