The second chapter of the GRU died in three years. In September, he was allegedly called to the carpet to Putin

Igor Korobov headed the GRU since January 2016. They talked a lot about the department - but Korobov himself was mostly silent

Colonel General Igor Korobov headed the Main Directorate of the General Staff (this is how the department is officially called the last eight years, not GRU, but in early November, Vladimir Putin proposed returning the word “intelligence” to the name) in January 2016.

He was born in 1956 in Vyazma, and in 1977 he graduated from the Stavropol Higher Military Aviation School, after which he worked in the fighter aviation regiment. Later, having graduated from the Conservatory (the main educational institution of the GRU), he became a personnel military intelligence officer, and then began to oversee the main department of the GRU - the direction of strategic intelligence, which includes management of all residences. His appointment to the post of chief of the GRU was a logical continuation of the tradition: in the past few decades, it was precisely the heads of the residency management department who are usually put at the head of the GRU.

In almost three years that Igor Korobov spent at his post, he most often appeared in the news related to US sanctions-at the end of December 2016, the head of the GRU and several of his deputies fell under sanctions due to accusations of trying to influence the elections of the American president (according to the USA, it was the GRU).

Despite the inclusion in the list, the boxes in February 2018, together with the leaders of the FSB and the SVR, first went to Washington to meet with the heads of the US intelligence services to discuss the fight against terrorism. Apparently , they flew there on a “cocaine aircraft”-IL-96-300 of the Russia special flight detachment, which, as reported by RBC, was involved in the case of an attempt to transport 400 kilograms of cocaine from Argentina to Moscow through diplomatic channels.

The struggle against terrorism - and the accusations associated with it - was also the main topic of rare public speeches by Korobov in the status of the head of the GRU. So, in April 2017, he stated that the Americans fought poorly with extremists in Afghanistan - and “left the Afghans face to face with complex domestic political problems, destroyed by the economy, undeveloped social sphere and multiple drug trafficking.” In August of the same year, Korobov spoke in detail about the situation in Syria - and what tactics are used by militants of the “Islamic state”.

On November 21, Korobov died "after a long illness." Journalists wrote that he felt bad after meeting with Putin

Korobov did not comment on the accusations made by Great Britain that GRU officers tried to poison Sergei and Julia Skripal in English Salisbury. They did not react to the GRU to the investigation of The Insider and Bellingcat, which states that Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov, accused of an attempt to poison, are actually the heroes of Russia and acting GRU officers, and their real names are Alexander Mishkin and Anatoly Chepig.

Journalist Sergei Kanev in one of his materials said that in September 2018, Korobov was allegedly “called to the carpet” to Vladimir Putin, after which the military became bad. “It is possible that by the end of the year Korobov will be removed from his post, and General Sergei Gizunov, who was born in Leningrad, will be put in his place,” Kanev suggested.

On November 22, 2018, the Ministry of Defense reported that Korobov died at the age of 62 - "after a serious and long illness." 58-year-old Igor Kostyukov, one of the leaders of the military operation in Syria, will now act as the head of the GRU; According to sources of RBC, most likely he will lead the department.

The previous chief of the GRU also died, holding this position. Intelligence officers often die under mysterious circumstances

Colonel General Igor Sergun, who headed the GRU for four years, died in January 2016. According to the official version, this happened in the House of Rest of the FSB "Moskvich" in the suburbs after a sudden heart attack.

According to investigators from Stratfor, Sergun died on another day, while in Lebanon; What he did there is unknown. “If a message that he died in Lebanon is true, then questions arise about what Sergun did in a country that is a hot point of work of all world intelligence services, and why the Kremlin hides that he died abroad,” said Stratfor.

Press Secretary of the President of Russia Dmitry Peskov and sources in the GRU denied the version of Stratfor. However, in March 2016, the Lebanese newspaper AL-Akhbar, close to Hizball and the Syrian authorities, said that Sergun died in Lebanon during a “difficult secret operation” in Beirut, in which the Arabic and Middle Eastern special services were involved.

High -ranking Russian intelligence officers often die under mysterious circumstances. Here are just a few cases: in 1992, the deputy chief of the GRU died in a car accident; In 1993, the head of the military counterintelligence of the Pacific Fleet died in a similar accident. In 1996, one of the leaders of the GRU shot down the car to death; In 1997, Major General Gene, General General General General, was released from the window of his apartment. In 1999, the deputy chief of the GRU crashed in a car accident. In 2009, the deputy chief of the GRU Yuri Ivanov went on a business trip to Syria - he was soon found dead on the seashore in the Turkish village. The former head of the SVR residence in America, Sergei Tretyakov, who became a defector and transmitted US documents, died in 2012, choked on a piece of meat in a restaurant.

Daniil Turovsky , Alexander Gorbachev