He was promoted to major general on 2 March 1904,[5] he became commanding officer of the 1st Brigade of the 27th Infantry Division the same day 1904.

When the Russian Empire entered World War I on 1 August 1914, Ragoza was still in command of the 19th Infantry Division.

[8][9][10][11][12][13] The Imperial Russian Army conducted a strategic withdrawal — the Great Retreat — from Poland to Byelorussia between July and September 1915 and created the Western Front with headquarters at Minsk.

After the completion of the withdrawal, Ragoza was appointed to the post of commander of the 4th Army, which was part of the Western Front, on 20 September 1915.

Under his command, the 4th Army clung tightly to Baranavichy, and the front in the region became static for two years, with all German attempts to push their forces closer to Minsk in vain.

Ragoza remained in command of the 4th Army, which in the first half of November 1916 was transferred from Byelorussia to Wallachia on the Romanian front.

The King of Romania, Ferdinand I, recognized Ragoza's achievements by awarding him the Order of Michael the Brave Third Class.

On 25 July 1917, Minister-Chairman of the Russian Provisional Government, Alexander Kerensky, issued an order canceling the operation.

Grigorescu refused to comply, so Russian General of the Infantry Dmitry Shcherbachev, the deputy commander of Allied forces on the Romanian front, handed over the Mărășești sector to Grigorescu, including the Russian 8th Army Corps, and the rest of the 4th Army was transferred to northern Moldavia.

After the October Revolution of 1917, the Bolshevik Military Revolutionary Committee removed Ragoza from command of the 4th Army on 21 November 1917.

Following the February Revolution of 1917, the Ukrainian People's Republic had declared its independence in June 1917, but an April 1918 coup d'etat under the supervision of the German Empire toppled that regime and replaced it with an anti-Bolshevik dictatorship under Hetman of Ukraine Pavlo Skoropadskyi, who outlawed all socialist political parties, established a new Ukrainian State, and created an anti-Bolshevik front.

[16] Within the structure of the Hetmanate, Ragoza has been described as representative of a "pro-Russian" faction which intended to put Ukraine in the center of the movement to remove the Bolsheviks from power in Russia.

Shortly after that Ragoza left the Ukrainian capital for Odessa, where units loyal to the Volunteer Army, as well as troops from the interventionist powers, were stationed.

His goal was to proceed further toward the Kuban and join the Whites to fight against the Bolsheviks, but while he managed to reach Odessa, he did not succeed in linking up with the anti-Bolshevik forces in time: in March 1919 Odessa was seized by troops under the command of ataman Nykyfor Hryhoriv, who was fighting under the Red banner at the time, and general Ragoza was promptly arrested.

After he refused an offer to join the Bolshevik forces, he was executed on 29 June 1919 in Odessa's Catherine Square [ru].