Lieutenant-colonel Zaur Dimayev, deputy commander of a Chechen special forces battalion, was killed when a Ukrainian artillery shell hit his military SUV in Donbas Tuesday, it is claimed.
Lt-Col Alexander Dosyagayev, left, was killed. A friend holds a portrait of Col Vladimir Ivanov, right, killed earlier in May. Planes flew in a Z formation to commemorate the dead colonels.
Major General Kanamat Botashev, 63 (pictured), was enjoying retirement when Russian tanks rolled across the border on February 24 and had not flown since 2012.