The Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation has reported the death of the chief of the Main Directorate of the General Staff, better known as the GRU, Lieutenant General Igor Korobov (pictured left). Another chief, the previous one, Lieutenant General Igor Sergun (pictured right), also died under mysterious circumstances in January 2016. According to the official version, both died of heart failure. Korobov was 63 at the time of his death, Sergun 59.
On the one hand, this is not unusual, since, according to the initiators of the pension reform, Russian men on average should not live beyond this age in order not to burden the state after retirement. But Korobov and Sergun are a different story. They represent the elite of the current regime and have access to its benefits, including the best health care in the country. Therefore, it is difficult to believe in their «natural deaths,» especially in such a sequence and with such a short interval.
It is worth remembering the context in which these deaths occurred. Igor Sergun was one of the organizers of the annexation of Crimea and the war in Donbass. Another key organizer and leader of the same operations, the chief of staff of the Airborne Forces (VDV), Major General Alexander Shushukin, also died in 2015. At the age of 52. Also of heart failure.
As for the recently deceased Korobov, it is worth noting that the information about his «death from heart failure» began circulating in the media a month ago, when it was reported that after the failure of the GRU in the Skripal case and the embarrassing circus with the so-called Petrov and Boshirov, Korobov was hospitalized after a seizure. It is also strange that with the level of medicine in the Kremlin, after examining such a high-ranking patient, the doctors should have known that he was on his way to a heart attack. After that, it would have been logical for him to leave his post and focus on treatment, especially since the opportunity was perfect — when else would the leadership of the agency be changed, if not after such a global failure?
However, it is quite possible that the Kremlin, unlike the rest of the world, now replaces the heads of such departments in a rather specific way. In this regard, it is worth noting that another head of the GRU, Major General Yuri Ivanov, also «died» in 2010. According to the official version, he drowned in the Mediterranean. Perhaps his heart could not take it — he traded excessively. In the same year, the head of the intelligence department of the Russian Interior Ministry, Major General Viktor Chevrizov, «shot himself with his service pistol. His nerves probably couldn’t take it anymore. The former head of the KGB’s foreign intelligence service, Lieutenant General Leonid Shebarshin, also «shot himself with his service pistol» in 2012.
By the way, it’s worth noting that Sergei Skripal, who was supposed to «die» this year and is a colonel of the same GRU, apparently because of his assistance to British intelligence in exposing the spy network of this organization in Europe. However, Skripal survived despite severe poisoning, and Korobov, who sent «Petrov and Boshirov» to admire the spire of Salisbury Cathedral, died. After all this, one can only wonder whether British medicine is significantly better than Russian medicine, or whether the role of the head of the GRU is much more dangerous than that of a defector from it…