Fyodor Kostenko
Soviet lieutenant general (1896–1942)
Fyodor Yakovlevich Kostenko (Russian: Фёдор Яковлевич Костенко; 22 February 1896 – 26 May 1942) was a Soviet corps and army commander.
Biography
He was born in Bolshaya Martynovka, Martynovsky District, Rostov Oblast to an ethnic Ukrainian family. He fought in the Imperial Russian Army during World War I before going over to the Bolsheviks during the subsequent civil war.
In World War II, he commanded the 26th Army (June – September 1941) and the Southwestern Front (December 1941–April 1942).
He led an operational group during the Yelets Operation from 6 December to 16 December 1941, which ended with the defeat of several enemy divisions.
Kostenko went missing on 26 May 1942, and was presumed killed, being surrounded during the tragic Second Battle of Kharkov.
He was a recipient of the Order of Lenin, the Order of the Red Banner and the Order of the Red Star.
Discovery and reburial
Kostenko's body was rediscovered in spring 2016 in Kharkiv Oblast, between the villages of Husarivka and Lozovenka. Two sets of human remains were found, identified as officers from their boots. The fabric remains of stripes and the name "Kostenko" on a document helped to identify the remains of the older individual as being Kostenko's.
“Fyodor Kostenko” enters the record as soviet lieutenant general (1896–1942). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Fyodor, Kostenko and Soviet can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 10, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4235326. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1896, 1942, 1941 and 2016.
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This entry incorporates text from “Fyodor Kostenko” 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.