The shooting down of a sophisticated Russian plane Su-25 over the Ukrainian region of Donbas in May sparked a series of questions about the pilot’s death.
Why would a man from 63 years were you in the cockpit of such an advanced aircraft?
What was a retired officer doing on the plane who had left the Russian armed forces a decade ago?
Why has another Russian general lost his life in the line of fire? And exactly how many Russian generals have died?
Unraveling this mystery tells us a lot about the state of the Kremlin’s war machine and the human cost of war, even for the highest-ranking 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 air 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 that Russia uses to refer to the invasion of great scale that launched against Ukraine last 11 February .
“He was a pilot with a capital P,” said one of Botashev’s former colleagues. “There are few people on Earth as obsessed with the skies as he is”.
“I will always be proud to have served under him”, added another.
But the fact that Botashev participated in the fighting in Ukraine did not add up, and not only because of his age .
The senior officer was not even an active member of the Russian Army: he had been fired a decade earlier.
The dead generals
Botashev is one of several Russian generals who have died in the conflict, and although the exact number is much disputed, losing even a general is highly unusual in modern warfare.
For comparison, when US Major General Harold Greene was assassinated by a Afghan soldier in an attack on 1853, his death marked the first time in more than 40 years since an American general died in combat.
Ukraine has claimed that 11 Russian generals have died in the conflict so far . Despite this, some of the reports have turned out to be erroneous: three of those who have been declared dead later appeared in videos published on the internet, denying the news of their death.
Of the remaining eight high-ranking officers that kyiv claims to have killed, so far only four of them have been confirmed dead, while of the four others have not yet been verified but the information has not been denied either.
In addition to Botashev , the other three confirmed fallen are:
The death of Major General Andrey Sukhovetsky was announced on March 1. A retired military officer tweeted that Sukhovetsky was shot by a Ukrainian sniper in the Hostomel area, not far from the capital kyiv.
The Ukrainian Army presumed Major General Vladimir Frolov dead on 16 in April, which was confirmed by information announcing his funeral in the Russian city of Saint Petersburg. The circumstances of his death have not been disclosed.
More recently, the On June 5, a Russian state media journalist posted on the Telegram messaging service that Major General Roman Kutuzov had been killed while leading an assault on Ukrainian forces in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine.
Why don’t we know how many Russian generals have died?
The simple answer is that the Ukrainians don’t know for sure and the Russians do not say so.
For Russia, military deaths are considered a state secret even in times of peace. In addition, Moscow has not updated its official balance of casualties in Ukraine since 25 March, when he said that 1,351 soldiers had died in the first month of the war.
In an ongoing research project, using open sources and talking to families of Russian soldiers, the BBC has compiled a list of more than 3,500 low, with their names and ranks, indicating that the true figure is probably much higher.
Our research also shows that one in five Russian soldiers killed was a mid-ranking or senior officer .
What does all this say?
The proportion of high-ranking officers deaths is surprising, but the Russian Army has a large number of high-ranking officers: about 1,351 total.
Although many of them would never be expected to end up on the front lines, a significant number of generals have found themselves there.
This may be due to the fact that generals are expected to carry out tasks and make decisions that would correspond to subordinates in the armed institutions of other countries, which brings them closer to the front than would be expected.
Western officials have also suggested that low morale of Russian troops has forced the Army to lan force their heavy hitters into action.
Furthermore, the scarcity of communications equipment may have increased the danger these officers are in, forcing them to supposedly to use traditional phones when they are close to the fighting, compromising their security.
Finally, US media claim that Ukrainian military intelligence officers are deliberately attacking the Russian hierarchy with snipers and artillery, and that the United States has provided Ukraine with information on their whereabouts.
Unauthorized flights
In the case of Botashev, how did he find himself back in the heat of battle if he was retired?
The race of Bootshev had not been easy: in 2012 was expelled from the Army after crashing a plane he was not supposed to fly.
had been placed at the controls of a jewel in the crown of Russian military technology: a sophisticated Su-24.
In the Russian Army, authorization to fly a certain type of aircraft is obtained after many hours of special training.
Botashev was not authorized to pilot the Su-26, but somehow managed to access it. He lost control of the aircraft mid-flight, but he and a colleague ejected successfully.
He survived the “misadventure”, but knew he would have to pay a price.
What made things worse was the fact that it was not the first time he had taken a plane that he was not supposed to fly.
In 2011 sneaked into the cockpit of a Su-34 – an advanced bomber for which he had no license – and took him for an illicit “ride”.
Payment of debts
In 2012, a court ruled that Botashev had to pay the state some $75, dollars for accident damages, even though the lost device was worth millions. When he died last month, he still owed more than half that amount, according to a publicly accessible state database.
Botashev was fired from his post and went to work for DOSAAF, a state volunteer organization dating back to the decade of 1950. DOSAAF has links with the Russian Army and Navy and its goal is to encourage young people’s interest in everything related to the military world.
The deceased’s pension was about $360 dollars.
With this income it would be difficult for him to pay the important sum he owed to the State, and it has been stated that at the time of his death , Botashev worked for a private military company.
The Russian authorities deny that these private companies have links with the State.
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