Genus. 1950, d. (died tragically) 2002. Russian politician.

Personnel military officer, lieutenant general, graduate of the Ryazan Airborne School (1973). Participant in the war in Afghanistan (1981-82, battalion commander), also commanded the 14th Army in Transnistria (1992-95). Member of the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation (1995-96), Secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation (1996), Governor of the Krasnoyarsk Territory (1998-2002). He published his memoirs "It's a shame for the state." Lebed, Alexander Ivanovich Governor of the Krasnoyarsk Territory (1998-2002); was born on April 20, 1950 in Novocherkask, Rostov Region; graduated from the Ryazan Higher Airborne Command School in 1973 and the Military Academy. Frunze in 1985; reserve lieutenant general; served in the Armed Forces in various command positions; was a participant in the fighting in Afghanistan as a battalion commander; since 1985 - regiment commander of the Tula airborne division, since 1986 - deputy commander of the Pskov airborne division; from February 1991 to June 1992 he was deputy commander of the Airborne Forces for combat training and military educational institutions; in August 1991, during the putsch of the GKChP, the Airborne Forces battalion under his leadership took the building of the Supreme Council of Russia under guard; in June 1992 he took command of the 14th army in Transnistria; in September 1993 he was elected a deputy of the Supreme Council of the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic from Tiraspol; in June 1995, disagreeing with the order to reorganize the 14th Army, he submitted a resignation report; joined the Congress of Russian Communities (CRO), was elected a member, deputy chairman of the National Council of the CRO; in October 1995, at the Constituent Congress of the all-Russian social movement "Honor and Motherland", he was unanimously elected its chairman; in December 1995 he was elected a deputy of the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation of the second convocation, was a member of the parliamentary group "People's Power", a member of the State Duma Defense Committee; in January 1996, the congress of the KRO nominated A. Lebed as a candidate for the President of the Russian Federation; in the first round he won about 11 million votes - 14.7% of the total number of voters who took part in the voting, leaving B. Yeltsin and G. Zyuganov ahead; in June 1996 he was appointed Secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation and Assistant to the President of the Russian Federation for National Security, resigned as a deputy in the State Duma; led the delegation at the talks on the cessation of hostilities in Chechnya and the withdrawal of federal troops; autumn 1996 removed from all posts by Decree of the President of the Russian Federation; in 1997 became the initiator of the creation and chairman of the Political Council of the Russian People's Republican Party (RNRP); On May 17, 1998, in the second round of elections, he was elected governor of the Krasnoyarsk Territory (gained 59% of the vote, while his rival, former governor V. Zubov, 39%); since 1998, ex officio, he was a member of the Federation Council of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation, was a member of the Committee on Economic Policy; in November 2001, he resigned as a member of the Federation Council in connection with the appointment of a representative of the regional administration to it in accordance with the new procedure for the formation of the upper house of the Russian parliament; after being elected governor, he left official positions in the leadership of the RNLP and the "Honor and Motherland" movement, continuing to be their unofficial leader; in June 1998 he became the initiator of the creation and head of the public organization "Peacekeeping mission in the North Caucasus"; On July 31, 1998, at the III Congress of the RNRP, he was again elected the leader of this party; author of the books "The performance was called" Coup "," It's a shame for the state "; awarded orders and medals, including the Order of the Red Star for participation in hostilities in Afghanistan; honorary citizen of Tula; died on April 28, 2002 in a helicopter crash in Ermakovskiy district of the Krasnoyarsk Territory, he sharply criticized the policies of the President and the Government, considering them guilty of undermining the statehood and the collapse of the economy, and an acute social crisis.

He spoke about the threats to Russia, in particular, as follows: “The new, creeping, sticky, pernicious yoke, approaching our land from all sides, is directed against the soul of the people.

The enemy is terrible because he is invisible.

You can't cross a sword with him. It can't be hit by a bullet. But he is. It destroys the fundamental moral foundations bequeathed to us by our ancestors, and replaces them with an imported surrogate of ideas alien to us. He breeds all sorts of sects, parties, public organizations of a murky orientation and preaches Orthodoxy to Orthodox Russia in English. It creates political and economic chaos, pits nations against each other, organizing all sorts of armed conflicts and civil wars for their amusement. It encourages rampant crime and prevents the fight against it. He organizes a "brain drain" and thereby destroys the intellectual potential of the Russian state.

He is doing everything to make the process of the destruction of the State irreversible, and has already succeeded in many ways." ("Podmoskovye", June 24, 1995). A. Lebed outlined his system of views in a detailed interview with Novaya Gazeta (No. 4, January 27 - February 2, 1997. He considers the distribution of power, authority and responsibility to be one of the primary problems.

However, even working 24 hours a day, he is not able to close all the problems with himself, emphasizes A. Lebed. "We just need to reasonably divide the powers and functions between the president, the government, the Federation Council, the Duma, the Constitutional Court, the Supreme Court and work in a civilized manner." According to A. Lebed, there is no system for making state decisions in the country. "Until it is established, the country will go haywire.

There are dozens of examples of how the wildest decisions are made, which are contrary to any logic, any common sense, including the interests of the state. "We must begin with debugging the management system and the system for making higher state decisions," says A. Lebed.

At the end of 1996, Lebed publicly declared the need for constitutional reform and his vision of it. “The essence of the constitutional reform, he explained, is to turn Russia from a super-presidential republic, which it is today, into a presidential-parliamentary one.

Everyone should be given such powers with which he could manage for the good of the country.

The redistribution of property does not threaten, just the criteria will be changed. "The fundamental criterion, according to A. Lebed, will be "an effective owner." That is, "a person who creates jobs, closes the social sphere and regularly pays taxes." The economic situation in the country can be improved , according to A. Lebed, first of all, by removing obstacles to the return of domestic capital to the country, clearing the way for investment, changing the current "completely absurd" tax and customs policy, and finally, creating the rules of the game, a system of collateral and an insurance system - all that which contributes to the inflow of capital into the country.

Since the end of 1996, A. Lebed has been practically the only one of the leading Russian politicians who openly declares his preparations for new presidential elections.

He also expressed his opinion about the need for their early implementation.

Observers, however, were quite critical of his potential as a presidential candidate.

According to the Moskovskiye Novosti newspaper, “The general’s obvious weak point is the lack of not only his own team, but even political allies.

Although the general does not get tired of declaring numerous adherents and inexhaustible financial resources, there is no reason to trust this yet. The Congress of Russian Communities and the Democratic Party of Russia considered Lebed overly ambitious and preferred to establish contacts with Yuri Luzhkov.

Today, only the Russian People's Republican Party, created on the basis of the "Honor and Motherland" movement, remains at his disposal. (In 1998, the number of RNLP was approximately 30 thousand people, mostly engineers, including the unemployed, retired officers, representatives of small and medium-sized businesses).

As for the financial situation of a potential presidential candidate, it is enough to say that the collection of signatures for the nomination of Lebed for the post of Tula governor was carried out at the expense of Alexander Korzhakov. In an interview with Nezavisimaya Gazeta (August 29, 1997), he stated that "the President personally deleted the mention of the Khasavyurt agreements from the preamble of the peace treaty with Chechnya and saved the Chechens from their word to solve the problem with a cold head." Current relations, according to A. Lebed, reached a dead end, the two sides have no basis for further conversation.

At the same time, he stressed that “there can be no sovereign independent Chechnya, not only because Russia does not want to let it go.

The precedent is terrible.

Let Chechnya go tomorrow - and the day after tomorrow Northern Ireland, the Basque Country, Kurdistan, Karabakh, Abkhazia, Transnistria will rise. "discredited" Khasavyurt agreements.

In June 1998, at the founding conference of the interregional public organization "Peacekeeping mission in the North Caucasus", which was attended by delegations from nine North Caucasian regions of the Russian Federation, including Chechnya, A. Lebed critically assessed Moscow's policy in the North Caucasus as fraught with a big war, sharply responded about the personal ambitions of the Republican leaders, but justifying his desire to "serve the cause of peace" in the troubled region, he said that he professionally feels the origins of the war, knows how to kill it in the bud and will try to do it. A. Lebed made an unexpected proposal at this conference: to unite all the republics and krais of the region into one North Caucasian krai, which would make it possible to forget about the redrawing of administrative borders, sovereignization, and the exorbitant ambitions of established political elites. This proposal did not arouse enthusiasm among the participants of the founding conference.

The main tasks of the Peacekeeping Mission were formulated: mediation in the settlement of interethnic conflicts, assistance in the release of hostages, the return of refugees, participation in the development of economic and social development programs.

Among the first steps taken by A. Lebed as governor of the Krasnoyarsk Territory was the publication of the draft law "On recalling the governor" as a response to opponents' assertions that his governorship was only a springboard for the 2000 presidential election. "I'm burning bridges for myself," Lebed said. "If suddenly the citizens see that I've come here to prepare for elections, to rob the region, then here's the mechanism for you: to recall the presumptuous governor." At the same time, Lebed did not deny the possibility of his participation in the presidential elections, if in the region "everything begins to flourish, everyone begins to live, they will see that the process has begun, if not stormy, but rise, if everyone is convinced that they are on the right road" (Kommersant ", May 19, 1998). In August 1998, at a meeting with journalists in Krasnoyarsk, Governor Lebed admitted that the economic situation in the region had not changed for the better since his victory in the elections, moreover, it had become even worse. According to A. Lebed, the main reason for the current situation is the lack of financial support from the federal center, forcing the region to survive at the expense of extrabudgetary resources.

That is why, according to the governor, the region's relations with the Kremlin have escalated to such an extent that he does not rule out the possibility of a conflict. "I have peacekeeping experience, but I also have experience of pressure," General Lebed said. On August 14, 1998, A. Lebed announced his refusal to receive his governor's salary until all debts to state employees were paid and the situation with wages in the region returned to normal ("Today", August 15, 1998). At the same time, the governor signed a decree on the creation of an emergency crisis headquarters in the region to resolve issues with wages.

Alexander Ivanovich Lebed died on April 28, 2002 in the crash of an MI-8 helicopter. There were several versions of the tragedy, but the investigation concluded that the pilots were to blame. General Lebed was the governor of the Krasnoyarsk Territory, and before that he was nominated for the presidency of the Russian Federation in elections. He was very popular with ordinary people, and never followed the lead of the oligarchs.

Many Russians over the age of 30 remember the monumental General of the Airborne Forces Alexander Lebed. In addition to military exploits in Afghanistan, Azerbaijan and Transnistria, his person was clearly visible in the political struggle of the 90s. The Russians openly sympathized with the tough, direct army character of the commander.

Some believe that the death of General Lebed in a plane crash was not accidental. What is it: the consequences of the struggle for the presidency of the Russian Federation in 1996 or the revenge of the oligarchy. What is the official version of the death of the general and what causes of the tragedy were put forward by the experts of the Interstate Aviation Committee (IAC)?

Place and date of death

The life path of Alexander Lebed was interrupted on April 28, 2002. He died in a MI-8 helicopter crash. The plane crash occurred in the Krasnoyarsk Territory, not far from Lake Oiskoe, between Abakan and Kyzyl on the Buibinskiy pass. Aircraft number 22158, owned by Sokol Airlines, transported the head of the region, some officials from the administration and journalists.

In total, there were 20 people on board. They were on their way to a celebration on the occasion of the opening of a new ski slope. 50 km from the village of Aradan, the helicopter touched the wires of power lines, which were located along the M-54 Yenisei highway, and fell. The crash killed 8 people, including the governor.

Where is buried

The funeral ceremony took place in Moscow on April 30, in the afternoon from 15:00. The body was quickly taken to the capital and they tried to spend their farewell unobtrusively. Initially, the coffin with General Lebed was installed in the House of the Soviet Army. Many people gathered on Suvorovskaya Square, opposite the DSA. Despite the scarcity of information from the media, about 40 thousand people came to say goodbye to the general of the Airborne Forces.

After the ceremony at the DSA, the coffin was taken to Suvorovskaya Square, where a hearse was waiting for him. At 19:15, the funeral ceremony reached the Novodevichy cemetery. On the central square of the cemetery, another farewell ceremony was held for the commander and governor of the Krasnoyarsk Territory. There were Moscow officials and politicians from Siberia. There were many officers of high ranks, mainly from the Airborne Forces. President of the Russian Federation V. Putin also honored the memory of A. Lebed with his presence and laid flowers.

Being a politician, Alexander Lebed wrote two books "It's a shame for the state" (1995) and "Ideology of common sense" (1997). The works tell about the collapse of the great USSR and the humiliating life in the Russian Federation, as well as the hope for better times.

Helicopter crash versions

By the summer of 2002, the International Aviation Committee (IAC) had not yet prepared material on the causes of the crash of the Mi-8 22158 helicopter, and there were a lot of rumors in the country about the causes of the disaster.

Bad weather conditions

Before the flight, the weather was acceptable, as the pilots call it - flying. But suddenly a fog came up. After the crash, the head of the Ministry of Emergency Situations, Sergei Shoigu, arrived at the scene. He suggested that the car was making an unscheduled landing. As a result, the screw touched the wires of the power line, and the helicopter crashed to the ground from a small height.

Wine of the Swan

The chief pilot, 50-year-old Takhir Akhmerov, decided to land due to deteriorating weather conditions. By personal order of the governor Alexander Lebed, the landing was canceled, and the car began to climb again. The pilots did not see the power line and the crash occurred. The version was not confirmed, since the flight recorders did not record Lebed's voices in the cockpit.

Crew fault

The pilots did not study the flight maps sufficiently before the flight. The crew was confused on the ground in poor visibility. Surviving journalist Elena Lopatina blamed the pilots for the crash. Allegedly, their laxity and irresponsibility caused the death of 8 people.

Elimination of the general

Alexander Lebed was the favorite of the people. In the 1996 presidential election, the general lost a little to Yeltsin and Zyuganov. His personality seemed dangerous to many politicians, as he could return to the 2004 presidential election. In addition, Boris Berezovsky considered Lebed a personal traitor and could order the assassination of the general out of revenge. Lebed was also in a confrontation with the local oligarch Anatoly Bykov.

Investigation results

At about 9:00 am on April 28, 2002, an MI-8 helicopter took off towards Lake Oisk. There were 20 people in the car, including 3 crew members. At 10:15 a.m., the helicopter collided with a power line, its main rotor was partially destroyed, the tail boom fell off, and it collapsed from a 50-meter height. In the end, 8 people died immediately, including the governor - Alexander Lebed.

The pilots did not know the exact route to follow. The head of the administration of the Yermakovsky district, Vasily Rogovoy, was taken as a guide. In foggy conditions, wires suddenly appeared in front of MI-8. The commander of the crew gave the helm to himself. The main rotor blades could not withstand the load and destroyed the tail boom with blows. There was one blade left, which wound the lightning wire around itself. Upon impact with the ground, the main rotor rotor that broke off the fasteners crushed the governor.

The commander of the crew, Takhir Akhmerov, was sentenced to 4 years in a colony-settlement. The court sentenced assistant commander Aleksey Kurilovich to 3 years probation. The flight engineer did not live to see the trial, he died of a heart attack. The pilots filed an appeal in 2004, but the Supreme Court rejected it.

The general had a perfect command of black humor. His phrases from official speeches fit on 185 pages in the publication "Alexander Lebed's Dictionary of Aphorisms and Quotations."

short biography

Alexander Ivanovich Lebed was born on April 20, 1950, in Novocherkassk (Rostov Region), he has a brother Alexei. Since childhood, he dreamed of becoming a military man, but after school he could not enter the Kachin flight school. It turned out that the applicant did not achieve the required growth. The second attempt was also unsuccessful, the growth was too great in a sitting position. He worked as a loader, grinder at a local factory of permanent magnets. At the age of 19, the young man was able to enter the Ryazan Airborne School, which he graduated with honors in 1973.

Army service

Having received the rank of lieutenant, Lebed remained to serve by distribution in the same Ryazan school. Initially commanded a platoon of cadets. Further, in the rank of captain, he took command of a company. Under the command of Pavel Grachev, from 1981 to 1982 he served in Afghanistan.

Putsch

In 1990, following Grachev's order, Lebed surrounded the Government House with soldiers from the 137th Airborne Regiment of the 106th Airborne Division. But a day later he went over to the side of Boris Yelets.

Transnistria

In 1992, he prevented a civil massacre in Moldova between state structures and the breakaway republic of Transnistria. The latter wanted to remain part of Russia after the collapse of the USSR. By order of the general, the 14th Army defeated the positions of the aggressor, which was Moldova.

Participation in presidential elections

Since 1995, Lebed became a State Duma deputy representing his party "Honor and Motherland". In January 1996, the general registered his candidacy for the presidency of the Russian Federation. In the first round, he managed to gain about 15% of the votes. In the second round, he gave his votes to Boris Yeltsin, and in return received the post of Secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation.

Election as Governor of the Krasnoyarsk Territory

Two years after the presidential race, Lebed again entered the battle for the seat, but already the governor's seat in the Krasnoyarsk Territory. The population warmly accepted the militarized head of the region, and called him the governor-general. Some of the oligarchs who helped with the elections later regretted the help they provided. The swan did not become a puppet in the hands of the gray cardinals. Therefore, the version of the ordered elimination of the governor took place.

Film Legends of the Army, about General Lebed

Part 1. Peacekeeper

Hero of Transnistria

About General Lebed in Russia, as a possible President of Russia, they started talking after his role in the events of 1992 in Transnistria.

At that moment, the fire of ethnic conflict was already flaring up there. Lebed was appointed by the newly minted Minister of Defense Grachev as commander of the fourteenth army, which was falling apart before our eyes. By this time, the task of admonishing and separating the belligerents was no longer set, it was only necessary to save the remnants of the army and its huge ammunition depots. Realizing the complexity of the task, Lebed decided to go for broke.

The winners, as you know, are not judged, and after a little preparation, he himself took the order to open fire. Despite the significant superiority of the armed forces of the Moldovans, their positions were swept away by artillery fire, and with them the crossings across the Dniester. After the threat to turn Chisinau into a heap of ruins, resistance ceased.

Since then, he has been a legend and a national hero in Transnistria.

In Transnistria in 1992, Lebed was awarded the title of "Person of the Year".

Russian society was delighted with the general, and the Kremlin did not punish the hero, although Lebed was hinted that he would have to put an end to his future career. No one gave the order to open fire to Lebed, and it was not part of the Kremlin's plans to recognize the independence of Transnistria.

Here is the correspondence between Lebed and Grachev that history has preserved:

Swan - about the President of the Republic of Moldova Mircea Snegur:

“...Instead of the sovereign leadership, he organized a fascist state, and his clique is fascist ...”

After that, a very temperamental blitz-correspondence took place between the minister and the army commander. The secret archive of the General Staff contains ciphers telling about its contents. Let's look into them.

Grachev - Lebed:

“I categorically forbid to speak on radio, television and in the press, to assess current events. Get in touch by phone with Moldovan President Snegur. Share your opinion with him on the current situation.

Swan to Grachev:

“In the current situation, I consider it unacceptable and erroneous on my part to have any contacts and conversations with the President of Moldova, who stained his hands and conscience with the blood of his own people.”

Grachev - Lebed:

“You were ordered to enter into negotiations with the President of Moldova, but you, having not deeply analyzed the political situation that has developed recently between the presidents of Russia and Moldova, are behaving extremely short-sightedly.

Based on the foregoing, I order:

Fulfill my demand, regardless of your subjective opinion, to enter into contact with Moldovan President Mircea Snegur.

Report on the clarification of the task received.

Swan to Grachev:

“With all due respect to you, I will not enter into negotiations with Snegur. I am a general of the Russian Army and I do not intend to betray her.”

You can read about other correspondence with Grachev of the recalcitrant general.

Hero debunking

With his harsh statements and actions, Lebed initially won favor with the "irreconcilable" communist-patriotic opposition. The convinced "opponent of the democrats" TV journalist Alexander Nevzorov said in an interview in December 1992 that he would like to see him as the President of Russia (later, in 1994, Nevzorov did not want to make his final judgment about Lebed, saying that in his opinion, Lebed "still didn't choose between good and evil."

In the fall of 1992, the attitude of the communists and part of the national patriots towards Lebed changed due to the fact that he accused the inner circle of the President of the Transnistrian Republic, Igor Smirnov, of corruption.

Undertaken through the mediation of Colonel Viktor Alksnis an attempt to reconcile the general with Smirnov was unsuccessful.

Then the bullying began. In early 1993, Alexander Prokhanov's newspaper The Day accused Lebed of ambivalent behavior during the coup attempt in August 1991, that is, of failing to comply with the order of the State Emergency Committee. Alksnis himself went even further, debunking the significance of Lebed's role in the Transnistrian conflict:

The role of Lebed in the settlement of that conflict is greatly exaggerated. First of all, to themselves. He became commander only in the summer of 1992. By that time, the situation had stabilized even without him thanks to the heroic resistance of the Pridnestrovians themselves, and The swan only consolidated someone else's success. By his order, artillery struck at the positions of the Moldavian troops, and, as they say now, Chisinau was prompted to peace. Certain merit of the general in this, of course, was, but after the ceasefire, Lebed decided to put the leadership of Transnistria under control in order to pacify Tiraspol already. He had a clear instruction from Yeltsin: Transnistria should be part of Moldova, no independence. The former president of the republic Smirnov, of course, did not want this. And Lebed began to prepare a military coup - he persuaded the local chiefs of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the KGB to seize power. But they publicly announced Lebed's proposals, there was a scandal, the plan failed.

After that, Alksnis personally accused the general of betraying the interests of Russia:

It was February 1993, and I arrived in Tiraspol on a private visit at the invitation of Smirnov. I myself asked Lebed about the meeting. We talked in the relaxation room, arranged behind his office. And I openly told him that his position is a betrayal of the country. He immediately jumped up, stretched himself to attention at full height (and he was not small) and minted: “I was, am and will be an officer, true to my oath!” But there was some kind of rehearsal in all this, as if he did not speak from the heart, but played a performance.

I do not want to comment on Alksnis here, but he should be ashamed of these words. The role of Lebed was key in those events.

From the first day of Lebed's stay in Pridnestrovie, the rear and VOSO services began to operate in full force. Together with the authorities of the PMR, the evacuation and temporary accommodation of the civilian population of the city of Bendery, food and medical care for refugees were organized. The wounded began to arrive in deployed military hospitals, the seriously wounded were sent from Tiraspol by plane to Moscow. The war continued...

On June 25, the situation sharply escalated in the "north" - the Moldovan side subjected Dubossary and nearby villages to powerful artillery shelling. Houses were destroyed and many civilians were killed. In Grigoriopol, one of the shells hit a kindergarten ... On the orders of General Lebed, under the cover of hundreds of Cossacks, a mortar battery, four BM-21 "Grad" installations and four 152-mm "self-propelled guns" 2SZ "Acacia" were urgently transferred there. On June 26, in order to prevent the possibility of regrouping and transferring the forces of the Pridnestrovians to Bendery, units of the national army of Moldova, after powerful artillery preparation, began to attack positions on the Kochier and Kosnitsky bridgeheads. Lebed gave the order to immediately send one tank and two motorized rifle battalions there. Apparently, the blood of Bendery Moldova was not enough - on the Kitskansky bridgehead, threateningly hanging over Tiraspol from the south, the "Romanians" began to gather troops. There, near Slobodzeya and Dnestrovsk, one tank and one motorized rifle battalion of the 59th division was sent.

By order of General Lebed, the Tiraspol military commandant's office began to actively engage in the fight against crime throughout the Left Bank - it has already "got it"! .. The staff of the commandant's office was significantly increased due to a part of the TMR law enforcement officers called up for service in the army. “I deployed this commandant’s office completely, captured the city, all shooting immediately stopped, all robberies immediately stopped, all drunks with weapons were detained and isolated.” To help the commandant's office, Lebed gave a battalion of special forces of the Airborne Forces under the command of Colonel Prokopenko - reinforced patrols were introduced, all roads to settlements were blocked during the day.

Few people know that Lebed's brother Alexei also took part in those events.

This "operation" - brilliantly carried out and already legendary in the history of military art - was an operation to misinform the enemy, who was told that this was a response to the blockade of the 300th parachute regiment, surrounded on all sides by Moldovan troops, to attacks and incessant pickets, and rallies of nationalists of the PFM near its checkpoint, anti-Russian hysteria unfolded in the media in relation to its servicemen. Here, they say, Lebed Sr. agreed with his brother to rescue him, at the same time hit from both sides. Allegedly, having crossed the Dniester, the 14th Army will move in three tank columns, and the regiment of Alexei Lebed, having broken the frail Moldovan blockade with all its firepower, will go for a breakthrough in the direction of Tiraspol ... At the same time, having casually defeated the army of Moldova, they will restore "order" in Chisinau ...
…Adventure? Or a well-calculated move? “All my life experience suggests that good adventurism is deeply thought out adventurism” ...
To enhance the effect of this "operation", General Lebed gave the order "secretly" in three places to begin reconnaissance of the crossing across the Dniester. But it was “spotted” from the right bank. Just as the tanks "noted" their preparation for forcing. They believed ... Yes, how! It was not for nothing that on this day, before flying to Moscow, the frightened Mircea Snegur publicly announced his intention ... to join the partisans. To which many laughed heartily: “I also found a kind of“ commandante ”Fidel in Codri! ..”.

The 300th Airborne Regiment of the Russian Airborne Forces really found itself in a very difficult situation - in the deep rear of a foreign, even hostile state, waging war on the left bank of Transnistria, where the 14th Russian army is stationed, many former Soviet military personnel and their families lived.
Realizing that it was impossible to reach an agreement with Colonel Lebed, on May 15, 1992, the nationalist-minded elements, with the connivance (and support!) of the authorities, literally laid siege to the 300th regiment. All exits were littered with foundation blocks, filled with tractors, trucks. Pickets were set up at checkpoints. …
The delegates of the picketers stated in an ultimatum form:
- We suggest that you leave the territory of sovereign Moldova within 24 hours. We allow you to take only personal belongings with you - all property and weapons must remain on the territory of the regiment "...
The commander and the entire personnel of the regiment decided, firstly, to continue serving in the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, secondly, to save the equipment of the regiment and transport it to Russia, and thirdly, in no case should Moldovan nationalists be allowed to provoke on the territory adjacent to to the regiment, some conflict with the inhabitants of Chisinau.

But the situation escalated every day. The picketers, changing each other and shouting insults at the Russian servicemen, could at any moment move on to more decisive actions. ... The picketers, incited by the agitators, finally realized that you couldn’t take the paratroopers by the throat, and proceeded to decisive actions, presenting an ultimatum to the regiment commander: either you get out of Chisinau, or we will take the regiment’s territory by storm. At this critical moment, Aleksey Ivanovich went out to the picketers and announced:
- The territory of the regiment is Russian territory, and we will defend it to the last soldier and officer. If you want, storm.
... Since the morning of July 4, army artillery has worked on the Koshnitsky and Kochiersky bridgeheads. But ... the guns fired propaganda shells, densely "listing" the positions of the OPON and the national army. The restless warriors were warned - the general meaning of the text of the leaflets, figuratively speaking, was as follows: "that's it, the little ones, the dancing is over" ..., go home if you don't understand - it will be worse for you! - Thinking...
It was already in the following days, interacting with the 14th Army, the artillery of Pridnestrovie in the Kaushan direction, that the advancing Moldavian column of more than 500 people and two dozen trucks and armored vehicles was covered. As a result, the convoy was partially destroyed, and for the most part dispersed, so that about 70 people arrived at their destination - in Bendery. An artillery column was also destroyed in the Chisinau direction, an accumulation of equipment in the Varnitsa region.

I don't know how to treat Alksnis after that. V. Alksnis told the Post Factum agency that "rumors of corruption in Pridnestrovie are considerably exaggerated" and that the accusations of corruption brought by A. Lebed to the leadership of the PMR are not confirmed, although, in his opinion, "there is no smoke without fire." Local authorities accused the commander intervening in internal affairs Transnistria (remember).

Every Saturday A. Lebed had a reception day on personal matters. He accepted everyone: military personnel, members of their families and the civilian population of the PMR. Moreover, the civilian population hoped more for the help of A. Lebed than for the help of the local authorities. He helped a lot of people.

Lebed's popularity also grew among the locals, and the higher this popularity was, the more the local authorities feared him. At first, they began to flirt with him, tried to play on his principles of a "sovereign". But, since the PMR was an unrecognized republic, no one stood above the local leadership, and therefore they did whatever they wanted in their patrimony. The ideas and slogans under which they came to power were forgotten, and the process of personal enrichment and complete indifference towards the people who defended this power in 1992 began.

For A. Lebed, this was unacceptable, and he became uncomfortable and objectionable to the local authorities.

The initial origin of the conflict between Lebed and the leadership of the Transnistrian Republic arose at the end of 1992. According to Alexander Ivanovich himself, the beginning of the conflict was associated with the detention by the military of the 14th Army at the request of the prosecutor of the PMR "battalion commander Nikolai Kostenko", accused of many serious crimes and associated with the highest leadership of the republic. During the detention of Kostenko in July 1992, the battalion of the Transnistrian Guard was disarmed by paratroopers. Kostenko himself was detained much later and, under circumstances still unclear, was killed, and the murder was attributed to servicemen of the 14th Army.
Another reason for the conflict was the disagreement of the leadership of the PMR with the participation of the military personnel of the 14th army in the protection of public order and the fight against crime in the region.
And the third reason, and perhaps the most important, was the reluctance of the PMR leadership to sign the acts of acceptance of weapons from the 14th Army, which they seized before the start of the Bendery massacre and which they did not return after the deployment of units of the 14th Army during active hostilities.

In December 1992, reports appeared in the press about a confidential agreement between Lebed and President Smirnov on the transfer of some of the weapons and military equipment of the 14th Army to Transnistria. On September 27, 1992, A. Lebed denied these reports in a speech on local TV, where he called them "nonsense and fabrications."
According to him, by this time he was in “extremely confrontational relations” with Smirnov, although he admitted “that Smirnov did write pitying notes to him, where he asked to transfer 139 tanks, 650 trucks, 124 mortars to him.”
Lebed replied to Smirnov, “I have 121 tanks in total. Am I supposed to give up all the tanks and have 18 more left. I quickly explained to him that it was mine. Mine is mine, yours is ours."

October 31, 1992 between Lebed and Smirnov there was a sharp exchange of views on the policy pursued by the leadership of the TMR (Lebed expressed dissatisfaction with the "series of holidays", the multiplication of ministries and departments, the collapse of the guard).

In January 1993, President I. Smirnov's entourage was publicly accused of corruption by opposition leaders Svetlana Miguli and Vladimir Gorbov. S. Migulya and V. Gorbov were supported by General A. Lebed, who also accused I. Smirnov of sabotaging negotiations on the settlement of relations between the PMR and Moldova and suggested I. Smirnov to resign. On March 5, 1993, A. Lebed made a statement about the illegal commercial transactions of the Minister of Security of the PMR Vadim Shevtsov, First Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs Nikolai Matveev, head of the personal security of the President Valery Gratov and the manager of the Pridnestrovian Republican Bank Vyacheslav Zagryadsky.

In 1993, Lebed's book was published, where he talks about the "throws" of Pavel Grachev in August 1991, and accuses Yeltsin of destroying the country.

In 1993, the first attempt was made to remove A. Lebed completely from the political scene and, under a plausible pretext, he was nominated by Grachev for the position of Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Ground Forces for combat training, although the proposal itself was made as if in passing: “What if he bites on this proposal ?

Didn't peck.

At the end of June 1993, a group of people's deputies of Russia, who had been on a working visit to the PMR, prepared a letter addressed to Russian President Boris Yeltsin and Chairman of the Supreme Council of the Russian Federation R. Khazbulatov, in which they proposed "instructing the Ministry of Defense, the Prosecutor's Office of the Russian Federation with the participation of deputies of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation to conduct investigation of illegal activity Commander of the 14th Army, Lieutenant General A. Lebed and Commandant of Tiraspol M. Bergman.

However, the women of Pridnestrovie, led by S. Miguley, arrived in Moscow and staged a picket in front of the building of the Ministry of Defense of Russia, where for a month they demanded that A. Lebed be left as commander of the 14th Army, and he himself did not agree to leave the post of commander and did not wanted to abandon the people who believed him, and with whom he established peace on this earth.

In September 1993, in the by-elections, Lebed was elected a deputy of the Supreme Council of the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic from Tiraspol, receiving 87.5% of the votes in the district.

It is already difficult to sort out the heap of lies, but knowing the character of Lebed, I have no doubt that straight as a tank, he did not obey anyone. There is a possibility that he began to consider himself the master of Transnistria, seeing the attitude of its inhabitants towards him. One way or another, but the confrontation with Smirnov could simply turn into a rejection of nothing. If he is, then I owe it differently.

Execution of Parliament

During the events of September 21 - October 4, 1993, Alexander Rutskoi turned to Lebed for support and offered him the post of Minister of Defense.

I think that Lebed, who knew Rutskoi from the events of 1991, and also "appreciated" the revelations of Prokhanov and Alksnis in his address, could hardly accept this proposal. What could the deputies count on, a few months earlier scribbling denunciations of his "illegal activities"?

Speaking on Tiraspol cable television on October 2, Lebed said that both the president's supporters and the "team of Rutskoy and Khasbulatov" invited him to come to Moscow, but he did not intend to participate "in these showdowns", since he believes that the army in such cases should keep neutral. He called the best way out of the current situation the simultaneous re-elections of both branches of power and the creation of a small professional parliament - that is, as if joining the "zero option" of Zorkin - Volsky - Yegor Yakovlev.

Yeltsin's representative suggested that A. Lebed make an appeal to the people and the Armed Forces of Russia in support of B. Yeltsin. Lebed replied that he was only the commander of the army and that it was not within the competence of the army commander to address the people.

He later called his successor as commander of the 14th Army, General Valery Yevnevich, an "executioner" for his active participation in the storming of the White House. However, then, immediately after the capture of the White House by troops loyal to Yeltsin, on October 5, 1993, General Lebed arrived at the chairman of the Transnistrian Supreme Council Grigory Marakutse and demanded an apology to Russia for interfering in its internal affairs- sending volunteers to help Rutskoi and Khasbulatov. Someone then called this the fulfillment of an order from Moscow, but it is quite obvious that this is a response to a similar statement by Smirnov after a meeting with Alksnis.

The local authorities indeed sent a group of armed servicemen from the Dniester special police battalion to Moscow to help the Supreme Soviet besieged in the White House, however, after Yeltsin shot the Supreme Soviet with tanks, the Pridnestrovian authorities abandoned the people whom they sent to Moscow.

Both V. Shevtsov, Minister of State Security, and G. Marakutsa, Chairman of the Supreme Council of the PMR, at the session of the Supreme Council stubbornly tried to prove that no one was sent anywhere.

In response, Lebed presented a video recording of the events that took place in Moscow near the White House, the Ostankino television tower, and officers of the Dniester battalion with weapons in their hands were clearly visible on the film. Vendetta, so vendetta.

To investigate these events, President of the PMR I. Smirnov appointed a commission chaired by Kirichenko, which, in the course of its work, “revealed” that the officers shown went on vacation from September 25 to October 10, 1993 and all amicably departed for Moscow or its environs .

Naturally, the commission did not find any crime, and the whole story went into oblivion. There were simply no culprits. After some time, Kirichenko died under mysterious circumstances.

On October 14, 1993, at the session of the Supreme Council of Transnistria, convened on Lebed's initiative, he tried to force the resignation of the "power" ministers "for their involvement in the events in Moscow." When this failed, he resigned as a deputy of the Supreme Court in protest. Lebed was a deputy for only a month.

I think there are no contradictions here with the declared position of neutrality. He condemned everyone who participated in this on both sides. But there is another circumstance. Moscow was well aware of the participation of armed Pridnestrovians in the October events on the side of Rutskoi, and the Kremlin blamed Lebed for this. It is clear that the Kremlin was also very annoyed with Smirnov, but especially with Lebed, who allowed this to happen. Nor could they forgive him for his declared neutrality. The independence of the general began to irritate many, while others tried to saddle the general.

Execution cannot be pardoned

In the fall of 1993, Alexander Ivanovich accused the Minister of State Security V. Shevtsov and the PMR Prosecutor B. Luchik of corruption and abuse of office and stated that the Transnistrian authorities were illegally transferring currency to Austrian banks. The presence of foreign currency accounts of the PMR in these countries was later confirmed by the chairman of the Transnistrian Republican Bank V. Zagryadsky, speaking on December 19, 1993 on local television.

In January 1994, Smirnov, in response, accused General A. Lebed of preparing a coup d'etat in the PMR and issued a decree on the introduction of a special situation (A. Lebed called these accusations "bullshit", according to the general, the leaders of the PMR, "involved in abuses, trying to shift the blame for their own miscalculations and the deteriorating economic situation on the Russian military").

As it turns out now, Lebed was absolutely right about Smirnov:
Traces of fugitive Oleg Smirnov found in Ukraine

Since 1994-1995, the "irreconcilable patriotic opposition" in Moscow has been accusing Lebed of conspiring with the "new bourgeoisie" of the TMR, who are displeased with President Smirnov's independence course.
However, the quarrel with Smirnov does not affect Lebed's popularity in Transnistria itself.
Lebed calls the PMR itself a "banana republic" ...

They decided to dig into Lebed from the other side. From Grachev, who is clearly dissatisfied with Lebed's popularity.

Requests are being written to Moscow in various instances to remove A. Lebed from Pridnestrovie.
A pilgrimage to the 14th army of various commissions begins in order to find dirt on its commander.

The counterintelligence of the 14th army and the special services of the PMR arrange a series of provocations against A. Lebed. But all attempts to discredit the commander do not bring success.

On June 25, 1994, at the headquarters of the 14th Army, a meeting took place between the director of the FSB of Russia, Lieutenant General Sergei Stepashin and the head of the Ministry of National Security of Moldova, Brigadier General Vasily Kalmoy, with Alexander Lebed. Shortly after this two-hour meeting, the head of the special department of the army, Colonel Nikolai Zlygostev, who knocked on Lebed in Moscow, was transferred to Russia for further service.

In July, a second attempt was made to remove A. Lebed from the 14th Army, and to liquidate the army itself.

On July 19, 1994, A. Lebed was sent on vacation, and on August 3, Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Ground Forces, Colonel-General E. Vorobyov, arrived in Tiraspol with a directive of the General Staff of July 22. “The administration of the 14th Army must be disbanded by September 1st. By August 10, submit lists of officers wishing to retire or transfer to Russia. The authority to command the group is assigned to the commander of the 59th motorized rifle division.

A. Lebed interrupted his vacation, returned to Tiraspol and officially announced that he had assumed the duties of army commander, and told reporters that “I consider the disbandment of the army command a crime. I foresee the whole mess that will start here. I accepted the army collapsed. I've been building it brick by brick for three years. Now I am invited to take a hammer and smash everything into shards on a grand scale. I will not destroy what I created. Nothing has been decided here, not a single echelon has left, nothing has been reduced, people have remained, equipment has remained, ammunition has remained, and those who can, must and must do this are being dispersed. This is absolutely unprecedented. The Western Group of Forces was withdrawn. Who was the last to leave? Burlakov. This is logical. They handed everything over, sold it, signed the act, handed over the documents to the archive, then they leave. Here, the logic is aimed at overclocking, at creating chaos - and nothing else.

A. Lebed is again offered a position with a promotion, the commander of the peacekeeping forces in Tajikistan, and again he refuses. The general, regarding Tajikistan, told Grachev that he did not understand why he should “beat one half of the Tajiks at the request of the other,” adding that “they did nothing wrong to me.”

The Minister of Defense, of course, understood that this was a riot - but he simply could not expel the obstinate subordinate. In Russia, the brutal general was no less popular. According to various rumors, in the period from 1992 to 1995. Lebed was offered eight positions, ranging from the commander of the Airborne Forces to the Western Group of Forces.

After the signing in August 1994 of the Russian-Moldovan agreement on the withdrawal of Russian troops from the territory of Moldova within three years, Lebed was summoned to Moscow for a confidential conversation with Defense Minister Pavel Grachev (the issue of replacing Lebed as commander of the 14th Army and transferring him to another position). After the meeting, Grachev announced that Lebed would remain in Transnistria.

In October 1994, Defense Minister Pavel Grachev instructed his deputy, Colonel General Matvey Burlakov (against whom allegations of corruption were now being renewed) to inspect the 14th Army. Having received news of this, Lebed sharply opposed such an inspection, calling Burlakov "a banal swindler for whom all prosecutors in Russia are crying." A few days later, President Yeltsin removed Burlakov from his duties as deputy minister pending investigation of the allegations against him.

However, the experienced bureaucrat Grachev still outplayed the general.

Chechnya

Lebed called the entry of troops into Chechnya in December 1994 "nonsense and stupidity", and stated that the military personnel of the 14th Army "under no circumstances" would take part in hostilities in Chechnya. When asked about the possibility of moving to the leadership of the Ministry of Defense and heading the operation in the North Caucasus, he replied that "if the conversation is about the withdrawal of Russian troops from Chechnya, then I am ready to head this operation."

A. Lebed gives a very sharp assessment of the actions of the federal center in Chechnya. "The Chechen conflict can only be resolved through diplomatic negotiations," he said in a telephone interview from his headquarters in Tiraspol. In Chechnya, the Afghan version is repeated one to one. We risk unleashing a war with the entire Islamic world. Single soldiers can endlessly burn our armored vehicles, destroy soldiers with single shots. In Chechnya, we stepped on the same rake as in Afghanistan, and this is very sad. A well-fortified Grozny with a large amount of reserves is capable of providing long-term and serious resistance.

Lebed recalled that General Dudayev in the Soviet army commanded a division of strategic bombers capable of waging war on a continental scale, and "fools were not appointed" to such posts.

He popularly explained what such unprofessional actions on the part of the federal center could lead to. “It is difficult for me to understand how and what the Minister of Defense wanted to win. But we lost a lot. The main Russian military secret has become known to the whole world: the reform of our Armed Forces under the leadership of "the best Minister of Defense of all times and peoples" ended in their complete failure. It is strange and bitter to realize that Russia no longer has an army, and there are only amusing military formations that are capable of little. It is amazing, but true, in Chechnya, all the mistakes made by the Soviet troops in Afghanistan were repeated. Complete disregard for local specifics and local conditions, national, religious and other features. One gets the impression that absolutely no one in the Russian General Staff was planning this military operation, everything started in Russian at random. And no wonder: in recent years, the Ministry of Defense has mainly withdrawn its troops on Mercedes and completely forgot how to bring them in on standard vehicles.

A. Lebed allowed himself to criticize the Ministry of Defense for the collapse of the army, for sending untrained soldiers to Chechnya. "Hawks" from the Ministry of Defense, the Government and the State Duma of the Russian Federation immediately took up arms against him.

In January 1995, A. Lebed offered to personally lead a regiment of children of government members, deputies of the State Duma and restore order in Grozny.

The swan was already simply scoffing. All this could not continue indefinitely. Such insolence could no longer be tolerated.

In the 95th, when his confrontation with Pavel Grachev reaches "the most unindulgent", and various Duma commissions, at the suggestion of the Moldovan Ministry of Foreign Affairs, that "the activities of General Lebed threaten stability in the eastern regions of Moldova and good relations between our countries," will zealously take up " investigation of the illegal activities of the commander of the 14th Army, Lieutenant General Alexander Lebed and the commandant of Tiraspol, Colonel Mikhail Bergman”, blaming for “the interference of the Russian military in the internal affairs of other states” (to which, by the way, Lebed will answer: “Those who consider me on this earth a foreigner - just idiots. They will achieve that they will come to me with an interpreter from Russian into Russian") - Boris Yeltsin will dismiss him from the army ...

In April 1995, the General Staff issues a new directive (Directive of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation of April 18, 1995 No. 314/2/0296), in which the 14th Army is renamed the Operational Group of Russian Forces in the Transnistrian region of the Republic of Moldova, and the Directorate 14 th Army, and the post of army commander is being liquidated.

In accordance with this directive, the administration of the army was halved, all positions in the new state were reduced by three or four ranks, and, accordingly, official salaries were reduced in accordance with these ranks.

The directive of the Ministry of Defense pushed the army soldiers to quit under this directive, because if you stay in the army, then in the future (in 3-4 years) you will be fired from a lower position and, accordingly, with a lower pension.

Lebed again criticizes the Ministry of Defense and declares that he will not serve in the army, which is commanded by the Minister of Defense, whom you despise, and the Supreme Commander, whom you do not trust.

He writes a report addressed to the President of Russia B. Yeltsin (as Supreme Commander-in-Chief) that this directive was written without a deep analysis and taking into account the consequences that may occur as a result of a reduction in army command, however, the report did not reach Yeltsin, because . he was intercepted in the presidential administration.

At the end of May 1995, a commission arrived in Tiraspol under the leadership of the chief military inspector, Colonel General K. Kobets, in order to check the level of combat training and field training of personnel, and based on the results of the check, the commission was forced to state a very high level of combat training of units and subunits of the 14th army.

A. Lebed again criticizes the decision of the Minister of Defense to abolish the army administration and declares that with his own hands he will not destroy what he himself created.

June 1 Lebed again writes a report addressed to the President of Russia B. N. Yeltsin. This report was personally carried by the head of the 6th department of the army, Colonel Serebryakov S.I., and with the assistance of the former head of intelligence of the 14th Army, Colonel Kharlamov S.F., transfers it to the reception room of B. Yeltsin.

In early June, A. Lebed was summoned to Moscow to the Ministry of Defense. First, he was received by the Commander-in-Chief of the Ground Forces, Colonel-General V. M. Semyonov.

After a long conversation between Lebed and Semyonov, the latter refused to sign the report of the commander of the 14th Army on his dismissal. Then Lebed went to the Chief of the General Staff, M. Kolesnikov, where he was asked to either write a letter of resignation or follow the directive of the General Staff to eliminate the army command.

A. Lebed chose dismissal:

I'm glad to serve, but I'm not fit to be lackeys

P. Grachev immediately signed the report. In any civilized country, including Russia, there is a law that not a single warrant officer, officer, and even more so a general, can be dismissed from the army without the conclusion of a military medical commission, a preliminary conversation with the dismissed person from his immediate superior. But this is in a civilized country and in normal armed forces, but not in Russia. No one talked to Lebed and he did not pass the VVK. He was simply fired, without even a declaration of gratitude in the order of the Minister of Defense.

On June 14, 1995, B. Yeltsin signed a decree on the dismissal of A. I. Lebed from the armed forces.

Yevnevich was appointed commander of the 14th Army, who participated in the execution of the White House in 1993, and whom Lebed would call the "executioner."

The arrival of V. Evnevich began with the blocking of the airfield by the women of Transnistria, which led to the landing of the plane in Limansky.

Upon the arrival of V. Evnevich in Tiraspol, Lebed resigned his position during the day and the telephone was instantly turned off in the hotel, and the women closed Yevnevich in the hotel room, leaning the door of the room with a sofa, and did not let them out until Lebed asked them to let Evnevich out.

This ended Lebed's military career, but began a political one.

But more on that later in the second part of our story "General Lebed. Part 2. Traitor".

Alexander Lebed is a Russian military man and politician. The general visited the war in Afghanistan, participated in the events of 1991, personally signed the Khasavyurt agreements, and, as governor of the Krasnoyarsk Territory, fought desperately against banditry, corruption and drunkenness of the inhabitants. Once in his youth he dreamed of a career as a pilot, but it was the sky that killed him.

Childhood and youth

Alexander Ivanovich was born into a family of workers in Novocherkassk (Rostov Region). Father, a native of Ukraine, spent two years in the camp for two 5-minute delays to work, went through the Great Patriotic War. In peacetime, being an excellent car foreman, painter and carpenter, he taught labor lessons to schoolchildren. Mom worked all her life at the local telegraph office.

At the age of 5, Sasha had a younger brother Alexei, who in the future also made a career as a military man and politician. Alexander from his youth was friends with sports, was fond of boxing and played chess masterfully. He also dreamed about the sky, he was going to become a pilot. After school, he surprised me with his loyalty to his dream - for three years in a row he stubbornly tried to conquer the selection committee of the Armavir flight school.

However, the young man was rejected every time by the doctors of the educational institution - in a sitting position he exceeded the norms of permissible growth. Between admissions, he earned money as a loader in a store. And then he became a student at the Polytechnic University and worked for a year as a grinder at a factory in his native city.

Military service

In the piggy bank of a man are several certificates of education. The desire to become a pilot resulted in a military career. Lebed sat down at the desk of the Ryazan Airborne School, where he later remained in command of a training platoon and a company. Another diploma, and with honors, he received at the Military Academy. Frunze.

Alexander Ivanovich went through the Afghan war as a battalion commander of paratroopers, where he even received a shell shock. In the 1980s, he expanded his service record with the ranks of commander and his deputy of the airborne regiments of Ryazan, Kostroma and Pskov. And before perestroika, he participated in the suppression of riots against the Soviet regime that broke out in Azerbaijan and Georgia. In 1990, Lebed rose to the rank of major general.

During the coup d'etat in August 1991, the man was the deputy commander of the Airborne Forces and took a direct part in historical events - together with the Tula paratroopers, he besieged the building of the Supreme Council of the RSFSR. However, not even a day had passed before Lebed joined his comrades-in-arms.

After that, Alexander Ivanovich led the liquidation of the armed conflict in Transnistria for three years, trying to save the army and weapons for the Russian Ministry of Defense. And in 1995, they put an end to the military career, having already dismissed the lieutenant general in the reserve. Lebed himself filed a report, disagreeing with the idea of ​​reorganizing the troops. The paratrooper reserved the right to wear a military uniform and opened the door to big politics.

Politics

By the end of 1995, a former communist, party member, was already sitting in the chair of a State Duma deputy from the Tula constituency, and a month later he announced his own candidacy in the presidential elections.

Success accompanied Alexander Ivanovich - according to the results of the first round, he made it to the top three, gaining almost 15% of the vote. But at the second stage, he expressed support for Yeltsin in exchange for the post of Secretary of the Russian Security Council, while receiving "special powers." The status of Assistant to the President for National Security was added to the post.

In a new role, Alexander Lebed participated in the development of the Khasavyurt agreements - in the documents regulating relations between the Russian Federation and Chechnya and the cessation of hostilities on Chechen lands, there is also his signature. In autumn, a terrible political scandal erupted. At the suggestion of the Minister of Internal Affairs Anatoly Kulikov, the military man was falsely accused of preparing a military coup d'état and dismissed.

In 1998, Lebed's political biography was supplemented by the post of governor of the Krasnoyarsk Territory. 59% of the population voted in his favor. The elections were held with high-profile scandals - they found a lot of violations on the part of applicants for the position, even a couple of criminal cases were opened.

The new governor took over the leadership of the region at the beginning of the summer and immediately quarreled with the top of the Norilsk Nickel Plant, who paid only a third of taxes to the regional budget. The plant actually stood on the lands of the region, but the Norilsk Mining Company was registered in Taimyr, which took the lion's share of taxes. To eliminate injustice, Alexander Ivanovich did not have enough authority.

The head of the region tried to apply radical measures to a number of issues. The general limited the sale of alcohol, announced a delay in salaries for employees of the regional administration until the issue of debts to representatives of the public sector was resolved, came into conflict with business, convicting entrepreneurs of criminal ties with bandits.

Alexander Lebed had his own view on the management of the state and regions. The man believed that the bulk of the income of the regions should remain “at home”, economic issues should be resolved only by the locals, otherwise it would be impossible, because Russia is too big. The swan mentioned a famous joke:

“Until the signal from the head of the dinosaur reaches the tail, it must be turned in the opposite direction, and there is no feedback at all.”

The people treated Lebed differently. Someone brought down loud criticism of him, accusing him of ignorance of local problems, because the governor's team consisted mainly of Muscovites. Others appreciated the contribution to the development of their native land, because during the economic crisis, when neighboring regions experienced a terrible decline, the Krasnoyarsk Territory felt good against their background.

Personal life

Alexander Ivanovich met his future wife, a mathematics teacher by education, when he worked as a grinder at a factory. After four years of meetings, in 1971, Inna Alexandrovna agreed to marry a young man.

Three children were born in the family. The eldest son Sasha graduated from the Tula Polytechnic University and devoted his life to the field of cybernetics. Daughter Ekaterina is also a graduate of this university, married to a military man. The youngest son Ivan studied at the Moscow State Technical University. Bauman. The children gave their parents three grandchildren.

Alexander Lebed was known as a supporter of a healthy lifestyle, since 1993 he completely abandoned alcohol. He joked that now he is the only fundamentally sober person in the country. Every day the man went for a run, and in winter he went skiing. In his free time, he liked to sit in silence with a book, he preferred the classics of Russian literature - he liked the works of and.

Yes, and Alexander Ivanovich himself tried his hand at writing. Two books came out from under his pen - "It's a shame for the state" and "The ideology of common sense."

In November 1996, Lebed traveled to America and made friends there with. The men kept in touch until the general's death. The actor even came to the Krasnoyarsk Territory to support a friend in the elections.

Death

April 28, 2002 - the date of the death of Alexander Lebed. The general flew to the presentation of the newly built ski slope. A helicopter with the governor and members of the administration of the Krasnoyarsk Territory crashed near the village of Aradan, colliding with a power line.

The blame for the tragedy was placed on the inexperienced crew of the Mi-8. However, there was room for other assumptions. One of them - several grams of explosives were attached to the blades of the helicopter propeller.

The widow of the deceased general expressed condolences to the entire top of the government, from and ending with the Minister of Defense. Alexander Lebed rests in the capital of Russia at the Novodevichy cemetery.

Awards

• Order of the Red Banner
• Order of the Red Star
• Two Orders "For Service to the Homeland in the Armed Forces of the USSR"
• Order of Suvorov
• Golden double-headed eagle with diamonds (the highest award of the Russian Academy of Arts)

Quote message

Alexander Ivanovich Lebed was born in 1950 in the Rostov region, in a working-class family. After graduating from school, having worked at a factory, in 1969 he entered the Ryazan Higher Airborne School. After graduating from college, he served there as a commander of a training platoon, company.

After participating in the Afghan events in 1981-1982, he entered the Military Academy. M.V. Frunze and graduated with honors in 1985. He was appointed deputy commander of the parachute regiment, then commander of the parachute regiment in Kostroma. In 1986-1988 he was the deputy commander of the airborne division in Pskov, since 1988 he was the commander of the Tula airborne division.

In 1990, Lebed was awarded the rank of major general, in the same year he was elected a delegate to the XXVIII Congress of the CPSU and the founding congress of the Russian Communist Party, and later a member of the Central Committee of the RCP. In February 1991, he was appointed deputy commander of the Airborne Forces for combat training and universities. Participated in Moscow, preventing bloodshed. In June 1992, he arrived in Tiraspol to eliminate the armed conflict in the region.


In June 1995, with the rank of lieutenant general, Alexander Lebed was transferred to the reserve, and in December of the same year he was elected to the State Duma.

In 1996, in the presidential election campaign as a candidate for the President of Russia, as an independent candidate, he took third place, gaining 14.7% of the vote.

In June 1996, he was appointed Secretary of the Security Council and Assistant to the President of the Russian Federation for National Security. While serving as Secretary of the Security Council, Lebed signed the Khasavyurt agreements with Aslan Maskhadov on the "Chechen problem", being the plenipotentiary representative of the President of the Russian Federation in the Chechen Republic.

In May 1998, Alexander Ivanovich was elected governor of the Krasnoyarsk Territory. As governor, he was known for loud statements about the situation in the region and the country as a whole. Among the population he received the nickname "Governor-General".

Alexander Ivanovich Lebed died in 2002 in a plane crash - a helicopter crashed, in which he flew with the administration staff to the opening of a new ski slope.

Lebed Alexander Ivanovich

chairman of the All-Russian social movement
"Honor and Motherland" and the Russian People's Republican Party, former Secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation
For the second time in our memory, a political figure, to whom Panorama sent a biography for verification, sends detailed comments indicating that the person involved has carefully read the biography. A letter from Vice-President Rutskoi, received by the editors in 1992, was published only in the internal newspaper Sokol Pribylovsky (circulation 1 copy).

Born April 20, 1950 in Novocherkassk, Rostov Region, in a working class family, Russian. Oleksandr Lebed's younger brother, Aleksey, is recorded in the passport as a Ukrainian, after his father.
Father, Lebed Ivan Andreevich, a worker, in 1937 he was sentenced to 5 years in prison for two 5-minute delays to work, spent 2 years in a camp, with the outbreak of war with Finland in 1939 he ended up in a penal battalion from the camp, participated in a breakthrough Mannerheim line, and then served in the army throughout the war and was demobilized in 1947. He died in 1978 from the effects of wounds received at the front. Mother, Ekaterina Grigorievna - Don Cossack, lives in Novocherkassk. One of the strong impressions of A. Lebed's childhood was the execution of a demonstration in Novocherkassk on June 2, 1962.
After graduating from high school in 1967, he applied to the military registration and enlistment office for enrollment in the Kachinsky flight school, but did not pass the medical commission. For one year he worked as a grinder at the Novocherkassk plant of permanent magnets (where he met his future wife - at that time the secretary of the Komsomol organization of his workshop). After repeated failure with the Kachinsky School (did not pass in terms of "growth while sitting") and an unsuccessful attempt to enter the Armavir Aviation School, he worked for a year as a loader in the Central grocery store of Novocherkassk.
That's right - "grinder". The book is also wrong.

In the summer of 1970, after another failure with the Armavir Aviation School, he entered the Ryazan Airborne Command School.
He entered the school in the summer of 1969, after 3 unsuccessful attempts to enter the flight school (the reason was a broken nose)

He entered the school in 1972 in the CPSU.
He graduated from college in 1973 and served there until 1981 - first as a platoon commander, then as a company commander. Pavel Grachev was his immediate superior (first as a company commander, then as a battalion commander). Together with P. Grachev, he lived in the same room in an officer's hotel.
Lieutenant Grachev's senior sergeant Lebed was the deputy platoon commander; in senior lieutenant Grachev's company, Lieutenant Lebed commanded a platoon. They lived in the same room with Grachev only when they went to the Seltsy training center for 2-3 weeks.

From November 1981 to July 1982 - commander of the first battalion of the 345th separate airborne regiment in Afghanistan. In Afghanistan, he also served for some time under the command of P. Grachev.
In July 1982 he entered the Frunze Military Academy, from which he graduated with honors in 1985.
After the Academy, he served in 1985-86 in Kostroma - first as deputy commander of an airborne regiment, then as regiment commander. From 1986 to 1988 he was deputy commander of an airborne division in Pskov. In 1988 he received under his command the Tula Airborne Division, which he remained in command until 1991.
He was deputy regiment commander in Ryazan from June to September 1985, commanded the regiment in Kostroma from September 1985 to December 1986, deputy commander (commander - from the army and above!) Of the division was in Pskov from December 1986 to March 1988. He commanded the division in Tula from March 1988 to February 1991. From February 1991 to June 1992 - Deputy Commander of the Airborne Forces for combat training and universities.

In 1988-91, the Tula division was repeatedly sent to pacify unrest and rebellions in "hot spots". In November 1988, Lebed traveled with the division to Baku, where the Armenian pogroms began after Nagorno-Karabakh, and in April 1989 he was sent to Georgia.
On April 9, 1989, when a demonstration was dispersed in Tbilisi on the square in front of the Government House, accompanied by casualties, Lebed was at the Tbilisi airport (left from Tula on April 8), he entered the city with his convoy on the night of April 10 - that is, directly in dispersal did not participate in the rally.
The events on the square in front of the Government House took place on the night of April 8-9, I landed in Tbilisi with the first divisions of the division at about 9 pm on April 9.

He believes that the victims on the square should not be blamed on the parachute regiment (345th "Bagram-Afghan" - the same one in which Lebed commanded the battalion in 1981-82 in Afghanistan) and not General Igor Rodionov, who did not disperse the demonstration, at that time - The commander of the Transcaucasian Military District (who objected to the use of troops), and the party leadership of Georgia. According to Lebed, on April 9, 1989, there was no purposeful operation to clear the square from demonstrators: the purpose of the paratroopers' attack was supposedly only trucks with stones that the demonstrators threw at the soldiers, but as a result "a panic arose on the square ablaze with passions", a stampede in which " 18 people died, 16 of them were women aged 16 to 71. (General Rodionov himself, speaking at the Congress of People's Deputies of the USSR, did not deny that there WAS an order to clear the square - he only claimed that the decision to disperse was not made by him). Lebed denies beating demonstrators with sapper shovels, arguing that the sapper shovels were only a means of protection against flying stones, often used in the absence of bulletproof vests.
In January 1990, Lebed's division was again sent to suppress anti-Armenian and anti-Soviet unrest in Azerbaijan. On February 17, 1990, Lebed was awarded the military rank of Major General.
The task of "suppressing anti-Armenian and anti-Soviet unrest" was never set. The task has always been the same - to separate the fighting fools to the death and prevent mass bloodshed and riots.

In July 1990 he was a delegate to the XXVIII Congress of the CPSU, where he publicly spoke out against the Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee Alexander Yakovlev. Lebed quoted some of Yakovlev's statements at a closed meeting with the Democratic Platform and asked him "how many faces he has." On September 5 of the same year, during the second stage of the founding congress of the Communist Party of the RSFSR, he was elected a member of the Central Committee (at the suggestion of representatives of the radical communist wing of the party).
The second stage of the founding congress was held immediately after the completion of the 28th congress, i.e. at the end of June 1990, at the same time he was elected a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the RSFSR at the suggestion of military personnel, of whom there were a lot at the congress. The people were quite sane, the collapse of the army was in full swing even then, and they naively believed that the party was capable of stopping this collapse.

In September 1990, Lebed participated in the operation, which later journalists called the "GKChP rehearsal" and the "potato putsch." From Colonel General V. Achalov, as Lebed recalled, "another vague order" was received: to put the division on high alert according to the "southern option", and then hastily arrive in Moscow with the entire division. This order was carried out and caused a scandal in the Union and Russian parliaments and the press.
The people's deputies of the USSR and the RSFSR were never able to get from the generals why they raised troops against Moscow. Lebed in his memoirs does not hide the fact that the official explanation "Maneuvers, potatoes, parade. Potatoes, parade, maneuvers" was ridiculous, but he does not offer any version of his own. Commenting on this operation, he writes: “Two divisions were obviously raised and three more semi-obvious. It was clear to everyone that the commander could not do this on his own. there was a war, more than four decades of service, he was a disciplined and cautious person. So, even higher. Who - one could only guess."
From February 1991 to June 1992, he served as deputy commander of the airborne troops (VDV) for combat training and military schools.
During an attempted coup d'état in August 1991, the GKChP received an order from the commander of the airborne troops, Pavel Grachev, "to organize the security and defense of the Supreme Council building with the forces of the paratrooper battalion" and at the head of the battalion of the Tula Airborne Division for some time occupied positions near the White House.
VDV - airborne troops.

On August 19, he met in the White House with the President of the RSFSR B.N. Yeltsin, who asked him a question from whom he was going to "guard and defend" the building of the Armed Forces. Since, as Lebed later recalled, "this question was not clear to him", he "explained evasively: - From whom does the sentry protect the post? From any person or group of persons who encroached or encroached on the integrity of the post and the identity of the sentry." After that, Yeltsin introduced Lebed to a large group of White House defenders as the commander of a battalion that had gone over to the side of the insurgent people. Lebed, judging by his own memoirs, made no comment on Yeltsin's claims. On the morning of August 20, Pavel Grachev accused Lebed over the phone that he misunderstood the previous order and ordered the tanks to be withdrawn from the walls of the White House. Lebed also carried out this order. According to General Korzhakov in his memoirs, Lebed replied to Yeltsin's order not to withdraw the tanks that he could carry out such an order if Yeltsin had assumed the duties of the Supreme Commander in connection with Gorbachev's absence. Yeltsin said that he could not write such a decree, but in the evening, after talking with advisers, he issued a decree (the tanks had already left by that time).
The White House is in the USA. We have the building of the RSFSR Armed Forces.

On August 20, rumors spread that Lebed had shot himself. Lebed was summoned to Defense Minister Dmitry Yazov, a member of the State Emergency Committee, to whom he reported that any forceful actions near the White House "would lead to grandiose bloodshed." At the suggestion of General Vladislav Achalov, together with the commander of the Alpha group, General Viktor Karpukhin, he conducted a reconnaissance of the White House and drew up a plan to "block the building of the Supreme Council." On the same day, I received an order from Grachev to inform the defenders of the White House that "the blockade, and possibly the assault, would begin at 3 o'clock in the morning." This order was also carried out with a slight amendment: "I introduced a 'corporal gap' - I called not three, but two hours, gave them this information with an order to bring it to the attention of Skokov or Korzhakov." In his memoirs "It's a shame for the state", in the chapter "The performance was called a coup", describing the events of August 19-20 and his participation in them, he wrote that "behind all this disorder, someone's strong organizational will was felt." On August 21, President Yeltsin in his speech expressed "heartfelt gratitude to Major General Lebed, who, together with his subordinates, prevented the putschists from seizing the political center of the new Russia."
Later, Lebed resolutely refuted the opinion that during the days of the August coup, he supposedly went over to the side of the White House defenders on his own (“I repeat for the tenth time, I report for the seventeenth time: I didn’t go over to either side. I am a soldier and carried out the order.”). At a meeting of one of the parliamentary commissions, when asked whether he would take the White House, he "firmly answered: - I would."
On June 23, 1992, under the pseudonym of Colonel Gusev, he arrived on the instructions of the Ministry of Defense in Transnistria, where the 14th combined-arms guards army was stationed, which ended up in the zone of interethnic conflict that began in 1989, when the Supreme Soviet of the Moldavian SSR adopted the laws "On the state language" and "On functioning of languages ​​on the territory of Moldova". On September 2, 1990, the creation of the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic (PMR) was announced with its own government, police and other authorities. On June 19, 1992, the paramilitary formations of Moldova launched an operation to take control of the city of Bender, which led to large casualties.
On June 27, 1992, Lebed took command of the 14th Army and immediately made a sharp statement, calling the policy pursued by the President of Moldova Snegur, genocide, and the government of Moldova - fascist. By order of the new commander, the 14th Army launched artillery strikes on the positions of the Moldovan army. Soon after, the initiative in Chisinau passed to more moderate politicians, and the conflict settlement process entered the mainstream of political negotiations. Since then, according to the general, the fragile peace in Transnistria has been preserved only thanks to the presence of the 14th Army, which acts as a guarantor of stability in the region.
With his harsh statements and actions, Lebed initially won favor with the "irreconcilable" communist-patriotic opposition. A staunch opponent of the Democrats, TV journalist Alexander Nevzorov, in December 1992, said in an interview that he would like to see him as President of Russia (later, in 1994, Nevzorov did not want to make his final judgment on Lebed, saying that, in his opinion, Lebed "had not yet chosen between good and evil).
In the fall of 1992, the attitude of the communists and part of the national patriots towards Lebed changed due to the fact that he accused the inner circle of the President of the Transnistrian Republic, Igor Smirnov, of corruption. Under the mediation of Colonel Viktor Alksnis, an attempt to reconcile the general with Smirnov was unsuccessful. In early 1993, The Day newspaper accused Lebed of ambivalent behavior during the attempted coup d'etat in August 1991, that is, of failing to comply with the order of the State Emergency Committee. Since 1994-1995, the "irreconcilable opposition" has been accusing Lebed of conspiring with the "new bourgeoisie" of the TMR, who are displeased with President Smirnov's independence course.
Considering the most realistic prospects for the self-determination of Transnistria, Lebed initially spoke in favor of creating an independent state with strong economic ties with Russia and Ukraine. Later, he came to the conclusion that the problem of Transnistria could be resolved through the formation of the Moldavian Confederation, consisting of Moldova, Transnistria and Gagauzia.
In September 1993, in the by-elections, Lebed was elected a deputy of the Supreme Council of the Transnistrian Moldavian Republic from Tiraspol, receiving 87.5 percent of the votes in the district.
During the events of September 21 - October 4, 1993, Alexander Rutskoi turned to Lebed for support and offered him the post of Minister of Defense. Speaking on October 2 on Tiraspol cable television, Lebed said that both Yeltsin's supporters and the "team of Rutskoi and Khasbulatov" invited him to come to Moscow, but he did not intend to participate "in these showdowns", since he believes that the army in such cases should keep neutrality. He called the simultaneous elections of both branches of power and the creation of a small professional parliament the best way out of this situation.
Strictly speaking, "simultaneous elections of the president and a small professional parliament."

October 5, 1993 Lebed arrived at the Chairman of the Supreme Council of the TMR Grigory Marakutse and demanded to apologize to Russia for interfering in its internal affairs. On October 14, 1993, at a session of the Transnistrian Armed Forces convened on his initiative, he tried to achieve the resignation of power ministers "for involvement in the events in Moscow" and sending volunteers to help Rutskoi and Khasbulatov. When this failed, he resigned as a deputy of the Supreme Court in protest.
In October 1993, he accepted the proposal of the Kedr Constructive Ecological Movement to head the list of his candidates for deputies of the State Duma, but after a ban by the Minister of Defense, he dropped out of the list ("Kedr" failed in the elections).
I never came close to Kedr, I don’t know anyone there and I didn’t negotiate with anyone. Who invented this nonsense - I do not know. There was no ban on participation in the elections by the Ministry of Defense, on the contrary, both in 93 and in 95 there was a task for the most active participation in the elections of generals and officers. The task was set personally by Grachev. In 1995, the only one who carried out the order of the Ministry of Defense was my brother - the commander of the 300th infantry regiment, Colonel Alexei Lebed.

In 1994, there were repeated rumors about attempts by the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation to remove Lebed from the 14th Army (in particular, send him to Tajikistan or Chechnya), which failed, allegedly because of Lebed's threats to leave the service in this case. Democratic mass media, especially those controlled by the Most Group (the NTV television company, the newspaper Segodnya), launched an active campaign in support of Lebed. The popular columnist for the Moskovsky Komsomolets newspaper, Alexander Minkin, spoke in his newspaper (on the occasion of the collapse of the ruble against the dollar) in the spirit that all the current authorities in the country are incompetent, and the people trust only Lebed and Yavlinsky.
Remove from command of the 14th Army. There was an attempt to fuse the Ministry of Defense to Tajikistan, but not to Chechnya. It would be stupid to threaten to leave the army - Grachev was just trying to get me to leave. Regarding Tajikistan, I told Grachev that I don’t understand why I should beat one half of the Tajiks at the request of the other, they didn’t do anything bad to me. He calmed down.

After the signing in August 1994 of the Russian-Moldovan agreement on the withdrawal of Russian troops from the territory of Moldova within three years, Lebed was summoned to Moscow for a confidential conversation with Defense Minister Pavel Grachev (the issue of replacing Lebed as commander of the 14th Army and transferring him to another position). After the meeting, Grachev announced that Lebed would remain in Transnistria.
In an interview with the London Times, Moldovan President Mircea Snegur said that he took an active part in deciding the fate of the commander of the 14th Army. "I spoke in favor of keeping him as the commander of the army. He is able to ensure order in the army, since there is a colossal amount of weapons in its arsenal and it should not fall into the hands of the separatists ...".
In October 1994, Defense Minister Pavel Grachev instructed his deputy, Colonel General Matvey Burlakov (against whom allegations of corruption were now being renewed) to inspect the 14th Army. Having received news of this, Lebed sharply opposed such an inspection, calling Burlakov "a banal swindler for whom all prosecutors in Russia are crying." A few days later, President Yeltsin removed Burlakov from his duties as deputy minister pending investigation of the allegations against him.
He called the entry of troops into Chechnya in December 1994 "nonsense and stupidity", and stated that the military personnel of the 14th Army "under no circumstances" would take part in hostilities in Chechnya. When asked about the possibility of moving to the leadership of the Ministry of Defense and heading the operation in the North Caucasus, he replied that "if the conversation is about the withdrawal of Russian troops from Chechnya, then I am ready to head this operation."
In anticipation of Lebed's resignation, representatives of many political parties and groups sought to meet with him in the hope of recruiting him into their ranks. In April 1995, Lebed joined the Congress of Russian Communities (KRO), shortly before this headed by Yuri Skokov, on April 8 he was elected a member of the National Council of the KRO, and on April 28 - Deputy Chairman of the National Council of the KRO (since August 1995 also - Chairman of the Board of the Moscow Regional Branch of the KRO ).
In June 1995, disagreeing with the order to reorganize the 14th Army, he submitted a resignation letter, which, after some hesitation, was signed by the President. Soon Lebed's official place of work was a position in the Congress of Russian Communities.
In 1995, Lebed did not connect "the slightest hope" for a better future with President Yeltsin: "The first secretary of the Sverdlovsk Regional Committee, famous for the destruction of the Ipatiev House, the first secretary of the Moscow City Committee will not offer us anything qualitatively new." At the end of the summer, he published an article in Nezavisimaya Gazeta criticizing the Communist Party of the Russian Federation and the Agrarian Party for the fact that, by planning their independent participation in the elections, they are splitting up the opposition forces.
October 15, 1995 at the founding congress of the all-Russian public movement "Honor and Motherland" was unanimously elected its Chairman.
In the elections of December 17, 1995, the list of the KRO (Skokov-Lebed-Glazyev) received 2,980,137 votes (4.31%) and did not overcome the 5% barrier. Lebed was elected a deputy in the majority district in Tula. In Khakassia, Alexander Lebed's brother Alexei was elected to the Duma.
In the Duma, at the end of January 1996, he joined the parliamentary group "People's Power" (leaders - N.I. Ryzhkov and S.N. Baburin), but left it in March.
In January 1996, the KRO congress nominated A. Lebed for the President of Russia. On January 22, 1996, the Central Election Commission registered authorized representatives of the KRO. On February 8, an initiative group of citizens to nominate Lebed was also registered (mainly from the organization Honor and Motherland, with the participation of members of the Democratic Party of Russia). Lebed preferred to run for a group of citizens. After that, the chairman of the KRO, Skokov, defiantly dissociated himself from supporting Lebed's candidacy and agreed with Lebed's phrase: "We got divorced and each took his maiden name." According to Nezavisimaya Gazeta, citing Lebed's aides, during the collection of signatures "despite Yury Skokov's ban, over 70% of the regional structures of the KRO worked for Alexander Lebed."
In March 1996, before the Duma voted to cancel the decision of the Supreme Council of December 12, 1991 to denounce the Union Treaty of 1922, Lebed, together with Grigory Yavlinsky and Svyatoslav Fyodorov, signed a statement in which three presidential candidates accused "a number of communist factions" of having their proposal is as adventurous as their own decision of December 12, 1991 to denounce the union treaty. Lebed voted against the cancellation of the denunciation of the union treaty, but for S. Baburin's decision to confirm the results of the referendum on March 17, 1991 on the preservation of the USSR. Judging by some of Lebed's statements, in principle, for some time after Belovezhskaya Pushcha, he was a supporter of the restoration of the Soviet Union, but soon came to the conclusion that this was no longer possible.
The expected further cooperation of the three presidential candidates and their agreement on a single candidate from their number did not work out.
On April 3, 1996, Lebed appeared in Nezavisimaya Gazeta with an article entitled "Blood Games" condemning the dual policy of the authorities in Chechnya. Lebed called the start of the war a mistake, but condemned the negotiations with the "bandit and terrorist Dudayev" as capitulation. "Of course, it is necessary to eliminate the inspirers and organizers of terrorism and personally - Dudayev, Basaev, Maskhadov. If for a Muslim death at the hands of "infidels" is happiness, he immediately goes to Allah in Paradise, and if you give Dudayev a gift, then only this one. "
Lebed's election campaign was carried out under the slogan "Truth and Order". On behalf of the candidate, economic programs for every taste were published; among their authors were the ultra-liberal Vitaly Naishul and the conductor Sergey Glazyev. Lebed's electoral headquarters was headed by Alexei Golovkov, who at the same time held one of the leading positions in the ruling party Our Home is Russia.
On June 7, 1996, Lebed published in Nezavisimaya Gazeta an appeal to all candidates, primarily Yeltsin and Zyuganov, to sign a document in which the candidates would undertake to unconditionally recognize the election results and declare everyone who disobeys the legitimately elected President as enemies of Russia.
In the first round of elections on June 16, 1996, he won third place, receiving 10,974,597 votes, or 14.52%.
June 17, 1996 accepted the proposal of President B. Yeltsin to take the post of Secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation instead of Oleg Lobov, who was transferred to the post of First Deputy Prime Minister. At the same time, he became Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs,
On the day Lebed was appointed, Defense Minister Grachev was removed from his post. In the evening, Lebed said that he prevented an attempt by "circles close to the former defense minister" to organize "GKChP N3" after Grachev's removal and "gave a command to the Central Command Post of the General Staff not to transmit orders and instructions from Grachev, who was dismissed."
On the night of June 20, 1996, during the Xerox box incident, NTV showed Lebed walking along Lubyanka Square, who told reporters that any attempt at rebellion would be stopped. The next morning, A.V. Korzhakov, M.I. Barsukov and O.N. Soskovets were removed from their posts, and the organizer of the removal of the box, A.B. Chubais, called the night events at a press conference the last nail in the coffin of plans to disrupt the second round of elections and expressed confidence that "if one of the dismissed people comes up with an insane idea to use force, then it will be suppressed with one movement of the little finger of General Lebed." Lebed himself did not confirm his role in the events and, in an interview with Nezavisimaya Gazeta on June 21, said that he had not yet figured out what was behind these events. and "categorically rejects his participation in this farce."
The condition for Lebed's acceptance of new posts was the expansion of the powers of the Security Council to coordinate the activities of "power departments." The powers that were supposed to be given to the secretary of the Security Council were compared in the press with those of the vice president. However, after Yeltsin's victory in the second round of elections on July 3, 1996, this process slowed down. On July 17, I.N. Rodionov, proposed by Lebed to this position, became the Minister of Defense, but immediately after that, in parallel with the Security Council under the President, the Defense Council of the Russian Federation was created, the secretary of which was Lebed's predecessor as assistant to the President for national security Yu.M. Baturin. July 25, 1996 Lebed was appointed a member of the Defense Council of the Russian Federation.
Until mid-July, Lebed continued to advocate the formation of a coalition government with the participation of the Communists, and possibly Zhirinovsky, so that all political forces represented in parliament would share responsibility for the situation in the country, and not engage in mere criticism.
On June 27, at a press conference, Lebed expressed his support for traditional religions in Russia, saying that various sects, in particular Mormons, have no place on Russian soil. After that, a number of American congressmen pressed Prime Minister Chernomyrdin for an official apology for Lebed.
At the end of July, the upcoming creation of the movement "For Truth and Order" was announced, the organizers of which hoped to unite in their ranks all the pro-Lebedev organizations - KRO, DPR and "Honor and Motherland". By the end of the year, it became clear that the attempt had failed, and all three of the aforementioned organizations, as well as Lebed, dissociated themselves from participation in the movement.
On August 10, 1996, on the fourth day after the capture of Grozny by the separatists, Lebed was appointed Plenipotentiary Representative of the President of the Russian Federation in Chechnya (before that, the post had been held by First Deputy Prime Minister Lobov). On August 14, another unpublished decree was issued giving the President's representative in Chechnya additional powers, including the right to give instructions to federal executive bodies on issues of the Chechen settlement, as well as certain administrative rights in relation to officials up to the level of deputy minister. On August 14, Lebed managed to reach the first temporary ceasefire agreement with Chechen Army Chief of Staff Aslan Maskhadov. The second agreement - on the disengagement of troops and the transfer of control over Grozny to joint patrols of federal and separatist troops - was reached against the backdrop of an ultimatum from the commander of the grouping of Russian troops, K. Pulikovsky, who demanded the withdrawal of separatist troops from Grozny at 48 o'clock, threatening to start an assault and bombing.
On August 16, 1996, at a press conference on the results of his trip to Chechnya, Lebed demanded that Boris Yeltsin remove A.S. the choice is either Lebed or Kulikov...", "...two birds cannot get along in one lair". The press service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs circulated Kulikov's response: "... Lebed's attacks are understandable. I am inconvenient for many people, starting with Lebed's entourage yesterday - Aushev and Gutseriev (for my demand to liquidate the offshore zone), ending with Lebed himself, to whom I openly expressed my objections on his illegal claims to unlimited powers ... In connection with the false accusations and insults against me by the Secretary of the Security Council, I am sending a report to the President with a request to resolve the issue of my tenure." The President did not comply with Lebed's ultimatum and instructed Kulikov to continue to fulfill his duties.
After several meetings and negotiations with separatist leaders, on August 31, 1996, Lebed signed an agreement with Maskhadov in the village of Khasavyurt (Dagestan) on the cessation of hostilities in Chechnya. In accordance with the agreement, the question of the status of Chechnya was postponed until 2001. Vladimir Lukin, deputy chairman of the Yabloko movement, participated in the negotiations as a consultant.
The agreements with the separatists and their recognition as the de facto authorities of Chechnya were sharply criticized by the left opposition and the interior minister. At the opening of the autumn session of Parliament on October 2, 1996, the Duma heard Lebed and Kulikov. Kulikov said that "the Khasavyurt agreements are a fiction, this is a cover for unilateral, unlimited concessions in the most humiliating and destructive forms," ​​that "the army and law enforcement agencies are already open at different levels, from the private to the general, they are talking about the next round of national treason" and compared the logic of the supporters of agreements with the logic of Vlasov and Petain. Kulikov proposed to apply for a legal assessment of the agreements to the Ministry of Justice.
The conclusion of Minister of Justice Kovalev, stating that the Khasavyurt agreements do not contradict the law, since "they have no independent state-legal significance," Lebed found offensive, and he called Kovalev "a stupid minister."
I have long lost the habit of being offended. Resentment is something human, and there is nothing human in the president's team. You’d better ask yourself: “If Lebed is wrong, and the agreements he reached “have no independent state and legal significance,” then why didn’t the president, the prime minister correct Lebed, why didn’t the courageous interior minister continue the war? Why did they all accept my will and brought to the fore the frivolous Minister of Justice?

From September, Lebed began to deal with certain foreign policy issues. In mid-September, he visited Minsk, in particular - to promote attempts to normalize relations between President Lukashenko and the Supreme Soviet. At the end of September, Lebed and Maskhadov were invited to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg for hearings on the Chechen issue. The Russian delegation headed by V. Lukin protested against Maskhadov's invitation, but Lebed politely refused to come.
In early October, Lebed visited the headquarters of NATO and the Western European Union. Speaking on October 7 at NATO, he condemned the policy of "splitting Europe, which, through the efforts of NATO, will be divided into "pure Europeans" and Russian "half-Asians." "We are ready to give the cooperation between Russia and NATO the character of a de facto union without Russia formally joining the alliance. The only obstacle to this is the prospect of NATO expansion."
On September 25, 1996, in connection with entering the civil service, he resigned as a deputy of the State Duma. He took part in the election campaign of the former head of the Security Service of the President of the Russian Federation Alexander Korzhakov for a vacant seat in the State Duma. Already on September 26, Lebed said at a press conference: "Korzhakov is a patriot of his country, and I do not rule out an alliance with him. He has no criminal cases."
On October 4, Lebed refused to participate in a meeting of the Defense Council, citing his busyness with business.
On October 14, 1996, by decree of the President of the Russian Federation, A. Lebed was appointed chairman of the Commission authorized to "conduct detailed negotiations" in Chechnya with a delegation of separatists.
On October 15, 1996, at a hearing in the State Duma of the Russian Federation on the Chechen issue, he named the Minister of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation Anatoly Kulikov responsible for the surrender of the city of Grozny in August 1996 to the Chechen separatists.
One of Lebed's actions, which overflowed the President's patience, was his speech on October 15 at the military council of the Airborne Forces against the reassignment of the Airborne Forces units to the commanders of military districts. Lebed said that the directive of Russian Defense Minister Igor Rodionov on resubordination "borders on a crime" and should not be carried out. Lebed's speech at the council was met with standing up and exclamations of "Glory to the army! Glory to Russia!"
On October 16, 1996, Kulikov accused A. Lebed of trying to seize power by force of arms. According to Kulikov, back in August, Lebed sent the power ministers for discussion a proposal to create a "Russian Legion" of 50,000 people with direct subordination to the Secretary of the Security Council. The "Legion" was supposed to act to "localize political and military confrontation, eliminate the leaders of political, separatist and other organizations whose activities would pose a threat to national security." According to Kulikov, these plans were opposed by Defense Minister I. Rodionov and Kulikov himself. Among the accusations against Lebed was the allegation that "the Chechens promised Lebed 1,500 militants to come to power in Moscow" (NG, October 17, 1996).
On October 17, 1996, he was dismissed by the President of the Russian Federation from the posts of Secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation and Assistant for National Security under the President of the Russian Federation. Yeltsin announced and signed a decree to film Lebed live. The President motivated his decision by the fact that Lebed did not learn to work without quarrels with other leaders, he was engaged in an "election race" 4 years before the elections, and also participates in the election campaign for the Duma of the retired General Korzhakov ("Like that, you know, the same, so and this one. Two generals").
By order of the President of the Russian Federation N538-rp dated November 16, 1996, Lebed was removed from the commission for higher military positions, higher military and higher special ranks of the Council on Personnel Policy under the President of the Russian Federation.
December 26, 1996 announced his intention to create on the basis of the movement "Honor and Motherland" Russian People's Republican Party (RNRP). The founding congress of the RNRP was held on March 14, 1997.
In January - July 1997, 3 trials were held on the protection of honor and dignity regarding the mutual accusations of A.I. Lebed and A.S. Kulikov. In all three trials, the information disseminated by Lebed and Kulikov about each other was found to be untrue: as a result, Lebed lost 1 ruble, won 1 ruble and lost 5 million rubles.
In the summer of 1997, the Izvestiya newspaper published an article signed by Lebed, sharply criticizing NATO expansion. This was followed by a scandal caused by some textual coincidences with an article by another author, published earlier in NG. As a result, Lebed parted ways with one of his closest associates, press secretary A.A. Barkhatov.
Mr. Barkhatov has never been a "closest comrade-in-arms". It became clear already in September 1996 what kind of wind this gentleman was holding his nose in, but the rules of the game are the rules of the game, and until May Barkhatov regularly carried disinformation to his masters, until he went overboard with plagiarism and thus gave me the opportunity to "part" with him.

After Lebed's resignation, his activities are rarely covered by the all-Russian mass media, most of which (both left-wing and "banker"), to put it mildly, do not sympathize with him. At the same time, the popularity of Lebed may be evidenced by the fact that electoral blocs are constantly being created in elections to regional legislative assemblies using his last name in their names (the Lebed - Fedorov - Yavlinsky, Lebed - Fedorov - Glazyev blocs) or the once proclaimed them the slogan ("Truth and Order", "For Truth and Order") Such blocs in different regions included KRO, DPR, Honor and Motherland, Yabloko, PST, ROS, Derzhava.
Lebed is the author of the book of memoirs "It's a shame for the state" (M., 1995 - full edition, a fragment called "The performance was called a putsch" was published in 1993 in Tiraspol). In October 1996, the Fixo-Lafon publishing house announced that Lebed had signed an agreement with him to publish a new book, My Russia, My Future, in French.
He was awarded orders (including the Red Banner of War, the Red Star - for Afghanistan, "For Service to the Motherland" I and II degrees), medals.
"For Service to the Motherland" 2nd and 3rd degree.

Candidate master of sports in boxing.
Alcoholic beverages, in his own words, "did not use any since December 25, 1993," because "I decided to be the only fundamentally sober person in our country."
In her spare time she likes to read (favorite writers are Platonov, Ilf and Petrov, Gogol, Saltykov-Shchedrin). Runs daily, likes to ski.
Holds a dog - an Old English Shepherd Bobtail named Cheswick and a cat.
Married, wife - Inna Alexandrovna Chirkova, a teacher of mathematics at school by education, does not work, since "moving to Tiraspol is the twelfth in the years of service." Married February 20, 1971. Three children. Eldest son Alexander (born in 1973) graduated from the Tula Polytechnic University (TPU) in 1994 with a degree in technical cybernetics, works in a computer center in Moscow, daughter Ekaterina (1975) graduated from TPU in 1995, married to a military man, younger son Ivan (1979) - cadet of the Suvorov Military School. Three grandchildren (a boy and two girls).
The wife's surname is Swan, Chirkova is nee. Eldest son born in 1972, daughter born in 1973 The youngest son is a student at Bauman Moscow State Technical University.(1998)

The younger brother Alex in December 1996 was elected Chairman of the Government of Khakassia, a member of the Federation Council ex officio.

The following modification of the biography of A.I. Lebed was prepared by Grigory Belonuchkin on the basis of the text by Vladimir Pribylovsky from the database "Labyrinth" in October 1997 for the reference book "Security Council".

General Lebed's notes in the margins of his own biography, in our opinion, deserve to be published for a wider readership. Firstly, Lebed is always interesting to listen to and read - he has such a uniquely expressive style. Secondly, we could not but rejoice at the fact that there were relatively few corrections - this, immodestly speaking, is a sign of the quality of panoramic biographies. Thirdly, the edits make it clear which moments in his biography Lebed considers the most important.

The letter with amendments to the biography is dated April 8, even before the election of Alexander Lebed as governor of the Krasnoyarsk Territory.

Sources -,