List of Russian generals killed during the 2022 invasion of Ukraine
During the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, an unusual number of Russian generals, including the Russian Armed Forces and the National Guard of Russia, have been reported killed in action. As of 23 April 2022, Ukrainian sources reported that ten Russian generals had been killed during the invasion. The loss of flag officers, even as few as two, is rare. This makes the scale of these losses unprecedented in the modern era (since World War II). List. One general reported killed was a lieutenant general (two star), equivalent to  a major general in the Canadian, United Kingdom, and United States militaries. The remaining six are major generals (one star), equivalent to brigadier generals in the American and Canadian militaries and brigadiers in the British military. On 23 April 2022, Ukraine's Ministry of Defence reported a strike on a Russian 49th Combined Arms Army command post in Kherson Oblast, killing two generals and critically injuring one. The names of the two generals have not been released at the time of the report. Analysis. Analysts at the Jerusalem Institute for Security and Strategy and the French Institute of International Relations  suggested that the number of Russian generals killed during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine suggests that the 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. In addition to these flag officers, a number of 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". That day, "The Times" counted 5 Russian colonels killed in Ukraine so far. A Ukrainian official told "The" "Wall  Street Journal" that a unit of Ukrainian military intelligence was collecting information of the positions of Russian officers, including generals, artillery commanders, and pilots. High-ranking casualties in the Russian navy include captain 1st rank Andrei Paliy, the deputy commander of the Black Sea Fleet. Anton Kurpin, the commander of the Russian cruiser Moskva, has also been reported as killed, although the Russians have not confirmed this. The Russian military is top-heavy, with generals playing a larger role in day-to-day operations than in other militaries. Russian battalion commanders were given more authority only three years before the  invasion. According to analysts and Western officials, Russia had deployed approximately 20 general officers to Ukraine. Michael McFaul, a former U.S. ambassador to Russia, described the number of Russian generals killed as "a shocking number", while David Petraeus, the former director of the CIA, 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". "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 has 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. The use of unsecured phones has been attributed to the failure of Russia's secure telephone technology system, Era. 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.