Vladimir Vasilyevich Smirnov

Vladimir Vasilyevich Smirnov (; 4 June 1849 – 1 November 1918) was an Imperial Russian Army general of the infantry who was a division, corps and field army commander. He fought in the Russian-Turkish War of 1877–1878 and in World War I.

Biography Born on 4 June 1849, Smirnov began his education in the Polotsk Cadet Corps, then transferred to the Pavlovsk Military School on 23 August 1865.

In March 1917, Smirnov relieved General Aleksei Evert as commander of the Western Front. A subordinate, V. Dzhunkovsky, lamented the end of Smirnov's long tour as commander of the 2nd Army, recalling: “The departure of the commander of the 2nd Army, General Smirnov: On the same day I published a farewell order of the commander of the army, the worthy General Smirnov, who received a different appointment. I was very sorry to leave the command of this honest, noble general.”

Smirnov's command of the Western Front was short-lived. On 8 April 1917, he was reassigned to the Ministry of War, and on 22 April 1917 he became a member of the Ministry of War's Military Council.

Russian Civil War After the October Revolution, Smirnov moved from Petrograd to the Mineralnye Vody area. In September 1918, during the Russian Civil War, he was taken hostage by the Red Army and on 1 November 1918, together with generals Nikolai Ruzsky, Radko Dimitriev, and others, was shot at Pyatigorsk. According to other sources, he was shot by the Bolsheviks in Kiev in sometime between February and April 1919.

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