Nikolai Staskov

Nikolai Viktorovich Staskov (Russian: Николай Викторович Стаськов; born 28 August 1951) is a retired Russian Airborne Forces lieutenant general who was deputy commander of the Airborne Forces for Peacekeeping Forces from 1993 to 1997 and the chief of staff and first deputy commander of the Airborne Forces from 1998 to 2005.

Staskov is a veteran of the Ethiopian Civil War, the First Chechen War, and the Dagestan War. He graduated from the Ryazan Guards Higher Airborne Command School, the Frunze Military Academy, and the General Staff Academy. He was a military advisor in Ethiopia, and later commanded some of the forces that were involved in the storming of Grozny in Chechnya. Throughout the 1990s he also oversaw the deployment of Russian troops into former Yugoslavia as part of the United Nations Protection Force, and the NATO Implementation Force and Kosovo Force.

After becoming the chief of staff and first deputy commander of the Airborne Forces he helped with the reform of the service, including the change of the 76th Guards Airborne Division into an all-volunteer unit as part of the plan to turn the entire service into a fully professional force. Although he was not chosen to become the commander of the Russian Airborne Forces, Staskov had a significant influence on the development of the branch in the post-Soviet years. He retired from military service in 2005.

In the 2004 Russian gubernatorial elections he stood as a candidate for governor of Pskov Oblast but did not win. In 2005 he earned a doctorate of political science from the Russian Presidential Academy of Public Administration. Since 2016 he has been the secretary and deputy chairman of DOSAAF.