Igor Korobov


Igor Valentinovich Korobov was the Chief of the Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, Russia's military intelligence agency previously known as the GRU.

Early life

Igor Korobov was born in Vyazma, a town in Russia's Smolensk Oblast, on 3 August 1956. In 1977, Korobov graduated with honors from the Stavropol Higher Military Aviation School for Pilots and Navigators, North Caucasus Military District, as an officer in the Soviet Air Forces.

Career

Korobov served as head of the Strategic Intelligence Directorate. He was appointed by president Vladimir Putin to head the military intelligence directorate following the sudden death of Igor Sergun in January 2016.
On 29 December 2016, Korobov was one of the individuals sanctioned by the United States Department of the Treasury for "malicious cyber-enabled activities" threatening the national security of the United States. Nevertheless, he officially visited the U.S., along with other Russia's top security chiefs, at the end of January 2018.
Korobov died on 21 November 2018, "after a long and serious illness", according to sources in the Russian defence ministry cited by official news agencies. Korobov's death was a few months after the badly bungled poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal, widely attributed to Korobov's GRU. GRU defector Viktor Suvorov has no direct information, but said "my spy instinct tells me that Korobov was murdered. Everyone sitting inside GRU would understand this, 125%." Korobov would have been killed to eliminate a witness who might defect.