Western officials have released the names of seven Russian generals they say have been killed since the start of the war on Ukraine, and another general believed to have been removed from his post.
On Friday, Agence France-Presse quoted a Western official as saying that the last of these leaders to die was Lieutenant-General Yakov Rezansev, who was the commander of the 49th Combined Arms Army in the Russian Southern Military District.
Among the dead was also commander Magomed Tochaev of the Chechen special forces sent to Ukraine by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The Western official claimed that the commander of the 37th Motorized Rifle Brigade of the Russian forces was killed by his forces "as a result of the size of the losses incurred by the brigade."
"We believe that he was deliberately killed by his forces," he said, noting that he "ran over."
The official saw this as another sign of the "moral challenges that the Russian forces are facing."
Western military officials have marveled at the high number of Russian soldiers, non-commissioned officers and senior officers killed in the month-old war.
The high death toll was attributed in part to communications and logistical problems that prompted senior officers to use unencrypted communication channels that they exposed to Ukrainian forces.
The Kremlin announced on Friday that just over 1,300 Russian soldiers had died in the war, but there are estimates in Western capitals as high as 4 or 5 times that number.
Earlier, Western reports reported the sudden dismissal of General Vlaislav Yerchov from the Sixth Combined Arms Army, attributing this to "heavy losses and strategic failures."
Western officials believe that about 20 of the tactical battalions sent to Ukraine, numbering between 115 and 120, are "no longer combatively effective" due to losses incurred.
The official - who revealed some of the names of the dead officers - commented, "When about a sixth of your forces become combatively ineffective after a month of battles, this is remarkable."
He believed that the Russian forces "found themselves in a den of hornets, and they are suffering greatly."