Filipp Starikov

Filipp Nikiforovich Starikov (; – 2 October 1980) was a Soviet military commander.

Biography Starikov was born in the village of Novo-Torzhatskaya in Urzhumsky District in Vyatka Governorate (now in Kirov Oblast). He entered the Imperial Russian Army in 1915 as a private. During World War I he served as senior clerk of an infantry regiment on the Romanian Front. He joined the Red Army in 1918 and served in the Russian Civil War as a platoon commander, fighting the White movement on the Eastern Front and Southern Front as well as the Basmachi movement in Russian Turkestan. In 1928 he completed the Vystrel course intended to train battalion and regimental officers for the Soviet infantry.

In 1938 Starikov received command of the 9th Rifle Corps, part of the 7th Army. During the Winter War Starikov's unit was to capture the Finnish town of Terijoki (now Zelenogorsk, Russia). Rather than an expected easy victory, the Red Army performed poorly, and while the Soviet Union was able to impose several territorial concessions on Finland, the reputation of the Soviet armed forces suffered. In June 1940 Starikov was promoted to major general and later named Chief Inspector of the Red Army's Infantry Inspectorate. In November Starikov was promoted to lieutenant general. On July 22, the Red Army launched the Mga Offensive, named for the town of Mga, where the 8th Army was supposed to link up with 67th Army. Starikov's 8th Army attacked from the east, but was unsuccessful, and the offensive ended with large Soviet losses on August 22.

In January 1944 Starikov's 8th Army participated in the Leningrad–Novgorod Offensive, providing vital defense during the Battle for Narva Bridgehead when the German 170th, 11th, and 227th Infantry Divisions under Hyacinth Graf Strachwitz penetrated deep into Soviet lines. After a period of rest and reinforcement, Starikov and 8th Army next saw action during the Narva Offensive, successfully capturing Narva but failing to dislodge Axis forces from the Tannenberg Line. Along with the 2nd Shock Army and the Baltic Fleet, the 8th Army took mainland Estonia in the Tallinn Offensive in September. As a subset of the overall Baltic Offensive, 8th Army was part of the Moonsund Operation in November that cleared Axis forces from the West Estonian archipelago. The 8th Army defended the Estonian coast from December to May 1945 and in October 1945 it was disbanded.

From 1945 to 1949 Starikov served as deputy commander of the Moscow Military District and as Assistant Inspector General of Infantry for the inspector general of the Soviet Ministry of Defense. From 1949 to 1951 and again from 1953 to 1954 he served as deputy chair of the central committee of DOSAAF, the Soviet Union's paramilitary sports organization. Between those tenures he worked for the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union. Until his retirement in 1955 he held a position at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations.

Awards and decorations