Viktor Sokolov

Viktor Nikolayevich Sokolov (; born 4 April 1962) is an officer of the Russian Navy. He holds the rank of admiral, and since 2022 has been the commander of the Black Sea Fleet. In 2016, as deputy commander, Sokolov was in charge of a detachment of the Northern Fleet engaged in operations off the coast of Syria during the Russian intervention there. After several months of operations, Sokolov was thanked for his services by the Chief of the General Staff Army General Valery Gerasimov, and returned with the taskforce to the fleet's homebases in Northern Russia. In January 2020 he left his post as deputy commander of the Northern Fleet to take up his new role as head of the N. G. Kuznetsov Naval Academy. In August 2022 during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, he was appointed to command the Black Sea Fleet. Ukraine claimed that Sokolov was killed on 22 September 2023 when the Black Sea Fleet headquarters in Sevastopol, Crimea, was hit by Storm Shadow cruise missiles fired by Ukraine in Operation Crab Trap. The Russian government denied this and published a video purporting to show Sokolov still alive. Early life and service Sokolov was born on 4 April 1962 in Bender (Tighina), in the Moldavian SSR of the Soviet Union (now Moldova, under Transnistrian control). He entered the M.V. Frunze Higher Naval School in Leningrad on 1 August 1980, and graduated on 30 June 1985. His first assignment was with the Pacific Fleet as commander of the mine-torpedo warfare department of the Riga-class frigate SKR-61 from August 1985 to August 1987, followed by a posting as commander of the same department on the Natya-class minesweeper Yakor from August 1987 to October 1989. In that month he moved to command the mine-torpedo warfare department on the Sonya-class minesweeper BT-51, where he remained until December 1990. Sokolov's next posts were as assistant commander of his former vessel Yakor from December 1990 to December 1991, and then as commander of the Yakors sistership Zaryad from September 1992 until September 1993. In between these postings he took and completed the from 1991 to 1992.