Vladimir Putin’s “keeper of secrets” died on Christmas Day, less than two years after the Russian president fired him.
Colonel-General Yuri Sadovenko, 56, died suddenly from “heart disease” on Christmas Day in Moscow, according to Russian news outlets.
Sadovenko served as deputy defense minister for more than a decade before he and former Russian defense minister Sergei Shoigu were ousted in May 2024 in a massive Kremlin shakeup.
Shoigu, to whom Sadovenko had reportedly acted as a “gatekeeper,” is now the secretary of Russia’s security council.
Sadovenko, who had been sanctioned by the U.S., U.K., and other Western states, reportedly showed no signs of ill health before his death.
He had previously been embroiled in a scandal when his wife, Maria Kitaeva, left him for another deputy defense minister, Timur Ivanov, according to The Sun.
Ivanov, 50, was arrested in April 2024 and convicted in July 2025 on charges of embezzlement and money laundering, receiving a 13-year prison sentence, the Associated Press reported.
Since the Russia-Ukraine war began in February 2022, several top government officials have died in suspicious or sudden circumstances.
On Monday, a funeral was held in Moscow for Stanislav Orlov, 44, the head of a notorious volunteer brigade of neo-Nazi football hooligans who have fought in Ukraine.
Independent Russian news outlets have reported that Orlov, nicknamed the “Spaniard,” was ambushed and shot by Moscow’s own security forces earlier this month, according to The Guardian.
Orlov’s death adds to a growing list of fatalities among Russian military and civilian leaders, most notably Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the Wagner group of mercenaries.
Prigozhin, 62, died in a plane crash in August 2023, weeks after leading an insurrection against Putin. He had once been close enough to the Russian dictator to earn the nickname “Putin’s chef.”
In July this year, Putin sacked Transport Minister Roman Starovoit, 53, who was found dead hours later in a park with a gunshot wound to the head. His death was ruled a suicide.
On the same day, Andrei Korneichuk, 42, another transportation official who had worked closely with Starovoit, collapsed and died of what was said to be a heart attack.
Other Russian officials’ deaths have long sparked jokes about staying away from windows.
However, not all sudden deaths are equal. Ukraine has been able to assassinate several leading Russian military figures hundreds of miles behind enemy lines in recent months.
Last week, a top general, Lt. Gen. Fanil Sarvarov, died after a bomb exploded under his car in Moscow. The Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation believes Ukraine could be behind the blast.
