A Russian general who was hit hard in the fighting with Ukraine and eventually retreated and resigned as commander-in-chief of the war has died. Suspicion of a mysterious death was raised by some of his sudden death.
On the 17th (local time), The Times reported that former Russian Deputy Defense Minister Gennady Zidko, who commanded the war in Ukraine from May to October last year, died in Moscow the day before at the age of 57.
The Kremlin did not comment on General Zidko’s death. However, Mikhail Degtylev먹튀검증, governor of the Khabarovsk region in the Far East of Russia, said via Telegram, “General Zidko, who was awarded the Hero’s Medal, died after a long illness.” He was a soldier who paid close attention to his soldiers and faithfully performed his duties.”
General Zidko, who had been appointed commander-in-chief of the war since May of last year, was dismissed in October of the same year after being pushed back by Ukrainian troops in the Kharkiv region of northeastern Ukraine. From 2018 to 2021, he served as Commander of the Eastern Military District of Russia, which belongs to the Khabarovsk Oblast, and served as Deputy Minister of Defense from 2021 to 2022. He commanded Russian troops in Syria in 2016, and the following year received the highest decoration awarded to a soldier, the ‘Hero of the Russian Federation’, by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
General Zidko participated in the Russian invasion of Ukraine and was subject to sanctions from the United Kingdom, the European Union (EU) and the United States. A Telegram channel supporting the Russian invasion described General Zidko as a “true patriot” who “did take part in the war in Ukraine despite being diagnosed with an incurable disease.” The channel also claimed that “he was dismissed from the post of commander-in-chief in Ukraine not because of the defeat of the Russian army, but because of illness.”
However, in connection with the death of General Zidko, there are claims on local social media that he may have been poisoned. Zidko is the seventh Russian general killed since the start of the war in Ukraine in February last year, according to Mediazona, a Russian opposition website that tracks military deaths. Dmitry Kolesev, a local opposition journalist, posted on social media, “One commander (Surovykin) is missing and the other (Zidko) is dead. We will keep an eye on the rest,” he said.