On March 31, a Russian An-26 transport aircraft crashed into a cliff in Crimea, killing 30 people. A week later, Reuters reported that among the dead was Lieutenant General Alexander Otroshchenko, whom it identified as the commander of the "45th Army of the Northern Fleet's Air Force and Air Defense."  

But there was a problem with their report. The 45th has not existed since 2023. It was dissolved and replaced by the Composite Aviation Corps, which was the formation Otroshchenko commanded. 

The language barrier appears to have been the decisive factor. Russia’s Interfax news agency, citing Murmansk Governor Andrei Chibis, reported correctly that Otroshchenko was the commander of the Composite Aviation Corps of the Northern Fleet. The BBC Russian Service, reporting in Russian, got the designation right. The error was present in the media, from which it rapidly spread to other countries, including Finland. 

The dissolution of the 45th Air Force and Air Defense Army and the creation of the Composite Aviation Corps in its place were public information, having been reported by Izvestia in December 2023. However, the information available in English about Russian military reforms is scarce. The relevant Wikipedia pages contain outdated information, which could explain the misunderstanding in the English-language information environment. In this case, the........

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