Alexander Lebed

Alexander Lebed'
Alexander Lebed' at a 1996 news conference in Moscow. Photo by Mikhail Evstafiev
National Security Advisor to the President of Russia
Secretary of the Security Council
In office 1996 – 1996
Preceded by	Oleg Lobov
Succeeded by	Ivan Rybkin
Governor of Krasnoyarsk Krai
In office 1998 – 2002
Preceded by	Valery Zubov
Succeeded by	Alexander Khloponin
Born	April 20, 1950(1950-04-20) Novocherkassk, Soviet Union
Died	April 28, 2002 (age 52) Abakan, Russia
Political party	Congress of Russian Communities
Spouse(s)	Inna Lebed'
Profession	Military
Military service
Service/branch	VDV
Years of service	1969-1995
Rank	Lieutenant General
Commands	106th Guards Tula Airborne Division 14th Guards Army
Battles/wars	Soviet war in Afghanistan Conflict in Transnistria and Gagauzia

Alexander Ivanovich Lebed' (Russian: Алекса́ндр Ива́нович Ле́бедь; 20 April 1950, Novocherkassk – 28 April 2002, Abakan) was a Russian Lieutenant General and politician. He placed third in the 1996 Russian presidential election, with 14.5% of the vote nationwide. He later served as Russia's Secretary of the Security Council and as governor of Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia's second largest region. He served four years in the latter position, until his death, following a Mi-8 helicopter crash.

Life and career

Military

Alexander Lebed' joined the Soviet Army's airborne troops in 1969. He was eight years as company leader at the VDV officer school in Ryazan, then served - first as battalion commander - with distinction in the Soviet war in Afghanistan in 1981/82. Later became regimental commander. In rank of colonel, Lebed' led airborne troops during the Soviet internal crises in Azerbaijan in 1988 and 1990, and in Georgia in 1989. Latter action included the brutal dispersing of a pro-independence rally in front of the government building in Tbilisi, that left twenty dead,

Lebed' was commander of the 106th Airborne Division from 1990 to 1991. He had come to national attention after the Soviet Coup of 1991, in which a conspiracy of government members opposing the perestroika sought to overthrow Mikhail Gorbachev's government and reverse his reforms. At the height of the crisis, the Army had been ordered by the coup participants to surround the White House, the seat of the Russian parliament. General Lebed' was given orders to send tanks but never took any action against the parliamentarians and Boris Yeltsin, the president of Russian SFSR.

Lebed' was promoted and became deputy to the commander of Russia's Airborne Troops, general Pavel Grachev. Alexander Lebed' was from June 1992 the commander of the 14th Guards Army, based in Moldova, playing a major role in the Conflict in Transnistria and Gagauzia crisis.

Entry into politics

On May 30, 1995, Lebed' resigned his commission to enter the political arena of post-Soviet Russia. In the elections to the State Duma in December 1995, Lebed' headed the list of a moderately nationalist party Congress of Russian Communities. The party did not manage to pass the 5% barrier to get seats in the parliament, but Lebed' himself was elected in a single constituency.

Presidential election and Security Council

Lebed' ran as a candidate in the 1996 Russian presidential election and finished third with 14.5% of vote in the first round of voting, behind incumbent president Boris Yeltsin and Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov. Two days after the first round, Yeltsin appointed Lebed' to the post of the Secretary of Security Council of the Russian Federation and the President's National Security Advisor. Lebed' in turn endorsed Yeltsin in the runoff election two weeks later and Yeltsin won the runoff.

Lebed's politics were distinctly military. He endorsed Augusto Pinochet's success in Chile, saying in an article "preserving the army is the basis for preserving the government." As a skillful politician, Lebed', who was an author of several poems, on advice of his political technologists began to growl and expressly use profanity during his public appearances, representing an "awful Russian nationalist".

As chairman of the Security Council, Lebed' led negotiations with Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov and signed agreements in the Dagestan town of Khasavyurt which ended the First Chechen War in August 1996. He was fired from the Security Council by President Yeltsin in October 1996, following Lebed's major conflict with the influential Interior Minister Anatoly Kulikov.

On September 7, 1997, Lebed' alleged during an interview that a hundred of Soviet-made suitcase-sized nuclear weapons designed for sabotage "are not under the control of the armed forces of Russia". The government of the Russian Federation rejected Lebed's claims and stated that such weapons had never been created.^[1] However, GRU defector Stanislav Lunev confirmed that such nuclear devices existed and speculated that they possibly have been already deployed.^[2]

Krasnoyarsk

On May 17, 1998, Lebed' won the election for the governor of Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia's second largest region.

He served as the governor of Krasnoyarsk until his death in a controversial helicopter crash on April 28, 2002, popular with the military to the last. The official cause of the crash was the collision of the helicopter with electric lines during foggy weather in the Sayan Mountains. His death is surrounded by several conspiracy theories.

He is survived by his wife Inna, two sons and daughter, and brother Aleksey.

Quotes

• (On the Soviet-Afghan War) "We began the war with lofty aims but ended up with a war against the people."
• (On the War of Transnistria): "I am proud that we helped and armed Transnistrian [separatist] guards against Moldovan fascists"^[3].
• (On the War of Transnistria): "I told the hooligans [separatists] in Tiraspol and the fascists [government] in Chisinau -- either you stop killing each other, or else I'll shoot the whole lot of you with my tanks."^[4]
• (On the Chechen War) "Unprepared, untrained boys have been thrown to face bullets. It is a criminal power that sends hundreds of its citizens to certain death."
• (On Chechen capital Grozny) "Here we have a Russian city, bombed to bits by Russian planes paid for by Russian taxpayers who are now going to have to pay a second time to rebuild it."
• (On the Russian government) "Those who profit are the ones at the top. They keep the doughnut for themselves and give the hole to the people."
• (On the Russian Minister of Defence Pavel Grachev) "I don't like prostitutes, whether they are wearing a skirt or trousers."
• (On the ultranationalist politician Vladimir Zhirinovsky) "The Lord God's monkey."^[5]
• (On Alexander Yakovlev, during the 28th Congress of the CPSU) "Alexander Nikolaevich... How many faces have you got?"
• (On the Western democracies): "They support Yeltsin who helped start the war in Moldova. I stopped it. He started the war in Chechnya. I stopped it. Who is the greater democrat then, he or I? Is democracy war or peace? I think it is the latter."
• (On the Russians) "Most Russians don't care whether they are ruled by fascists or communists or even Martians as long as they can buy six kinds of sausage in the store and lots of cheap vodka."
• (On himself) "I am not without sins. There cannot be an airborne assault general who has no sins. I spit on popularity ratings. I live and serve as I see fit."
• (On whether he would campaign on behalf of President Yeltsin) "Do I resemble, even remotely, an entertainer?"

References

External links

• Alexander Lebed The Telegraph, 28/04/2002
• Alexander Lebed: All action hero BBC News, 28 April, 2002
• General Alexander Lebed: Russian general who applied military toughness to politics The Guardian, April 29, 2002