German Ugryumov German Alexeyevich Ugryumov ( ; October 10 , 1948 , Astrakhan , Soviet Union – May 31 , 2001 , Khankala , Chechnya , Russia ) was a Soviet and Russian navy and security services official . During his childhood he lived in Chelyabinsk Oblast . Naval counterintelligence career . Ugryumov graduated in 1972 from the Caspian Navy Higher School in Baku , and in 1975 he joined the KGB . In 1976 , he graduated from the Counterintelligence Higher School in Novosibirsk . He worked for the Caspian Fleet counterintelligence unit in Baku until 1992 , and worked in Azerbaijan during the Black January of 1990 . From 1992 to 1993 he led the Black Sea Fleet counterintelligence unit in Novorossiysk . In 1993 , he became the chief of Pacific Fleet FSB counterintelligence . While in this post , he initiated the prosecution of journalist Captain Grigory Pasko on charges of the collection and storage of allegedly classified documents of the Pacific Fleet , as well as their transfer to the Japanese NHK TV company and " Asahi Shimbun " newspaper . Pasko was arrested in Vladivostok on November 20 , 1997 , as soon as he had returned from a trip to Japan . Pasko insisted that he had only transferred public documents on ecology and that the case had been fabricated by the FSB . He was found not guilty by a court in 2000 , but the decision was later overturned and on December 25 , 2001 , Pasko was sentenced to four years imprisonment . Ugryumov had already died by the time of Pasko ' s sentence . Second Chechen War . In 1998 , the new FSB Director , Vladimir Putin , promoted Ugryumov to deputy chief of the Military Counterintelligence Directorate of the FSB for the Navy . In 1999 , he was appointed first deputy chief of the FSB Department for Protection of the Constitutional System and the Fight against Terrorism . From November 1999 until his death he led the department and supervised the FSB Special - Purpose Center that included the Alpha Group and Vympel spetsnaz units . Ugryumov masterminded the arrest of Chechen warlord Salman Raduev in March 2000 . In September 2000 , Ugryumov and Deputy Interior Minister Vladimir Kozlov managed the resolution of a hostage crisis in Lazarevskoye near Sochi . On December 20 , 2000 , President Putin awarded Ugryumov the Hero of Russia title for his leadership of a series of special operations conducted during the Second Chechen War . On January 21 , 2001 , Putin transferred the supervision of military operations in Chechnya from the Interior Ministry and military to the FSB , and placed Ugryumov in charge of the " liquidation of the leaders of terrorist groups " as head of the regional counter - terrorist staff . According to the " St Petersburg Times " , this was the first time in the history of Russia that the security services had been given control of a military operation . In spring 2001 , Ugryumov was promoted from rear admiral to admiral . Death and legacy . Ugryumov died on May 31 , 2001 , in Khankala , the main Russian military base in Chechnya . According to the official version , he died of acute heart failure . He was a seriously overweight man , reportedly weighting 140 kilograms , which had probably contributed greatly to his health deterioration . However , Grigory Pasko speculated that Ugryumov ' s death might have been murder , and some undisclosed FSB sources informed Alexander Korzhakov ' s " Stringer " website that Ugryumov had shot himself . On September 5 , 2001 , the Yakhont / Sonya class minesweeper BT 244 of the Russian Caspian Fleet was renamed in his honor . Vyacheslav Morozov , a friend and colleague of Ugryumov , subsequently published a biography of Ugryumov entitled " The FSB Admiral " . On December 9 , 2002 , " Novaya Gazeta " published an open letter from Yusuf Krymshamkhalov and Timur Batchaev , Karachai suspects in the 1999 apartment blocks bombings in Moscow and Volgodonsk , to the commission for investigation of this event . In the letter , they claimed that Ugryumov had supervised the bombing campaign on behalf of the FSB , and included an interview with one of main proponents of this theory , historian Yury Felshtinsky . Felshtinsky had passed the letter to the newspaper , and alleged that Ugryumov had committed suicide , possibly under pressure from the FSB .