Russian spy chief said to be in Putin firing line for agents’ bungled operations

Colonel-General Igor Korobov, who has died aged 62, headed Russia’s GRU intelligence agency – it was his operatives who were identified as having poisoned the former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, and who were accused of hacking the Democratic Party’s computers during the 2016 United States presidential election.

Even Russian sources knew little of Korobov when he emerged fleetingly from the shadows to receive his pennant of office as head of the Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation in February 2016. Described only as ‘‘a serious man’’, he had been previously one of four deputy directors of the GRU, running its strategic intelligence directorate.

This section controls its bases overseas, meaning that Korobov would have been involved in operations carried out in recent years by the GRU’s special forces soldiers, Spetsnaz. These are thought to have included operations in Crimea at the time of its annexation by Russia in 2014; in the ensuing unrest in Ukraine; in Chechnya; and perhaps activities as part of an attempted coup in Montenegro in 2016.

Under Korobov’s predecessor, Igor Segun, the agency had also been tasked with furthering Russia’s aims in the war in Syria. The GRU, which celebrated its centenary recently, was originally an offshoot of the Bolshevik Red Guard and went on to organise undercover operations abroad. Its symbol is a black bat spreading its wings over the globe.

The agency was thought, however, to have lost ground latterly to its rivals, the FSB and SVR – broadly, the domestic security and foreign intelligence successors to the KGB – while the army aspired to wrest control of Spetsnaz.

Segun, however, had Vladimir Putin’s ear, and it had recovered much of its prestige before his sudden death at the start of 2016. Aged 58, Segun was said to have suffered heart failure, though there were claims he had died during an operation in Lebanon.

Kremlin-watchers speculated that the month’s delay it took to announce his successor meant Korobov was not the first choice. Accordingly, he assumed his post under some pressure to justify his appointment. At the end of 2016, in one of the last acts of the Obama administration, he was among those to whom sanctions were to be applied for having conducted ‘‘malicious cyber-related activities’’ during the US elections.

It therefore came as a surprise when in January this year he was included among those invited by the Trump administration to Washington to discuss intelligence matters, including the threat posed by returning members of Isis.

He was among those to whom sanctions were to be applied for having conducted ‘‘malicious cyber-related activities’’ during the US elections.

Igor Korobov

spy chief b August 3, 1956 d November 21, 2018 Do you know someone who deserves a Life Story? Email obituaries@dompost.co.nz

Then in March came the attack on the Skripals. In 2010, Sergei Skripal, a former GRU officer convicted four years earlier of being an agent for MI6, was among those swapped at Vienna airport for 10 Russian spies, including Anna Chapman. He settled in Salisbury, where he and his daughter were poisoned with what was revealed to be the nerve agent Novichok. A police officer, Nick Bailey, who was investigating the incident, was also affected.

With Russia held responsible by Britain, international outrage led to 150 of its diplomats being expelled from countries worldwide. In June, Dawn Sturgess and her partner Charlie Rowley came across a bogus perfume bottle thought to have contained the poison. She died after spraying some on herself, while the damage to his immune system has led him to contract meningitis, requiring further treatment in hospital.

Two Russian nationals were identified as the suspects, and when in September they gave a peculiar television interview claiming to have been in Salisbury as tourists, this was widely ridiculed. Investigative website Bellingcat stated they were two officers in the GRU. The revelations were undoubtedly of concern to Korobov, not least because of how they reflected on Putin.

Then in October, it became known that in April four other GRU agents had been caught in The Hague trying to hack into the wi-fi system of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Warfare (OPCW), an international watchdog.

They had neglected to carry out even the most elementary precautions to cover their traces or disguise their mission, which included targeting an OPCW laboratory in Switzerland. This series of bungles is said to have led to Korobov being reprimanded in person by Putin, after which he suffered a collapse in his health.

There were claims he had been unwell for some time and had offered his resignation earlier this year but had been asked to carry on. On the announcement of his death, he was said to have been suffering from a ‘‘long and serious illness’’.

Igor Valentinovich Korobov was born in Vyazma, southwest of Moscow. On leaving school, he began training in 1977 at the Stavropol military aviation academy in the Caucasus and served with a fighter regiment in Archangel, on the shores of the White Sea.

He is thought to have joined the GRU in the early 1980s. His talents included the ability to speak several foreign languages. Among his many awards was the Hero of Russia medal.

He and his wife had two daughters. – Telegraph Group