{"id":19259,"date":"2026-09-28T07:12:15","date_gmt":"2026-09-28T07:12:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/informnapalm.org\/en\/?p=19259"},"modified":"2026-09-28T07:12:15","modified_gmt":"2026-09-28T07:12:15","slug":"funeral-march-of-ru-generals-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/informnapalm.org\/en\/funeral-march-of-ru-generals-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Russian generals’ funeral march 2.0: confirmed casualties in the war against Ukraine"},"content":{"rendered":"

As of September 16, 2026, InformNapalm has counted 16 confirmed deaths of Russian generals linked to the full-scale war against Ukraine and military service during this period. Of these, 14 were active generals at the time of their death, and two were retired generals who had returned to the war.<\/b><\/p>\n

Ten years after the first “Funeral March”<\/h2>\n

In 2016, InformNapalm published a detailed timeline The Russian Generals\u2019 Funeral March (Statistics and Infographics V 2.1)<\/a>. At the time, volunteers collected cases of mysterious deaths of Russian generals and admirals and presented distinctive “statistical spikes” in an infographic. A significant share of these spikes coincided with periods of Russian military campaigns or the periods immediately following them.<\/p>\n

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Notably, in 2021, this five-year-old publication, which was available in 12 languages, attracted particular attention from Russia’s media watchdog Roskomnadzor. Russian authorities officially demanded<\/a> that InformNapalm remove it from its website, but were sent packing.<\/p>\n

Ten years later, we are returning to the subject \u2014 this time with a timeline of Russian generals who have faced the consequences of Russia’s full-scale aggression against Ukraine.<\/p>\n

How we count casualties among the generals Methodology<\/h2>\n

The main list includes only those cases where death is confirmed through official reports, relatives, burials, state registries, or a combination of independent sources. This criterion is essential: in 2022, Ukrainian and international media also published erroneous reports about the deaths of individual Russian generals.<\/p>\n

For verification purposes, we use, in particular, the general joint name database<\/a> of the BBC Russian Service, Mediazona, and a team of volunteers. Mediazona compiles<\/a> it from open, verified sources, including statements by relatives, regional media reports, official sources, burial records, and other documentary evidence.<\/p>\n

At the time of writing, Mediazona’s statistics also included 16 generals: five lieutenant generals, eight major generals, two retired generals, and former Ukrainian Security Service major general Volodymyr Liapkin, who fled to Russia and fought on its side. We do not include the latter in the Russian general corps. After the verification of Anton Grunis’ death on September 16, our body count of Russian generals<\/b> grew to 16.<\/p>\n

Timeline of the Russian dead generals<\/h2>\n

2022<\/h2>\n

February 28 \u2013 Major General Andrei Sukhovetsky<\/b>, Deputy Commander of the 41st Combined Arms Army. Killed during combat operations in Ukraine. He became the first reliably confirmed Russian general killed after the start of the full-scale invasion.<\/p>\n

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March 10 \u2013 Major General Vladimir Frolov<\/b>, Deputy Commander of the 8th Combined Arms Army. The date of his death was confirmed through documentary evidence; Frolov was buried in St. Petersburg in April.<\/p>\n

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May 22 \u2013 retired Major General Kanamat Botashev.<\/b>\u00a0A former Russian military aviation general, he returned to combat flying after retirement. His Su-25 was shot down over Ukraine. According to investigative journalists, he was linked to the Wagner PMC during the war.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>June 5 \u2013 Major General Roman Kutuzov<\/b>, a senior officer of the 8th Combined Arms Army associated with the command of the so-called “1st Army Corps of the DPR”. Killed in Luhansk Oblast; his death was confirmed by Russian sources and burial records.<\/p>\n

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2023<\/h2>\n

June 12 \u2013 Major General Sergei Goryachev<\/b>, chief of staff of the 35th Combined Arms Army. Killed on the Zaporizhzhia axis. His death was subsequently further confirmed by his burial in St. Petersburg.<\/p>\n

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July 11 \u2013 Lieutenant General Oleg Tsokov<\/b>, Deputy Commander of the Southern Military District. Killed in a strike on a Russian command post near occupied Berdiansk.<\/p>\n

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November 28 \u2013 Major General Vladimir Zavadsky<\/b>, Deputy Commander of the 14th Army Corps. Killed in temporarily occupied Ukrainian territory; his death was subsequently officially confirmed by Russian regional authorities.\u00a0OSINT dossier<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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2024<\/h2>\n

June 30 \u2013 Major General Andrey Golovatsky, retired.<\/b>\u00a0Former first deputy chief of staff of the North Caucasus Regional Command of the Russian Interior Ministry’s Internal Troops. Mediazona confirmed his death through an obituary and Russia’s inheritance-case registry.<\/p>\n

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November 6 \u2013 Major General Pavel Klimenko<\/b>, commander of the 5th Motorized Rifle Brigade. According to available information, he sustained fatal injuries in an FPV drone attack; Russian sources confirmed his death.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>December 17 \u2013 Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov<\/b>, Chief of the Radiation, Chemical and Biological Defense Troops of the Russian Armed Forces. Killed along with his aide in Moscow when an explosive device attached to an electric scooter detonated near his home.<\/p>\n

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2025<\/h2>\n

April 25 \u2013 Lieutenant General Yaroslav Moskalik<\/b>, Deputy Chief of the Main Operations Directorate of the Russian General Staff. He was killed in Balashikha, near Moscow, after a car was blown up near his home.<\/p>\n

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July 2 \u2013 Major General Mikhail Gudkov<\/b>, Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Navy for coastal and ground forces and former commander of the 155th Naval Infantry Brigade. Killed in a strike on a Russian command post in Kursk Oblast.<\/p>\n

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December 22 \u2013 Lieutenant General Fanil Sarvarov<\/b>, head of the Russian General Staff’s Operational Training Directorate. Killed in Moscow when an explosive device detonated under his car.<\/p>\n

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2026<\/h2>\n

March 31 \u2013 Lieutenant General Alexander Otroshchenko<\/b>, commander of the Northern Fleet’s Mixed Aviation Corps. He was on board the Antonov-26 military transport plane that crashed in occupied Crimea. This was a confirmed non-combat death of a serving Russian general while on military duty.<\/p>\n

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August 1 \u2013 Major General Valeriy Plokhotnyuk.<\/b>\u00a0Russian government registry data and his subsequent burial at Moscow’s Troyekurovskoye Cemetery confirm his death on August 1. The date coincides with an explosion at the Balzi Rossi restaurant in Moscow, where a closed event involving senior Russian military personnel was held. However, Russia has not officially disclosed the circumstances of Plokhotnyuk’s death.<\/p>\n

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September 12 \u2013 Major General Anton Grunis<\/b>, commander of the 4th Motorized Rifle Brigade of the Russian Armed Forces. His death became one of the most promptly and thoroughly documented cases in this timeline.<\/p>\n

The first indirect reports from the Russian Z-community appeared several days before the final verification. By the night of September 16, major Russian pro-war sources were already confirming Grunis’s death without reservation, and Lieutenant General Apti Alaudinov publicly confirmed it that morning.<\/p>\n

On September 16, Robert “Magyar” Brovdi, commander of Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces, officially reported<\/a> the exact circumstances and released footage of the strike.\u00a0Grunis was liquidated on September 12 in the temporarily occupied territory of Donetsk Oblast<\/b>, at a deployment site. The strike was carried out by servicemen of the Rarog unit of Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces.<\/p>\n

Thus, the OSINT chain was effectively traced almost in real time: from the first anonymous reports of the death<\/a> of a high-ranking military officer\u2014through Russian obituaries and confirmations from a serving Russian lieutenant general\u2014to the establishment of the exact date and the publication of footage of the strike itself.<\/p>\n

Interestingly, Grunis had previously appeared in an InformNapalm investigation, List-1097: How the Russian 18th Brigade occupied Crimea<\/b><\/a>.<\/p>\n

His surname appeared in an extract from Order No. 53 dated March 14, 2014, among servicemen who had been deployed to carry out a “combat mission” and were issued field rations for March 16\u201318. This period directly coincided with the final stage of Russia’s operation to seize Crimea.<\/p>\n

Over the following 12 years, Grunis rose to the rank of major general and became a brigade commander. He was killed shortly after receiving the title of Hero of Russia.<\/p>\n

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Assassination attempts on surviving generals<\/h2>\n

Separate from the death statistics, we record confirmed and probable assassination attempts against Russian generals. This section will also be updated:<\/p>\n