MOSCOW, Jan 23 (Reuters) – Russian Admiral Igor Kostyukov is set to head Moscow’s team at trilateral security talks with the U.S. and Ukraine on Friday in Abu Dhabi, as part of efforts to reach a deal to end the war in Ukraine.
What do we know about Kostyukov?
CAREER IN MILITARY INTELLIGENCE
Kostyukov is the director of Russia’s military intelligence organisation, known as the GRU. Born in 1961, he received a naval education and went on to serve as a military diplomat, which included a posting as a military attache to the Russian embassy in Greece in 2004.
After he was transferred to the GRU, Kostyukov participated in operations in Syria, according to the RBC newspaper. In 2018, he became acting head of the GRU upon the illness of his boss, Igor Korobov, and full-time head following Korobov’s death. He was the GRU’s first head with a naval background and became an admiral in 2019.
ROLE IN UKRAINE TALKS
President Vladimir Putin has previously sent Kostyukov to participate in talks on Ukraine. He was a member of a Russian delegation that met with Ukrainian counterparts in May 2025 in Istanbul, the first face-to-face talks between the warring sides in three years.
Kostyukov has played a role in other high-profile foreign policy discussions. Last June, he joined Putin, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Kremlin foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov at a meeting with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi in the Kremlin shortly after the United States conducted attacks on Iran’s nuclear sites.
SKRIPAL POISONING
The GRU has been thrust into the international spotlight several times during Kostyukov’s tenure there.
In March 2018, when Kostyukov was serving as the GRU’s first deputy head, Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were poisoned by a nerve agent in the English city of Salisbury.
A UK inquiry found last year that a team of GRU military intelligence officers had attempted to murder Skripal. Russia has always denied any involvement in the attack, casting the accusations as anti-Russian propaganda.
Kostyukov was put under sanctions by the United States in 2016. In 2019, the European Union sanctioned him and several GRU colleagues over the Salisbury poisoning. He is also under sanctions by Britain and several other Western countries.
(Reporting by Lucy Papachristou, Editing by Mark Trevelyan)
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