Igor Korobov, the head of the GRU, Russia’s military intelligence agency, has died after a serious and long illness, Moscow’s defence ministry has announced, as a deputy twice sanctioned by the US over interference in the 2016 presidential election was put in place as acting head.

General Colonel Korobov, 62, reportedly started feeling unwell in mid-September, after a meeting with Vladimir Putin and a wave of criticism towards the agency for a series of failings, widely exposed in both Russian and foreign media, including the botched attempt to assassinate former GRU colonel Sergei Skripal and uncovering of an attempted cyber-attack on the headquarters of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in the Netherlands.

The defence ministry said Korobov, who had run the spy agency since 2016, was “a wonderful person, a faithful son of Russia and a patriot of his homeland”. It did not give further details about his death, beyond saying he had suffered a serious and long illness.

His immediate successor is Vice-admiral Igor Kostyukov, 57, who had been carrying out duties of the acting head of the agency for quite a while, the RBC news website reported on Thursday. Kostyukov represented the agency at its centenary in early November.

Just like Korobov, Kostyukov was made the subject of US sanctions in 2016 and 2018 for allegedly meddling with the US presidential election. In 2017, Kostyukov was awarded the Hero of the Russian Federation.

Korobov’s demise elicited scepticism from some commentators – hardly surprising, according to Pavel Luzin, defence industry expert at the Perm State University, given that his predecessor also died in the job two years ago.

“Igor Sergun died in 2016 at the relatively young age of 58, and there were suggestions that he died not in the Moscow region, like it was declared, but in Lebanon,” Luzin said.

Michael Carpenter, a Russia adviser for Barack Obama’s administration, tweeted on Thursday: “His predecessor died in 2016 of a heart attack. Life expectancy for incumbents of this job is pretty low, but then so is the median life expectancy in Russia.”

Yet Luzin and other analysts who study the Kremlin and Russia’s security services warned against conspiracy theories.

“The cause of death was cancer. [The fact that Korobov was ill] has been well known for a while,” said Vladimir Frolov, a prominent foreign policy analyst. “There are no conspiracies there.”

Gennady Gudkov, former State Duma lawmaker who spent more than a decade serving in the Soviet and then Russian security services, echoed his sentiment. “I don’t believe anyone would be able to eliminate the head of the GRU.”

Korobov had worked in military intelligence since 1985 and was made chief of the GRU in 2016 by Putin. The same year he was made the subject of US sanctions for “acts for or on behalf of the GRU”.

In October he was reported to have fallen ill after coming under heavy criticism for failings by the agency.

Korobov has run the spy agency – believed to be Russia’s largest foreign intelligence outfit – since 2016. In recent months, the GRU has come under heavy criticism for a number of failings, including the Skripal case and the embarrassing unmasking of several Russian agents in the Netherlands.

The attempt on Skripal’s life in Salisbury has strained ties between Russia and the UK.



The botched assassination attempt on Skripal and his daughter led to the death of Dawn Sturgess, who, along with partner Charlie Rowley, fell ill after handling a container contaminated with the nerve agent in June.

In September, the UK prime minister, Theresa May, revealed that two Russian nationals had been identified as suspects over the attack and British spy agencies concluded that the men were GRU officers.

The two suspects’ true identities were revealed after a widely dismissed television denial, in which the two suspects claimed they were simply tourists visiting the cathedral city.

Investigative website Bellingcat named the men as Colonel Anatoliy Chepiga, a highly decorated officer in the GRU, and Alexander Mishkin, a military doctor in the GRU.

Both men had been awarded the Hero of the Russian Federation from Putin, the investigators said.

In early October, four Russian intelligence officers, believed to have been part of a GRU “cleanup” unit for earlier failed operations, were revealed to have travelled to the Hague on diplomatic passports in April. Evidence of their connection to the GRU included a taxi receipt for the ride from the GRU headquarters in Moscow to the Sheremetyevo airport.

According to a report by the investigative journalist Sergey Kanev, in October Russia’s defence ministry held a meeting dedicated to the failings of the agency. Behind closed doors, GRU operatives were reportedly called “imbeciles” and accused of “thick incompetence” and “extreme sloppiness”.

Kanev’s sources suggested the GRU was about to undergo a major overhaul, and that Korobov could be replaced by the end of the year.

Kostyukov is thought unlikely to bring any significant changes to the agency. “During the summer we were all expecting a major overhaul of all security services – the FSB, the Interior Ministry,” Gudkov, the former lawmaker, said. “But nothing happened, everyone remained in their place, which means that Putin is not planning any serious reforms any time soon,” Gudkov said.