Russia's chief of military intelligence, Igor Korobov, dies after illness

The leader of the GRU, Russia's military knowledge organization, has passed on after a "genuine and long sickness", the Kremlin has reported.

The resistance service said General Colonel Igor Korobov, 62, who has run the government agent organization since 2016, was "a great individual, a loyal child of Russia and a nationalist of his country." It didn't give further insights about his demise.

The organization is accepted to be Russia's biggest remote knowledge outfit, and stands blamed over the Novichok assault in Salisbury that focused previous GRU colonel Sergei Skripal and his little girl, Yulia. The endeavor, prominent for its botches, has stressed ties among Russia and the UK.

The service articulation stated: "The authority of the Defense Ministry of the Russian Federation, General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation (GSA) and Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation advise with extraordinary bitterness that on 21 November 2018, after a genuine and long ailment, leader of the (GRU), vice president of the GSA Colonel General Korobov Igor Valentinovich passed away at 63 years old."

"The memory of a magnificent individual, a genuine child of Russia, a loyalist of the Fatherland Colonel General Korobov Igor Valentinovich will everlastingly stay in our souls. We express sympathies to his family and companions."

Korobov had worked in military insight since 1985 and was made head of the GRU in 2016 by president Vladimir Putin. That year he was made the subject of US sanctions for "represents or in the interest of the GRU".

In October he was accounted for to have fallen sick in the wake of going under overwhelming feedback for failings by the office.

Michael Carpenter, a Russia counselor for Barack Obama's organization, tweeted on Thursday: "His antecedent passed on in 2016 of a heart assault. Future for officeholders of this activity is really low, yet at that point so is the middle future in Russia."

The finger of fault was pointed decisively at the GRU following the harming of the Skripals in March. The bungled death endeavor prompted the demise of Dawn Sturgess, who, alongside accomplice Charlie Rowley, fell sick in the wake of taking care of a compartment polluted with the nerve specialist in June.

In September, Theresa May uncovered that two Russian nationals had been recognized as suspects over the assault. English covert operative organizations closed the men, who headed out to the UK under the false names of Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov, were GRU officers.

The PM portrayed the office as an "exceptionally trained association with a settled hierarchy of leadership".

The two presumes' actual personalities were uncovered after a generally expelled TV forswearing, in which the two suspects asserted they were basically voyagers visiting the house of God city.

Analytical site Bellingcat said it had built up Boshirov's actual personality, announcing he was really Colonel Anatoliy Chepiga, an exceedingly enhanced officer in the GRU. Bellingcat later said Petrov's genuine character was Alexander Mishkin, a military specialist in the GRU.

The two men had been granted the Hero of the Russian Federation from Putin, the agents said. The Bellingcat claims pursued the president's attestation that the men were regular citizens and had been limited as individuals from his security organize.

Skripal was given shelter in the UK in 2010 after a government operative swap in which 10 Russian sleeper specialists were removed from the US. Russia has constantly denied endeavoring to murder him.