Anatoly Pozdnyakov

Anatoly Pozdnyakov (died 17 September 2001) was a Russian general, alternatively identified as a Lieutenant General and Major General, and aide to Chief of the General Staff Anatoly Kvashnin.

Death
Pozdnyakov was killed on 17 September 2001 when e a surface-to-air-missile downed his Mil Mi-8 helicopter in Chechnya (see 2001 Grozny Mi-8 crash). Official reports concluded that the attack on the helicopter was orchestrated by members of a Chechen terorist group specialized in targeting high-ranking Russian military personnel.

Journalist Anna Politkovskaya, however, claimed that Pozdnyakov was assassinated by members of the Russian military. Pozdnyakov headed a General Staff "inspection team" and, according to Politkovskaya, communicated to her in an interview shortly before his death that he had been tasked by President Vladimir Putin to investigate and report on "military crimes".

In A Small Corner of Hell: Dispatches from Chechnya, Politkovskaya wrote: "This is one of Chechnya's main problems. It's not the militants' craftiness or armaments or the foreign origins of their weapons, but the betrayal by its own "defenders." Those who want the war to go on are capable of anything. For example, the total blockade of Grozny that on September 17, 2001, created all the necessary conditions for antiaircraft rocket shooting at certain generals. Shooting without witnesses."

- Anna Politkovskaya