Nikolai Kostechko

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Nikolai Nikolayevich Kostechko (Russian: Николай Николаевич Костечко) was a Soviet and Russian military intelligence officer who rose to the rank of colonel general. He was born on 25 November 1946 in Domashitsy, Pinsk District, Byelorussian SSR (now Belarus) and died on 3 July 2022 in Moscow, Russia, at age 75.

He joined the army in 1964 and trained at the Cherepovets Military School of Communications. He later studied at the Military-Diplomatic Academy (1973) and the Higher Academic Courses of the General Staff (1996). Kostechko served in the GRU, the Soviet and later Russian intelligence service, including combat roles in the Soviet–Afghan War with the 40th Army and leadership of special forces operations in the Second Chechen War. He also oversaw the Ka-50 helicopter program and contributed to the 1993 film Black Shark about Russian special forces.

In the 1990s he headed the GRU’s 14th Directorate and later became Chief of Staff and First Deputy Director of the Main Directorate of the General Staff (GRU). He retired in 2009. Kostechko was named a Hero of the Russian Federation in 2000 and received multiple awards, including the Order of the Red Star, the Order “For Merit to the Fatherland” Fourth Class, the Order of Courage, and the Order of Military Merit. He was a doctor of military sciences, a professor, and author of more than 25 works. He also became an honorary citizen of the Pinsk Region in 2006 and lived in Moscow after retirement.