Vladimir Shuralyov

Vladimir Mikhailovich Shuralyov (; 3 April 1935 – 2 March 2020) was a Soviet and later Russian military officer who held a number of posts in the Soviet Army, reaching the rank of army general.

Drafted into the Soviet Army in 1955, Shuralyov trained in armoured and tank warfare at the Tashkent Higher Tank Command School, furthering his studies at the Military Academy of the Armoured Forces from which he graduated in 1965. From then on he was appointed to chief of staff and command positions of larger armoured unit formations, from battalions to divisions. He served in several of the Soviet Union's military districts, taking command of the 8th Tank Army in 1979. This was followed by the command of the 2nd Guards Tank Army, part of the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany, and then the Belorussian Military District in 1985. From 1989 he was representative of the commander-in-chief of the Warsaw Pact armed forces in the National People's Army of the German Democratic Republic, and in 1990 became a Deputy Minister of Defence and Chief Inspector of the Ministry of Defence. His final active role was to command the Vystrel higher officer courses, before his retirement in 1992.

In retirement Shuralyov became a leading analyst at the Office of Inspectors General and a consultant for the General Staff of the Armed Forces. He was a member of the central council of political party A Just Russia, and had received a number of awards and honours over his career, including the Order of Honour, Order of Lenin, Order of the October Revolution, Order of the Red Star and the Order "For Service to the Homeland in the Armed Forces of the USSR" Third Class. Shuralyov died in 2020 from injuries sustained after being struck by a van.

Early life and career Shuralyov was born in 1935 in Kovrov, Vladimir Oblast, which was then part of the Russian SFSR, in the Soviet Union. He studied while working as head of a repair station on the construction of the Kumertau-Tyurgan railway, in the Bashkir Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. After graduating from the Kovrov College of Railway Transport in 1955 he was drafted into the Soviet Army. In February 2020 Shuralyov attended the funeral of Dmitry Yazov, the last Marshal of the Soviet Union, which took place at the Federal Military Memorial Cemetery. Shuralyov was buried on 5 March in the Federal Military Memorial Cemetery in a funeral ceremony led by Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Ground Forces Oleg Salyukov and attended by around 500 people.

He had received a number of awards and honours over his career, including the Order of Honour, Order of Lenin, Order of the October Revolution, Order of the Red Star and the Order "For Service to the Homeland in the Armed Forces of the USSR" Third Class.