Valery Gerasimov

General of the Army Valery Vasilyevich Gerasimov (born 8 September 1955) is a Russian military officer who has been the Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces and first deputy minister of defense since 2012. His previous commands included three military districts and a combined arms army.

Gerasimov was born in Kazan and was commissioned in the Soviet Army after graduating from the Kazan Higher Tank Command School in 1977. He later also attended the Malinovsky Military Armored Forces Academy and the Russian General Staff Academy. Gerasimov is a combat veteran of the Second Chechen War, during which he was chief of staff and then commander of the 58th Combined Arms Army. He later commanded the Leningrad, Moscow, and Central Military Districts.

He was appointed as Chief of the General Staff by President Vladimir Putin on 9 November 2012, replacing Nikolai Makarov. After the seizure of Crimea in 2014 and the Russian intervention in the Syrian civil war, Gerasimov became increasingly influential in the Russian security establishment. He is considered one of the most powerful men in Russia, and one of three people to hold access to Russia's nuclear weapons, alongside Putin and the minister of defense. Gerasimov has been described as a loyal follower of Putin. He is reportedly the one who conceived the Gerasimov doctrine.

On 11 January 2023, he was appointed as the commander of the Joint Group of Forces in the Russo-Ukrainian war, replacing Sergey Surovikin. In 2024, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Gerasimov on charges of alleged war crimes for his role in the Russian invasion of Ukraine.