- Valentin Korabelnikov
General of the Army Valentin Vladimirovich Korabelnikov (in _ru. Валентин Владимирович Корабельников, b.
January 4 1946 , inTambov Oblast ,Soviet Union ) is aRussia n military official.Since May 1997 he has been the Chief of the Main Intelligence Directorate (
GRU ) of the Russian General Staff, Russia's largest intelligence agency which commanded 25,000Spetsnaz troops in 1997 of which many actively participated in theChechen Wars .He graduated from the Military-Diplomatic Academy of intelligence and traversed almost all the steps of the bureaucratic ladder in
GRU [http://www.jamestown.org/publications_details.php?volume_id=4&issue_id=217&article_id=2507] .He has always been personally involved in operational work. He was reportedly ambushed by Chechen fighters and wounded [ [http://www.axisglobe.com/article.asp?article=761 Mossad Agents Eliminated in the Northern Caucasus ] ] .In July 1999, he received an official acknowledgment from president
Boris Yeltsin "for the significant contribution to settlement of the Kosovo War". He was a member of Russian delegation, led by Prime MinisterYevgeny Primakov that met withSlobodan Milosevic during NATO bombing of Yugoslavia [http://www.nwc.navy.mil/balkans/bc2m29p2.htm] .He was a member of Commission on military-technical cooperation with foreign countries from September 1999 to November 2000.
External links
* [http://www.cdi.org/russia/265-17.cfm Smart and well trained people work with US] His interview
* [http://en.rian.ru/photolents/20061109/55488751.html President Putin visits new GRU headquarters]
* [http://www.peoples.ru/military/general/valentin_korabelnikov/ Another interview (Russian)]
* [http://www.anticompromat.ru/korabelnikov/korabelbio.html His biography (Russian)]
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.