Sergey Kobylash

Sergey Ivanovich Kobylash (Russian: Сергей Иванович Кобылаш; born 1 April 1965) is a Russian military officer who has been the Commander of the Russian Air Force and a Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Aerospace Forces since July 2024. Prior to that, he was the commander of Long-Range Aviation from 2016 to 2024 and Director of Aviation of the Air Force from 2013 to 2015. He was born in Odessa, Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, and began his career as a pilot in the Soviet Air Forces. Kobylash has over 1,700 flight hours and flew combat missions in the First and Second Chechen Wars and the Russo-Georgian War. During the latter conflict he was shot down twice, and each time bailed out and was retrieved by helicopter. He was made a Hero of the Russian Federation after the war. He is a graduate of the Yeysk Military Aviation Institute, the Gagarin Air Force Academy, and the General Staff Academy. In 2024 a warrant for the arrest of Kobylash was issued by the International Criminal Court for his alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity as part of the Russian strikes against Ukrainian infrastructure (2022–present).