Sultan Sosnaliyev
Soviet/Abkhaz General (1942-2008)
Sultan Aslambekovich Sosnaliyev (Russian: Султан Асламбекович Сосналиев; 23 April 1942 – 23 November 2008) was a Soviet Army officer of Circassian ethnicity who served as a commander of Abkhaz and North Caucasian forces during the War in Abkhazia and as the defence minister of Abkhazia in 1993–1996 and 2005–2007.
Early life
Sultan Sosnaliyev was born in Baksan in Kabardino-Balkaria, Russia, to Kabardin parents. He graduated from the Syzran Higher Military Aviation School and from the Zhukov Air and Space Defense Academy and served in the Soviet anti-aircraft forces for 29 years. He retired in 1990 in the rank of a colonel and worked in Kabardino-Balkaria's construction industry till 1992.
Role in the War in Abkhazia
Sosnaliyev became the head of the military department of the newly formed Confederation of Mountain Peoples of the Caucasus. After the beginning of the War in Abkhazia he arrived to Abkhazia with the group of Kabardin volunteers through on 15 August 1992. He was appointed the head of the staff of the Gudauta-based State Committee of the Defence and was one of the planners of the victorious Battle of Gagra.
He was appointed the minister of defence in April 1993 and later awarded the rank of Major General. Sosnaliyev and Sergei Dbar planned the July and September Sukhumi offensives. On 24–25 March 1994 Sosnaliyev was in charge of the last operation of the war—the capture of the village of Lata in the Kodori Valley.
The public source identifies “Sultan Sosnaliyev” as soviet/Abkhaz General (1942-2008). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Sultan, Sosnaliyev and Soviet.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4429490. VIAF identifies the subject as 168973167. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1942, 2008, 1993 and 1996.
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This entry incorporates text from “Sultan Sosnaliyev” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.