Viktor Samsonov

General of the Army Viktor Nikolayevich Samsonov (10 November 1941 – 17 November 2024) was a Russian military officer. He became a Soviet Army officer after graduating the Far Eastern Higher Combined Arms Command School in 1964. He was the last Chief of the General Staff of the Soviet Armed Forces from 1991 to 1992 and was in command of all military forces on the territory of the Russian SFSR after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. He was then the Chief of the General Staff of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) Armed Forces from 1992 to 1993, Chief of Staff for Coordinating Military Cooperation of the CIS Member States from 1993 to 1996, and the Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation from 1996 to 1997.

Early military career Samsonov was born on 10 November 1941 in the work settlement of Dukhovnitskoye, Saratov Oblast, Russian SFSR. After he graduated from school he first worked at a train station in Sosnogorsk. He entered the Soviet Army in 1960 as an officer cadet, and was commissioned as a lieutenant at the Far Eastern Higher Command School in July 1964. In October of that year he was assigned to the Soviet Naval Infantry, where he served as a platoon and company commander, Samsonov attended the Frunze Military Academy in the early 1970s, where he was classmates with Mikhail Moiseyev and Boris Gromov,

In September 1983 he was made the chief of staff of a field army, and in May 1985 he was appointed as commander of the 4th Army, in the Transcaucasian Military District. In May 1987, as a lieutenant general, Samsonov was made chief of staff and first deputy commander of the Transcaucasian Military District. In July 1990 he became the commander of the Leningrad Military District, and during the August 1991 coup attempt in the Soviet Union he was named the military commandant of Leningrad by the State Committee on the State of Emergency. and in December of that year Samsonov became the Chief of Staff for Coordinating Military Cooperation of the CIS Member States. for which he was dismissed in May 1997, He was buried with military honours at the Federal Military Memorial Cemetery on 20 November 2024.

Awards and decorations Order of Friendship Order of the Red Banner Order "For Service to the Homeland in the Armed Forces of the USSR" Medal "For Battle Merit" Jubilee Medal "In Commemoration of the 100th Anniversary of the Birth of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin" Medal "For Distinction in Guarding the State Border of the USSR" Jubilee Medal "Twenty Years of Victory in the Great Patriotic War 1941–1945" Medal "In Commemoration of the 850th Anniversary of Moscow" Medal "Veteran of the Armed Forces of the USSR" Medal "For Strengthening of Brotherhood in Arms" Jubilee Medal "50 Years of the Armed Forces of the USSR" Jubilee Medal "60 Years of the Armed Forces of the USSR" Jubilee Medal "70 Years of the Armed Forces of the USSR" Medal "In Commemoration of the 1500th Anniversary of Kiev" Medal "For Impeccable Service"