By IANS/RIA Novosti,
Moscow : The chief of Russia’s military intelligence GRU has resigned from his post, the Kommersant business daily reported.
The 64-year-old Col. Gen. Alexander Shlyakhturov, who resigned Saturday, will in the near future head the board of directors of the Moscow Institute of Heat Engineering, the developer of the Bulava ballistic missile and other strategic missile systems.
The institute is now being led by the head of Russia’s federal space agency Roscosmos Vladimir Popovkin.
President Dmitry Medvedev said in April that he wanted all government ministers to give up their seats on the boards of some of the country’s biggest state firms.
Shlyakhturov has led the GRU since April 2009. However, nothing is known about Shlyakhturov’s biography and service record.
The name of the future chief of military intelligence has not been known yet.
GRU or Glavnoye Razvedyvatel’noye Upravleniye is the foreign military intelligence directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation.
The English transliteration of the Russian acronym stands for Main Intelligence Directorate.