Russia lost its eighth general since the invasion of Ukraine in the latest blow to Vladimir Putin‘s botched war.
Major General Vladimir Frolov, deputy commander of the 8th Guards Combined Arms unit, was given a military funeral in St Petersburg earlier today.
It’s not known how or where he died, but the timing of his funeral suggests Frolov was killed in the past few days.
His 8th Combined Arms Army was fighting in Kherson, near Crimea last month when commander Andrei Mordvichev was killed.
Frolov was buried in St Petersburg today after being killed in an unspecified part of Ukraine
Frolov ‘sacrificed his life so that children, women and the elderly in Donbas would not hear bombs exploding again’, the St Petersburg governor said as his friend was laid to rest.
The general was from a military family and ‘died the death of the brave in battle against Ukrainian nationalists’, Alexander Beglov added.
He was ‘a true patriot, a brave and courageous man’ who ‘honestly and to the end fulfilled his military and human duty.
‘People will not forget their heroes. Eternal memory to him.’
Russia also lost its 34th colonel of the war, tank battalion commander Miras Bashakov, according to reports today.
He became the 42nd high-ranking officer known to have died in a war that has haemorrhaged Putin’s top brass.
The scale of the death toll invalidates Vladimir Putin’s claim that his ‘special military operation’ is going according to plan.
The overall Russian losses since the invasion began on 24 February are believed to be in the region of 20,000, but Moscow has failed to give accurate figures.
Frolov is only the second general whose death was confirmed by state media, after Andrey Sukhovetsky (left), who was killed by a sniper on March 4. Oleg Mityaev (right) died on March 15
On Thursday Putin lost Lieutenant Colonel Denis Mezhuev, most likely in the east.
Mezhuev had commanded troops in Kyiv before his unit was redeployed in the Donbas.
A day earlier, surrendering Ukrainian forces showed Russian servicemen the precise location in blitzed Mariupol where one of Moscow’s generals lay dead.
The Russians then retrieved the body of Major-General Oleg Mityaev, 47, commander of the army’s 150th motorised rifle division.
Russia’s other seven fallen generals
General Magomed Tushaev: Chechen special forces leader who had led ‘anti-gay purges’ killed in an ambush near Hostomel on February 26.
Major General Andrei Sukhovetsky: Deputy commander of the 41st Combined Arms Army of the Central Military District killed during a special operation by a sniper on March 4.
Major General Vitaly Gerasimov: First deputy commander of Russia’s 41st army who took part in operations in Syria and Crimea, killed in fighting around Kharkiv on March 8
Major General Andrei Kolesnikov: Commander of the 29th Combined Army Army killed on March 11.
Major-General Oleg Mityaev, died fighting near the city of Mariupol on 16 March
Lt-Gen Andrey Mordvichev, killed in the Kherson region on March 19.
Lt Gen Yakov Rezantsev, commander of Russia’s 49th combined army, was killed in a strike near the southern city of Kherson on March 25.
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