Major General Valery Plokhotnyuk was buried on August 5 at the Troekurovskoye Cemetery in Moscow, according to the Telegram channel VChK-OGPU, which first reported the funeral. Mediazona, Agentstvo, and The Insider confirmed his death through state registry data.
According to the registries, one of Plokhotnyuk's personal documents was invalidated on August 1, the day of the explosion at the Balzi Rossi restaurant on Kudrinskaya Square in Moscow. VChK-OGPU claims the general died in that blast, but there is no official confirmation.
Based on personal data leaks reviewed by Agentstvo, Plokhotnyuk was a close acquaintance of Alexander Chaiko, commander-in-chief of the Russian Aerospace Forces. The nature of their connection is unclear: one contact in a phone book listed the deceased general as "Plokhotnyuk Valera, Masha's godfather" — Masha is Chaiko's daughter.
Plokhotnyuk took part in the war against Ukraine. In 2022, he was chief of staff of the 49th Army, whose units operated in the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia directions. Since at least autumn 2022, he worked at the Academician Semenikhin Research Institute of Automatic Equipment, an enterprise developing military and civilian control systems.
According to VChK-OGPU, on August 6, Daniil Peredry, Chaiko's son-in-law, was also buried at Troekurovskoye Cemetery. Agentstvo confirmed his death on August 1 through state database records. Several media outlets reported that he also died in the restaurant explosion, which was allegedly celebrating Chaiko's 55th birthday.
The blast killed five people and wounded more than 20. Russian authorities have not officially released the names of the dead. The National Anti-Terrorism Committee said an explosive device with a power of about one kilogram in TNT equivalent was detonated remotely at the restaurant entrance: a bomb packed with shrapnel was carried by a female courier whom a security guard prevented from entering. No one has claimed responsibility.
Sources differ: VChK-OGPU directly links the deaths of Plokhotnyuk and Peredry to the Balzi Rossi explosion, while officials have not disclosed the causes or circumstances of their deaths. Earlier, media speculated that Lieutenant General Igor Erusalimov might have been buried at Troekurovskoye on August 5, but Verstka reported that the news of his death could have been a hoax: a correspondent called a number believed to be his, and he asked her to "write nothing" about him. Russia's embassy in Italy called Ukrainian special services the likely organizers of the blast, a version rejected by Italy's Foreign Ministry.