Introduction
Viktor Viktorovich Sakharov (Russian: Виктор Викторович Сахаров; 1848 – 22 November 1905, Saratov) was a Russian Lieutenant General and Minister of War (1904–1905).
Biography
Sakharov was a graduate of the Nicholas Academy of the General Staff and served in the Russo-Turkish War (1877-1878). He was subsequently named Assistant Chief of Staff of the Warsaw Military District, then Quartermaster General of the Warsaw Military District, and then Chief of Staff of the Odessa Military District. In 1898, Sakharov became Chief of the General Staff of the Imperial Russian Army. In early 1904, after the beginning of the Russo-Japanese War, Sakharov succeeded Aleksey Kuropatkin as a Minister of War, when Kuropatkin was appointed commander-in-chief of the Russian land forces in Manchuria. Sakharov remained in St Petersburg throughout the war, and had little influence on the strategy or tactics of the conflict. He was dismissed from this post by Tsar Nicholas II on 21 June 1905 and replaced by Lieutenant General Aleksandr Rediger on 4 July 1905. In late 1905, Sakharov was sent to Saratov Province to restore order during agrarian disturbances. On 22 November 1905, he was mortally shot by the SR woman terrorist Anastasiya Bitsenko in the house of the Saratov governor Pyotr Stolypin.
His brother Vladimir Viktorovich Sakharov was also a general in the Imperial Russian Army.
Awards
Order of St. Stanislaus 3rd degree
Order of St. Anne, 3rd degree with swords (1877)- Order of St. Stanislaus 2nd degree with swords (1877)
- Order of St. Anne, 2nd degree with swords (1878)
Order of St Vladimir 4th degree, with swords (1878)- Order of St Vladimir 3rd degree, with swords (1884)
- Order of St. Stanislaus 1st degree (1893)
- Order of St. Anne, 1st degree (1896)
- Order of St Vladimir 2nd degree, (1901)
Order of St. Stanislaus 3rd degree
Order of St. Anne, 3rd degree with swords (1877)
Order of St Vladimir 4th degree, with swords (1878)