Peace mission: how an amateur pilot landed a plane on Red Square, and what happened to him after that. Flight of Matthias Rust. Provocation with high cover Landed a plane on Red Square in 1987

On May 28, 1987, on Border Guard Day, a sports plane from the American manufacturing company Cessna violated the airspace of the Soviet Union. He landed in the capital not far away on Vasilyevsky Spusk, very close to Red Square. Namely, he landed on the Bolshoi Moskvoretsky Bridge and coasted to St. Basil's Cathedral. A huge number of video cameras and cameras of tourists recorded this moment when the pilot climbed out of the cockpit and was surrounded by people wanting to get an autograph. He was arrested ten minutes later. The offender turned out to be Matthias Rust, a nineteen-year-old athlete pilot. His father sells aircraft in Germany. At 14:20, Ruth's plane crossed the air border of the USSR at an altitude of 600 m above the Gulf of Finland near the city of Kohtla-Jarve (Estonia). This was recorded by air defense radars, as a result of which the missile divisions were put on full combat readiness. A fighter was sent to intercept the Cessna aircraft. He quickly discovered it, but no command was given to shoot it down. Therefore, the intruder’s plane was “led” almost all the way to Moscow. Since 1984, the Soviet Union had an order that prohibited opening fire on sports/civilian aircraft.

It is unlikely that Rust knew that at about 15:00, when he would fly near the city of Pskov, the local air regiment would be conducting training flights there. Some planes were landing, others were taking off. At exactly three o'clock the code of the state recognition system was changed, which meant a simultaneous change of code by all pilots. However, many inexperienced pilots did not carry out this operation: they were let down by lack of experience or forgetfulness. Be that as it may, the system recognized them as “strangers.” In the current situation, one of the commanders could not figure it out and assigned the “me-mine” attribute to all aircraft, including Rust’s sports aircraft. He made his further flight with local air registration. But there was also a secondary legalization near Torzhok, where rescue work took place as a result of a collision of our planes - a low-speed German Cessna was mistaken for a Soviet search helicopter.

Newspapers of that time were full of headlines: “The country is in shock! The German sports pilot dishonored the huge defense arsenal of the USSR on Border Guard Day.” Also, the world media put forward more “romantic” versions - the guy was trying to win a bet or impress his chosen one. They also said that Matthias Rust’s flight was nothing more than a marketing ploy. Since his father sold Cessna aircraft in Western Europe, and the pace of sales during this period just decreased. It is clear that such a PR move became an impetus for aircraft sales. After all, in fact, this is the only aircraft that managed to “defeat” the USSR air defense system. The Soviet military was sure that such an action was the machinations of foreign intelligence services.

After this incredible incident, many people began to invent various jokes on this topic. For example, call Red Square “Sheremetvo-3”. No less popular was the joke that the Moscow-Leningrad highway was the softest, as it was covered with the hats of generals and colonels. After the state of shock passed among the Russian people, they began to have fun with their characteristic enthusiasm. A joke was born about two pilots who met on Red Square, one of whom asked for a cigarette, to which the other replied: “What are you doing?! You can’t smoke on airfields!” And one more thing: a crowd of people with things gathered on Red Square. Passers-by ask them: “What are you doing here?”, to which they answer: “We are waiting for the plane from Hamburg to land.” There was another story that the police were patrolling near the fountain of the Bolshoi Theater. "For what?". “What if an American submarine emerges from there?”

Punishment of Matthias Rust

On September 2, 1987, the judicial collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR for criminal cases began hearing the Rust case. He was accused of hooliganism. According to the court, his landing threatened the lives of people in the square. He crossed the border illegally and violated aviation laws. The case took place in open session. The following lost their positions: Alexander Koldunov (head of the air defense forces), Sergei Sokolov (minister of defense) and about three hundred other officers.

Matthias Rust himself stated at the trial that his flight was a “call for peace.” On September 4, 1987, he was sentenced to four years in prison for violating flight rules, illegal border crossing and malicious hooliganism. In total, he spent 432 days in pre-trial detention in prison, and the Presidium of the Supreme Council pardoned him, but he was expelled from the USSR.

Rust returned to Germany, but in his homeland he was remembered as a madman who put the world in danger. He was permanently deprived of his piloting rights. He worked as a nurse at a hospital in the city of Riessen. During his next duty in November 1989, Rust attacked a nurse with a knife who refused him a kiss, for which the court decided to imprison him for four years, but after keeping him in prison for five months, he was released.

In mid-1994, Rust announced that he was going to live in Russia again. After which he disappeared for 2 years. Some said that he sold shoes in Moscow, others spread rumors about his death. In fact, Rust traveled a lot. Having seen the world, upon returning to his homeland he announced that he was going to marry the daughter of a rich tea merchant. The wedding ceremony took place in India according to local rites. After the wedding, he and his wife returned to Germany. In 2001, he appeared in court again. This time he was accused of stealing from a department store, where he was going to steal a cashmere pullover. As a result, the court sentenced him to a fine of 5,000 euros. As for his personal life, not everything worked out here either - he is divorced. According to him, he wanted to have a family, many children, but he just could not find the only one who would understand him. He makes his living as a professional poker player. At the same time, he restored his documents in South Africa and plans to fly again.

On the morning of May 28, 1987, German amateur aviator Matthias Rust took off in a Cessna 172R monoplane from an airfield near Helsinki, where he had flown in from Hamburg the day before. In the flight documents, the final destination of the route was Stockholm.

At 13.10, having received permission, Rust took his car into the air and headed along the planned route. After 20 minutes of flight, he reported to the dispatcher that there was order on board and said his traditional goodbyes. After which, turning off the on-board radio, the plane turned sharply towards the Gulf of Finland and began descending to an altitude of 80-100 m. This planned

the maneuver was supposed to ensure a reliable exit of the aircraft from the control radar surveillance zone and hide the true flight route.

At this altitude, Mathias headed to the calculated point of the Gulf of Finland near the Helsinki-Moscow air route. Having turned the plane towards the first landmark on the coast of the Soviet Union (the oil shale plant of the city of Kohtla-Jarve with its smoke, which was visible a hundred kilometers away) and checking the radio compass readings with the calculated ones, Rust set off on the “combat course”.

Rust's approximate route from Hamburg to Moscow

The violator of the USSR state border, spotted on approach, was following the international air route. Information about him was issued to the command post of the radio engineering battalion in the Estonian town of Tapa, the 4th radio engineering brigade and the Intelligence Information Center of the 14th division. In fact, information about the target was already displayed on the screens of automated workstations of the duty combat crew of the division command post as early as 14.31.

The operational duty officer of the brigade command post, Major Krinitsky, did not immediately declare the target a violator of the state border and continued to clarify the characteristics of the object and its affiliation until Rust left the visibility range of the brigade’s radar. Deputy duty officer

Major Chernykh, according to the report, knowing the real situation and the fact that the target was coming from the Gulf of Finland to the coastline, “acted irresponsibly”

and assigned her a number only at 14.37.

The operational duty officer of the division command post, Lieutenant Colonel Karpets, did not demand clear reports and clarification of the type and nature of the target, “thus violating the requirements for the immediate issuance of the target for notification,” as well as the procedure for making decisions on the takeoff of duty crews to identify the target.

In fact, a decision was made: until the situation is fully clarified, information should not be released “upstream.” At that moment there were at least ten light aircraft of various departmental affiliations over the territory of Estonia. None of them were equipped with a state identification system.

At 14.28 it finally becomes clear that there are no civil small aircraft in the area. At 14.29, the operational duty officer of the command post of the 14th Air Defense Division made a decision to assign the “combat number” 8255 to the intruder, to issue information “to the top” and to declare readiness No. 1.

Only at 14.45 the movement was reported to the higher command post of the 6th Separate Air Defense Army.

“Thus, through the fault of the command post of the 14th air defense division, 16 minutes of time were lost, and most importantly, the acuity of perception of the air situation of the army command post disappeared, based on the fact that the target was coming from the Gulf of Finland and entered the borders of the USSR,” it is stated in report.

At the same time, the duty command post of the 656th Fighter Aviation Regiment in the city of Tapa, Lieutenant Filatov, already at 14.33, alerted No. 1 fighters on duty, repeatedly requesting permission to lift them, but the division gave the go-ahead only at 14.47.

Meanwhile, Rust's plane was approaching Lake Peipsi. At 2:30 p.m., along the Cessna 172R flight route, the weather suddenly deteriorated. Rust decided to descend under the lower edge of the clouds and change course to the area of ​​​​an alternate landmark: the railway junction of the Dno station.

On May 28, 1987, at 6:15 p.m., a Cessna civilian plane flew unhindered from Germany to Red Square in the heart of the Soviet Union. In the cockpit: Matthias Rust from Hamburg

The target had actually already passed through the zone of a continuous duty radar field at low altitudes and the engagement zone of duty anti-aircraft missile battalions. Valuable time for interception was lost.

Later, the command regarded the delay in the calculations of the 14th division as “cannot be explained by anything other than complete irresponsibility, bordering on a crime.”

The commander of the 14th division, who arrived at the checkpoint at 14.53, was informed that a fighter had been scrambled to clarify the type of target in the area of ​​corridor No. 1 of the Helsinki-Moscow highway. The officer on duty kept silent about the fact that the target was discovered close to the state border over the Gulf of Finland.

The operational duty officer at the CP of the 6th Army, Colonel Voronkov, having received information about the target, a minute later - at 14.46 - alerted the No. 1 duty forces of the 54th Air Defense Corps and finally allowed the duty pair of fighters of the 656th regiment to rise into the air with the task of one one of them to close the border, the other to identify the violator of the flight regime.

After another five minutes, its commander, General German Kromin, arrived at the army command post and took charge of the forces on duty. He alerted No. 1 to all formations and units of the 54th Air Defense Corps. The commanders of three anti-aircraft missile battalions of the 204th Guards Brigade in Kerstovo, who were on Rust’s flight route, reported that the target was being observed and were ready to launch missiles.

Senior Lieutenant Puchnin's MiG-23, which was lifted into the air, waited until 15.00 for the shift manager of the Regional Center for the Unified Air Traffic Control System of the Air Force Area of ​​Responsibility of the Leningrad Military District, Colonel Timoshin, to give permission to enter the airspace area.

Only at 15.23, while flying from the guidance point of the 54th Air Defense Corps, the pilot was brought to the target to identify it. flew up to the target at an altitude of 2 thousand m in conditions of cloudiness of 10 points with a lower edge of 500-600 and an upper edge of 2.5-2.9 thousand m. Rust was almost 1.5 km lower, right under the clouds - at an altitude 600 m.

On the first approach, Puchnin did not find the target. During the second approach, already at an altitude of 600 m, the pilot visually detected the target 30-50 m below him and at 15.28 he transmitted its description to the guidance point: “A light-engine white aircraft of the Yak-12 type.”

The type of target was reported to the command of the 6th Army, but they did not make any decision, approving the withdrawal of the fighter. At the same time, the MiG had fuel left for one more approach and more accurate identification of the target and, most importantly, determining its nationality.

Span between St. Basil's Cathedral and the Kremlin wall

“The “Carpet” signal (demand for immediate landing - Gazeta.Ru) was not announced,” the official documents emphasize.

During the investigation, Rust was asked whether he had seen the fighter. The German confirmed and said that he even greeted the Soviet pilot, but did not receive any response signals. The Cessna 172R's radio was turned off.

The report of the MiG-23 pilot was ignored, since it was believed that the discovered aircraft belonged to one of the local flying clubs, where scheduled flights were taking place at that time.

At this time, the rescue search for Rust by the Finnish side had been going on for almost two hours. Due to the unexpected disappearance of the mark from the plane taking off from the airport control radar screen, the dispatcher tried to contact Matthias Rust. After several unsuccessful attempts, the plane was declared in distress, and rescuers were sent to the suspected crash area.

The search continued for several hours. Later, Rust will be charged about $100 thousand for “services rendered.”

At 15.31 a second fighter was lifted from Tapa airfield. The previous guidance procedure was repeated with a delay in front of the area of ​​​​responsibility of the Air Force of the Leningrad Military District. Only at 15.58 at an altitude of 1.5 thousand m did the Soviet pilot find himself in the target area, but did not visually detect it and returned to the home airfield without results. By that time, Soviet radars had lost the weak signal from Rust's low-flying single-engine aircraft and switched to tracking reflections from meteorological formations that resembled it.

Some clarification is required here. In the mid-70s, when powerful high-potential locators began to enter service with RTV air defense systems, already during their field tests, marks with movement parameters commensurate with the characteristics of light-engine aircraft began to be discovered. They were jokingly dubbed echo angels. This phenomenon has caused serious difficulties in automated information processing. Even if the operator can’t distinguish them well, how can he teach the machine to work without errors?

In the course of serious research and a lot of experiments, it was found that radars, due to their high emitting potential, can observe specific meteorological objects. This phenomenon is typical for the spring period in mid-latitudes and during the movement of a powerful warm front. In addition, the seasonal migration of dense flocks of birds creates a very similar effect. Radar operators needed help in recognizing objects of this class. Detailed methods and instructions were developed for the control bodies of the Air Defense Forces.

Significant changes in the target parameters that occurred at a certain moment within just one minute did not alert the crew and remained without due attention. The operators clearly lacked qualifications. In addition, the loss of radar contact with Rust’s aircraft occurred at the junction of the boundaries of responsibility of two air defense formations - the 14th division and the 54th corps, where the coherence of command post crews plays an important, if not decisive, role.

The fighters, which subsequently took off sequentially at 15.54 and 16.25 from the Lodeynoye Pole airfield in the Leningrad region, already approached false targets.

At this time, along the Rust route, a warm air front was moving to the southeast. There was continuous cloud cover, rain in places, the lower edge of the clouds was 200-400 m, the upper edge was 2.5-3 thousand m. The search was carried out for 30 minutes. Fighters were forbidden to descend into the clouds; it was too dangerous.

Only at 16.30 the commander of the 6th Army personally informed the duty officer at the command post of the Moscow Air Defense District about the current situation, concluding that target 8255 was a dense flock of birds. At the same time, the current methods and instructions contained the necessary information about what types of birds and at what time of day can fly in fog and clouds, as well as under what circumstances a dense flock can change the direction of flight.

After receiving information from the 6th Army, the Moscow Air Defense District at 16.32 turned on the radar of the 2266th radio engineering battalion in the city of Staraya Russa, Novgorod Region, and the duty crews at the Tver airfields Andreapol and Khotilovo were transferred to readiness number 1. The rise of two fighters from there did not lead to the detection of the target: the pilots continued to be directed towards ghostly meteorological formations.

In court, Matthias Rust had to answer for violating the Soviet state border, violating international flight rules and serious hooliganism

As it turned out later, the lost intruder aircraft was discovered at 16.16 by the radar on duty of the 1074th separate radar company of the 3rd radio engineering brigade of the 2nd air defense corps in the Tver region. Until 16.47, these targets were automatically issued to the command post of a higher-level radio engineering battalion.

At the command post of the 2nd Air Defense Corps, using special “Proton-2” equipment, data was later found on the tracking of the intruder aircraft from 16.18 to 16.28, but due to the low preparedness of the relevant calculations, the information was not used.

Matias at that time was 40 km west of the city of Torzhok, where the plane crash had occurred the day before.

Two planes collided in the air - Tu-22 and MiG-25. Several teams of rescuers and incident investigation specialists worked at the site where the car fragments fell. People and cargo were delivered to the scene of the disaster by helicopters from the aviation unit near the city of Torzhok. One of the helicopters was in the air as a communications relay. At 16.30 Rust’s plane was identified with a helicopter, so it did not cause any concern to anyone during this part of the flight.

The air situation in the detection zone of the next unit, where Matthias’s plane entered, was also tense. Here they fought with the notorious long-lived meteorological objects. They were observed on the radar indicator screens for 40 minutes (and several at a time). All objects were moving to the southeast. Here Rust again fell “under amnesty” - he was removed from support as a meteorological object. This happened already at the exit from the unit’s detection zone.

Nevertheless, at the command post they noticed the course difference between this route and the airborne objects previously dropped from escort. At 16.48, by the decision of the commander of the 2nd Air Defense Corps, two fighters on duty were scrambled from the Rzhev airfield with the task of searching for small aircraft or other aircraft southeast of the city of Staritsa. The search did not return any results.

By 17.36, the deputy commander of the Moscow Air Defense District, Lieutenant General Brazhnikov, appeared at the command post of the Moscow Air Defense District, who, having assessed the situation, within a few minutes set the task of alerting No. 1 duty forces of the anti-aircraft missile forces of the 2nd Air Defense Corps and ordered to search for the target with illumination radars targets of the S-200 complexes. This also did not bring results, since by this time Rust had passed the border of responsibility of the above-mentioned corps. The tasks of the 1st Special Air Defense Army covering Moscow were not assigned.

At 17.40, Matthias’s plane fell within the coverage area of ​​the civilian radars of the Moscow air hub. The plane was not listed in the plan, the flight was carried out in violation of the rules, there was no communication with the crew. This seriously threatened the safety of air traffic in the Moscow aviation zone. Until the situation is clarified, the administration has stopped receiving and sending passenger planes.

When agreeing on a joint action plan with the command of the Moscow Air Defense District, it was decided that civilian specialists themselves would deal with the violator of the flight regime.

When it was discovered that the intruder was already over the urban areas of Moscow, where flights are generally prohibited, it was too late to do anything.

At 18.30, Rust’s plane appeared over Khodynka Field and continued its flight to the city center. Deciding that landing on the Kremlin's Ivanovo Square was impossible, Mathias made three unsuccessful attempts to land on Red Square. The size of the latter allowed this to be done, but there were many people on the paving stones.

After this, the German made a risky decision - to land on the Moskvoretsky Bridge. Turning around over the Rossiya Hotel, he began descending over Bolshaya Ordynka Street, turning on the landing lights. To avoid an accident on the bridge, the guard turned on the red traffic light.

Rust performed the landing masterfully, considering that he had to sniper into the area between the guy wires of the overhead trolleybus network.

This happened at 18.55. Having taxied to the Intercession Cathedral and turning off the engine, Matthias got out of the plane in a brand new red jumpsuit, put chocks under the landing gear and began signing autographs.

Cessna on the edge of Red Square

Already at the first stage, the consequences of the reform began to appear - the dismemberment of the unified management system of the country's Air Defense Forces between military districts in 1978.

The air defense forces of the USSR in the second half of the 70s developed at such an active pace that the West recognized their superiority over similar systems in other countries of the world.

The re-equipment of the Air Defense Forces with the latest weapons and military equipment at that time was completed. The country's air defense system during this period was a single automated organizational and technical complex, which was in constant combat readiness and was continuously improved.

During the Cold War, the air borders of the USSR were constantly tested for strength. By the way,

back in the mid-70s, the real scourge of the USSR air defense system in the North-West region was violations of the state border by light aircraft (such as Cessna, Beechcraft, Piper, etc.) from Finland.

As a rule, the cause of such incidents was loss of orientation by amateur pilots.

However, this was not the end of the matter. On April 20, 1978, in the area of ​​the Kola Peninsula, a Boeing 707 passenger plane of the South Korean airline KAL crossed the state border. After unsuccessful attempts to force the plane to land, the commander of the 10th Air Defense Army decided to use weapons. A Su-15 air defense fighter opened fire and damaged the left wing of the airliner. He made an emergency landing on the ice of Lake Kolpiyarvi near the city of Kem. Two passengers were killed and several people were injured. The actions of the air defense command were subsequently recognized as correct, and all participants in the interception were presented with state awards.

By that time, an influential group of senior leaders had conceived a reform of the USSR's air defense, which included the transfer of the largest, best and most combat-ready part of the Air Defense Forces to the border military districts. The Commander-in-Chief of the country's Air Defense Forces, Marshal of the Soviet Union Pavel Batitsky, strongly opposed this.

In the summer of 1978, a harmful decision was made. Air defense corps and divisions were placed at the disposal of administrative and economic structures, which in practice were military districts. The reform took place in unjustified fuss. A few years later, a decision was finally made to return the troops to their original state, but the damage in the air defense is still remembered.

Meanwhile, tensions in the field of border protection did not subside. In the Far East alone, in the early 80s, operators of radio technical troops accompanied on radar screens near borders more than three thousand air objects annually.

Matthias Rust participates in a talk show, 2012

Air defense officers became hostages of political decisions. And the procedure for forcing the imprisonment of such state border violators has not yet been clearly defined.

During Rust’s approach to the territory of the USSR, the “sacred principle of the border” was violated - the immediate release of information on the target until the situation was clarified. However, instead of a rational analysis of the failure that occurred, a search began for the culprits, who were revealed almost immediately.

The country's leadership removed three marshals of the Soviet Union and about three hundred generals and officers from their posts. The army has not seen such a personnel pogrom since 1937.

As a result, people came to the leadership of the Armed Forces and branches of the Armed Forces who were an order of magnitude (or even two) inferior in their professional, business and moral qualities to the removed marshals and generals.

Eighteen-year-old German boy Matthias Rust became famous throughout the world - and disgraced Soviet border guards on their main professional holiday

Even today, almost thirty years later, controversy surrounds the identity of an ordinary German student Matthias Rust, which brazenly landed on Red Square and flew through all the border cordons, do not subside. It is still unclear who he was - an ordinary air hooligan, an adventurer, a provocateur or a spy (and whose), it is still not clear how he managed to make his famous flight, experts are haunted by many mysterious circumstances that became clear after the scandalous landing of a young German in the very heart of the USSR.

Spoiled Border Guard Day

On May 28, 1987, a small, toy-like plane taxied from the Bolshoy Kamenny Bridge towards Red Square. The hosts of the concert taking place nearby were surprised, but in a country in which everything was happening on a grand scale, one could expect anything, even a plane landing in its very heart.

The concert dedicated to Border Guard Day continued, but the events developing in the square became increasingly strange. The plane was surrounded by policemen, then the military appeared and pushed back the resulting crowd. The young guy piloting the sports Cessna smiled and kindly talked about how he was a “dove of peace” and had come to “shake hands.” Gorbachev", "build bridges", "peace to the world" and so on.

There were many more beautiful and pompous phrases. But was everything really so cloudless, harmless and naive?

Looking at the chain of events that led to the visit of the supposedly peaceful, handsome German hippie, it is difficult not to think that this flight was prepared in advance and that much smarter and more experienced people had a hand in its preparation than the 18-year-old “naive guy”.

Let’s assume that everything was exactly as Rust himself presents his act to the public: a naive idealist, bringing peace to the whole world on the wings of a Cessna, unfairly offended by the judicial system of the “evil empire.” Appearing on one of the television programs, Matthias Rust said that he did not want to harm anyone and believed that the risk was minimal for everyone. What he knew: no one would get hurt, even if there were people at his landing site. Where such confidence? Is it really possible to assume that at almost 19 years old (Rust was born on June 1) a person does not calculate at least the most basic consequences of his actions? Didn’t Rust understand that if he managed to bypass the air defense systems, someone would have to answer for it and the most serious measures would be taken against the offender?

Did he really think that he would be greeted with flowers and escorted to Gorbachev as a hero? Didn’t he really know that he had become a target over the territory of a foreign country, and only a miracle could save him from turning into a firebrand several hundred kilometers from Moscow?

Instead of asking himself such simple questions, Matthias calmly prepared the plane and, without doubt, sent it to Moscow. He acted skillfully, fitting into air corridors for civilian ships, using weather conditions to break away from observation.

The military says that during Rust's entry into Soviet airspace, a Finnish fighter was patrolling along the border, and several metallized balloons were lifted into the air in order to distract the air defense systems located in the area.

The Cessna itself was also not chosen by chance: it appears unclear on radars and generally looks like a flock of birds. It can easily be lost when transmitted from one radar-covered area to another, which has happened several times.

Strange details in the “Mathias Rust case”

Matthias Rust arrived in Moscow wearing an orange jumpsuit instead of the green jacket in which he took off from the point of departure; during his flight, stickers with an atomic bomb appeared on the fuselage of the plane. In an interview, he called this image “a counter-bomb designed to fight for world peace.”

Little of. If we take into account the cruising speed of the Cessna, then Rust’s plane should have reached Moscow 2 hours earlier. Where has he been all this time? Why did an inspection of the plane show that its fuel tanks were almost full, even though it had flown 880 kilometers? By the way, in the early 2000s, a version was voiced that Rust’s plane was refueled near Staraya Russa.

How did it happen that for several days in a row before the Rust overflight, the military did not change the radar field, which, according to regulations, changes every 24 hours? It was as if they were waiting. Subsequently, information also appeared that the air defense forces on duty spotted the plane that day - but the reports recorded a “flock of birds.”

Why was the fighter that went to intercept the intruder and circled it twice not given the command to destroy it or force it to land? Why, if Rust was not hiding from Soviet radar, did his route not run in a straight line, as in his other flights? Why were the trolleybus wires cut off on the bridge where Rust was supposed to land? And finally: where did three professional cameras with cameramen “accidentally” come from on the square, who were able to qualitatively film the scene with the airplane from three points? Let us remember: at that time television cameras capable of producing such a high-quality picture could not fit into a jacket pocket.

There are many similar questions. And over the years, answers to them do not appear. And there are more and more guesses. The series of “accidents” with which Matthias tries to justify his incredible luck is too great.

Source: http://www.spb.kp.ru/
30 years ago, a shameful incident for the USSR and its air defense occurred - 18-year-old German Matthias Rust landed on Red Square in a Cessna-172 Skyhawk...

On May 28, 1987, Matthias Rust's plane landed on Red Square. An 18-year-old German citizen flew to Moscow from Hamburg on a four-seat light Cessna-172B Skyhawk aircraft.

FLIGHT ROUTE

On May 13, Rust took off from Itersen Airport in Germany and landed in the Shetland Islands five hours later. Then he moved through the landing points of Vagar (Faroe Islands), Keflavik (Iceland), Bergen (Norway), Helsinki (Finland).

On the morning of May 28, he took off from a Finnish airfield, and 20 minutes later he left the airport control zone. Rust stopped communicating with air traffic control and disappeared from Finnish airspace at 13:00. Dispatchers launched a search. Rescuers discovered an oil slick in the sea and assumed that the plane had crashed. Rust crossed the Soviet border near the city of Kohtla-Jarve (Estonia) and headed for Moscow.

At 18:30, he flew up to Moscow, made several circles, descended over Bolshaya Ordynka and, after waiting for a green traffic light, sat on the Bolshoi Moskvoretsky Bridge and coasted to St. Basil's Cathedral. At 19:10 Rust got out of the plane and began signing autographs. He was arrested 10 minutes later.

WHY DIDN'T YOU KILL IT?

When the investigation into the emergency began, the generals and colonels responsible for the defense of the country’s air borders loudly repeated: it was nonsense that the Cessna sneaked into Moscow undetected.

And they presented the documents. It followed from them that the air defense radio units stationed in Latvia discovered the spy at 14:10. He did not respond to the call sign “friend or foe”; he was assigned the number 8255. Three anti-aircraft missile battalions were put on combat readiness. They led the intruder, but did not receive commands to destroy him. Although the plane, which did not respond to the request “Friend or foe,” was immediately detected by our radar equipment. The first to spot him was the radar operator, Private Dilmagombetov.

He reported this to the person on duty at the company control center, Captain Osipov. Then Rust’s Cessna was spotted by the operator of another station - Corporal Shargorodsky - and also reported it to the operational duty officer.

But at the higher checkpoint, the issuance of information “upstream” was delayed by 15 minutes - they wanted to figure out who was flying: a state border violator or a flight regime violator. The information, although belatedly, was transmitted further by command. Senior Lieutenant Puchnin's fighter took off to intercept Rust.

He circled the Cessna twice and reported to the command post that he saw “a light-engine sports aircraft with a blue stripe along the fuselage.” If an order had come from the ground to shoot down the border violator, there would not even have been a need to shoot - it would have been enough to turn on the afterburner's fiery sword, and only charred debris would have fallen to the ground.

Matthias Rust after receiving his pilot's license.

General Kromin, commander of the Leningrad Air Defense Army, hesitated. He remembered the instructions put into effect after a South Korean Boeing was shot down in the Far East, allegedly “by mistake” violating the Soviet border. The instructions prohibited shooting down passenger and light aircraft.

The similarity of Rust's plane to the Yak-12 misled both our pilot and Kromin. They decided that there was a violator in the sky who forgot to turn on the identification mode or broke the equipment. The target was transferred for escort to units of the Moscow Air Defense District.

Duty flights of MiG-21 and MiG-23 took off from the airfields of Tapa, Andreapol, Khotilovo and Bezhetsk.

In the area of ​​the Pskov city of Gdov, the Cessna was discovered visually. At 14:29, the pilots reported to the checkpoint that in a break in the clouds they observed “a white Yak-12 type sports aircraft with a dark stripe along the fuselage.”

Rust's plane was flying at low altitude and at low speed - approximately 140 km/h. Our jet fighters could not “slow down” to go alongside him. They flew like an arrow (about 2000 km/h) over the Cessna, waiting for clear commands from the ground. But they were not there. And the pilots took the cars to their airfields.

The air regiment was conducting training flights in the Pskov area. When Rust was crawling towards Moscow, the code of the state identification system was changed in the regiment. All pilots had to change this code strictly at 15.00. But some bunglers didn't do this. And they became “strangers”. In this swarm of aircraft, the flight director, without understanding the situation, with a cluck assigned the attribute “his own” to all the fighters. Among them was Rust’s Cessna. So he calmly approached Moscow under the guise of “one of his own” (although he didn’t know it).

Matthias Rust and his plane in the first minutes after landing.

GENERAL'S STAR FALL

Rust presented a royal gift to Mikhail Gorbachev. The country's chief perestroika had a difficult relationship with the military elite. The army leadership, led by Defense Minister Sergei Sokolov, moved into political opposition to Gorbachev. But he had no compelling reason to remove objectionable generals. And the incident with Rust gave him a luxurious reason for this. Having gathered the highest generals in the Kremlin, Gorbachev was at his wit's end.

“If I were you, Comrade Marshal of the Soviet Union,” he turned to Sokolov, “after such a disgrace, I would write a resignation letter!”

The hall became quiet, like a morgue, Sokolov stood up and reported:

- Consider, Comrade General Secretary, that I have already written it!

The Commander-in-Chief of the country's air defense, deputy, came under attack. USSR Defense Minister Alexander Koldunov.

The commander of the Moscow Air Defense District, Colonel General Vladimir Tsarkov, was lucky - he was appointed to the post in May 1987 (a few days before the event). Having received a reprimand, he retained his post.

The head of the radio technical troops, the commander of the air defense army, the corps commander and the division commander of the same 6th Army were removed from their positions. The air defense brigade commander, Colonel Chavkin, also became a pensioner.

In total, almost a dozen generals and more than 20 senior officers were recruited, and 34 senior and senior officers became pensioners. Two were sent to bunks.

Lieutenant Colonel Karpets and Major Chernykh, who were directly responsible for the air defense sector (although they were the first to notice the intruder and reported to the top) were sentenced to four and five years in prison.

And another two hundred senior and junior air defense officers were removed from their positions until the end of the investigation into the emergency (80% of them then returned to their posts with reprimands and received their next military ranks with a long delay).

For the first time in the history of the country’s air defense, so many officers “flew” from their posts.

Violator of USSR airspace, German pilot Matthias Rust during a court hearing in April 1987.

VERSIONS

At first, the prevailing version was about army sloppiness.

There was also talk about the cowardice of the top military leadership, which, after the scandal surrounding the downing of a South Korean Boeing in 1983 by our fighter, which violated the air border of the USSR, was afraid of catching up from the Kremlin.

Later, a version appeared that this was allegedly an operation of Western intelligence services, coordinated with Gorbachev. The goal is to remove the leadership of the army that is opposed to the Kremlin.

Army General Pyotr Deinekin, Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Air Force in 1991-97:

“There is no doubt that Rust’s flight was a planned provocation of Western intelligence services. And it was carried out with the consent and knowledge of individuals from the then leadership of the USSR. What makes me think about internal betrayal is the fact that immediately after Rust’s landing on Red Square, an unprecedented purge of the top and middle generals began. It was as if they were specifically waiting for the right occasion... They could shoot down the Cessna as many times as necessary.

— The flight was prepared on the direct orders of the General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee. When Rust landed in Moscow, his tanks were full. It was being refueled. Near Staraya Russa, right on the road. I ask Rust: “Do you want me to show you a photo of how your plane is refueled?” Rust did not answer, only his eyes darted around...

Colonel General Leonid Ivashov:

— Three weeks before Rust’s arrival, Defense Minister Marshal Sokolov reported to Gorbachev how the air defense system worked. When the marshal returned from the report, it turned out that top-secret documents remained on Gorbachev’s desk. The next morning I rushed to the Kremlin: “Mikhail Sergeevich, the minister was at your report and forgot the map.” - “I don’t remember where it is, look for it yourself...” Gorbachev did not return the card...”

Colonel Oleg Zvyagintsev, former deputy commander of the air defense corps:

“When the showdown began, I remembered that for three days our radar field in the north of the country did not change. It usually changes every day. And here - three days! The air defense on duty spotted Rust instantly as soon as he crossed the border. But in the reports they wrote: “a flock of birds”...

Igor Morozov, deputy of the State Duma of the Russian Federation, participant in special operations in Afghanistan:

“This is a brilliant operation by Western intelligence services. They were able to attract people from the inner circle of the country's leadership to implement the project, and they accurately calculated the reaction of the General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee. There was only one goal - to weaken the position of the Soviet Union in the international arena.

CHRONICLES OF A MILITARY MESS

Here is one of the documents from the investigation into the causes of Rust's flight.

“At 14.29 on 28.5.87, the radar on duty of the 922nd separate radar company (Loksa) of the 4th radio engineering brigade of the 14th air defense division (Tallinn) detected an air target at an altitude of 600 m in the territorial waters of the USSR, heading towards the coastline. The target followed the international route in the direction of corridor No. 1, information about the target was issued to the command post of the radio technical battalion (Tapa), 4th RTBR and RIC (intelligence information center) of the 14th air defense division. Information about the target was displayed on the screens of the automated workplace of the duty reduced combat crew of the command post of the 14th air defense division from 14.31.

The operational duty officer, Major Ya. I. Krinitsky, did not declare the target a violator of the USSR state border and continued to clarify its characteristics and affiliation until it left the brigade’s radar visibility zone.

The deputy OD CP of the 14th Air Defense Division for the RIC, Major Chernykh, acted irresponsibly. Having the real situation and knowing that the target was coming from the Gulf of Finland towards the coastline, he identified it and assigned it a number only from 14.37.

The operational duty officer of the division command post, Lieutenant Colonel I. V. Karpets, did not demand clear reports, clarification of the type and nature of the target, thereby violating the requirements for the immediate issuance of the target for notification, and a report to a higher command post, and making a decision to raise the duty crews to identify the target.

At the command post of the 6th Separate Air Defense Army, on his command, the target was issued only at 14.45. In this way, 16 minutes of time were lost, and most importantly, the acuity of perception of the air situation of the army command post disappeared, based on the fact that the target was coming from the Gulf of Finland and entered the borders of the USSR.

Moreover, the OD KP of the 656th Fighter Aviation Regiment (Tapa), Lieutenant Filatov A.V., having information about the target from 14.31, at 14.33 alerted No. 1 fighters on duty, repeatedly requested permission to lift the fighters, but Lieutenant Colonel Karpets I.V. They were allowed to rise only at 14.47.

Such actions by the operational duty officer of the division command post led to the loss of time."

WITNESS TESTIMONY

Rasim Akchurin, retired Colonel General, brother of the famous cardiologist Renat Akchurin:

— At that time I was the commander of the anti-aircraft missile forces of the USSR air defense. At a fateful moment, he checked the Leningrad Air Defense Army in the Baltics. When they reported to me that a light aircraft had flown over, I went to the formations that were accompanying it. If Rust had been shot down, even his fragments would not have been collected. But we did not have the right to use air defense systems against such air targets. They could only force him to land. A course was laid out and support was provided. It was not possible to land it because the fighters and Rust’s airplane had too different speeds.

ARE THE HOLES PATCHED?

After a strict analysis of the “flight”, the air defense combat duty system was significantly adjusted. But after the fall of the USSR in the 90s, and even in the early 2000s, due to financial problems and the slow renewal of radio technical troops, “holes” began to form in some sections of the Russian air border, into which light aircraft flying at low altitudes , spies or hooligans could have infiltrated. Only recently was it possible to create a continuous radar field over Russia by placing new radars on combat duty.

HOW WAS THE SCANNER PUNISHED?

Rust was accused of hooliganism (his landing, according to the court, threatened the lives of people on Red Square), violation of aviation legislation and illegal crossing of the Soviet border. Rust said in court that his flight was a “call for peace.” On September 4, Rust was sentenced to four years in prison. But he returned to Germany on August 3, 1988 after Andrei Gromyko, Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, signed an amnesty decree. Rust spent 432 days in prison. Then he was sent to Germany. There he was treated for mental illness and stabbed a nurse in the hospital. Got another sentence. I served my time. Then I got caught again - stealing a sweater from a store...

QUESTIONS WITHOUT ANSWERS

3. Why were the trolleybus wires on the Bolshoi Moskvoretsky Bridge cut in advance?

4. By what miracle was Rust’s flight on Red Square filmed from several points on professional television cameras? One camera stood on the roof of GUM, and the other on the podium of the Mausoleum.

WHAT DID THE GERMAN PRESS WRITE?

Spiegel Magazine:

The circumstances of Rust's preparation for the flight were unusual in the eyes of his fellow pilots.

“He never asked anything,” said Rust’s flying club comrade Dieter Helze. — When planning his route before departure, Mathias did not turn to experienced pilots. When Rust arrived in Helsinki, he presented the onward route to the flight control center at Malmi Airport.

“Everything was so professionally put together,” recalls the head of the Malmi airfield, Raimo Seppanen, “that it didn’t look like a young pilot.”

Rust's mother could not explain the motive for her son's flight to Moscow. Her guess was, “I think he was forced into it.”

“Matthias was never interested in politics,” claimed his father. “This flight was not planned by him, and Moscow was not part of his route...”

"Bild am Sontagg":

“Rust was seen in Helsinki with a dark-haired young woman on May 20. In addition, at Malmi airfield there was a light gray Citroen with Siegeren license plates and a Hamburg Aero Club sticker..."

"Stern":

“They were discussing on the sidelines: was Rust’s Cessna really refitted during his stop in Iceland? Were the plane's wings really made of a special synthetic material that made the plane invisible to radar? Was Soviet air defense tested in this way?

REHEARSAL

On May 15, 1941, at 7:30 a.m., the German Junkers 52 invaded Soviet airspace. Having flown over 1200 kilometers, he landed at the Tushinsky airfield. From Pavel Sudoplatov’s book “Intelligence and the Kremlin”: “This led to a wave of repression: it began with dismissals, then followed by arrests and executions of the highest command of the Air Force.”

JOKES

Two pilots on Red Square. One asks the other to smoke. He replies: “What are you doing?! Smoking is not allowed at the airport!”

WHAT DID GORBACHEV SAY?

The General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee, in a telephone conversation immediately after the incident, allegedly said to one of Chernyaev’s closest aides: “Now the cliques about the fact that the military is in opposition to Gorbachev, that they are about to overthrow him, that he is only looking back at them all the time, will fall silent.” "

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Today is the 25th anniversary of the landing of a German “amateur” pilot under the walls of the Kremlin

Today is the 25th anniversary of the landing of the German pilot Matthias Rust in the very heart of Moscow, under the walls of the Kremlin. His defiantly insolent flight on May 28, 1987 from Finland to Moscow, which was never stopped by our air defense systems, became one of the milestones in the collapse of the great power - the Soviet Union. A small single-engine airplane, piloted by an “amateur”, managed to “overcome” a powerful air defense system that was perfect for those times.

How could this happen? Unfortunately, many of the circumstances of what happened a quarter of a century ago are still being carefully hidden by someone. Nevertheless, over the years it has been possible to find more and more evidence that that “breakthrough” of the Soviet air defense system, which supposedly testified to the collapse of the entire Soviet system, was in fact a carefully planned secret operation by someone, which was successfully implemented primarily with the help of traitors from the highest echelons of the Soviet leadership. And these traitors then used this incident to discredit the Soviet army and almost completely replace its command. Military journalist Evgeniy Kirichenko talks about this today on the pages of Free Press.

Rust: “I was waiting for the landing command. But it didn’t come.”

In fact, Rust’s plane, which did not respond to the request “Own - alien” was immediately detected by our radar equipment. The first to spot him was the radar operator, Private Dilmagombetov, who immediately reported this to the duty officer at the company control center, Captain Osipov. Then the mark from Rust’s Cessna was spotted by the operator of another station, Corporal Shargorodsky, and informed the operational duty officer that he was observing an unidentified target. However, at the higher checkpoint, the issuance of information “upward” was delayed for 15 minutes, taking a time out to figure out who was flying - state border violator or flight regime violator. The decision was made by Lieutenant Colonel Karpets and Major Chernykh, who were later made to blame for this whole story - demoted and sentenced by a military tribunal to five years.

But the information, albeit belatedly, was issued further on command. A fighter piloted by Senior Lieutenant Puchnin took off to intercept Rust. He circled the Cessna twice and reported to the ground that in front of him - "a light-engine sports aircraft with a blue stripe along the fuselage." If he had then received a command from the ground to destroy the border violator, he would have easily done it. According to Rust, recorded in the interrogation report, he only saw the Soviet interceptor once and even distinguished in the cockpit the orange overalls and oxygen masks of the Soviet pilots, who were sitting in one row.

- I was waiting for the landing command, - Rust asserted. - But it didn't come. So I maintained course 117, moving at 600 altitude.

Rust was lying. He was not going to land, because his task was to fly to Red Square at any cost. And the violator was circled more than once. To avoid further encounters with fighters, Rust will then go to low altitude. Such a decision could only be made by a pilot who was well aware of the methods of countering our air defense system.

Although Rust could have easily been shot down that day. This decision had already been made by General Kromin - Commander of the Leningrad Separate Air Defense Army. The instructions that came to light after the September events of 1983, when a South Korean Boeing was shot down in the Far East, as if by mistake, violating the Soviet border, were in the way. The instructions prohibited shooting down passenger and light-engine sports aircraft, and the general painfully searched for a solution, thereby saving the life of the German guy. Here is an excerpt from the transcript of his negotiations at the army command post:

- Well, are we going to shoot it down? The pilot reports: Yak-12 type (Soviet light-engine sports aircraft, similar to Cessna).

It was the similarity of Rust’s plane with the Yak-12 that misled our pilot, and after him - and everyone else. The general decided that he was dealing with a flight violator who had forgotten to turn on the identification mode on board or had taken off with faulty equipment. The target was handed over for escort to units of the Moscow District, which regularly “followed” it until the mark from the Cessna disappeared from the indicator screens.

Rust was landing to refuel near Novgorod, where he was “changed”?

As is known, the Cessna 172, piloted by Rust, took off from Helsinki at 13:15 Moscow time and landed on Red Square at 19:30. That is, she was in the air for 6 hours and 15 minutes, covering a distance of approximately 880 km. This means that the Cessna was traveling at an average speed of about 140 km/h, which is much lower than the cruising speed of this type of aircraft, which is 220 km/h.

In addition, over most of the territory where the violator of the Soviet border flew, the wind was favorable to him. That is, according to all calculations, Rust should have arrived in Moscow two hours earlier than the actual landing time. Consequently, the Cessna either deviated significantly from the route (it is unknown for what purpose) or made an intermediate landing somewhere.

It is not surprising that inquisitive people, including the correspondent of the West German magazine Bunde M. Timm, having made similar calculations, asked the questions: where did the “amateur” pilot “sit down” and who could change his clothes? “After all, from Helsinki, - the correspondent was perplexed, - Matthias Rust took off in jeans and a green tunic, and after landing in Moscow he got off the plane in a red jumpsuit.” In Helsinki, according to Timm, there was no image of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima on the Cessna's tail fin. Where did it come from on the plane after it landed on Red Square?

Rust’s version of an intermediate landing is also supported by the fact that soon after the Soviet interceptors flew over the intruder, air defense reconnaissance systems began to provide information to the higher command post about the target’s descent, then at about 15:32 they lost it. Apparently, the Cessna, having met with the fighters, decided not to tempt fate and, having chosen a suitable site, landed.

By the way, in the area of ​​Staraya Russa, where Rust could have made an alleged forced (or perhaps planned) landing, at that time there were up to fifty airfields and more than 60 sites belonging to various departments. None of these sites in that area had any connection with the authorities controlling the order and rules of use of airspace. In a word, even if they wanted, witnesses to the landing of an overseas guest would not be able to call where they should. Just an ideal place to “dive” from the all-seeing radars of the Soviet air defense. And if Rust accidentally chose such a landing site, then this accident is comparable to winning all the main prizes in one lottery.

But still - Could a German amateur pilot have needed an intermediate landing? Judging by how skillfully he escaped the Finnish air defense fighters with a sharp loss of altitude, we can conclude that Rust was not afraid of interceptors. Having masterfully simulated a fall into the bay, he crossed our border, and the Finnish pilots, having discovered a rainbow spot on the waves from the air, returned reassured to their base.

Here, by the way, is another mystery: how could an oil stain appear on its own at the site of Rust’s “fall”? A technical examination carried out later showed that it was impossible to fake such a stain using a canister or barrel dropped into the bay from an airplane. Only a submarine or boat could provide such camouflage support to a German pilot.

Another mystery. Why did not only our fighters sent to intercept Rust, but also the locators of several radio engineering units at once lose the air intruder? This happened somewhere in the middle of the route.

- More likely, - as Lieutenant Colonel V. Petrenko, senior navigator of the aviation department of the Moscow Air Defense District, explained to the author of the publication in SP, - being an experienced pilot, of which there is no doubt, Rust had a good idea of ​​what could be expected from a meeting with fighters. It was enough for the interceptor to pass over the Cessna in afterburner, and it would have been blown to pieces. Therefore, it is quite possible that Rust dived sharply, going to a low altitude, where he was not exactly a fighter - not a single locator will catch. Or just take it and land...

Former deputy head of the combat training department of the radio technical troops of the Moscow Air Defense District, Lieutenant Colonel E. Sukhoverov, believes that the German pilot deliberately made an intermediate landing in order to confuse our radar operators. That is, from a border violator, as he was identified in the Gulf of Finland region, to simply a violator of flight regulations, at whom no one will shoot.

Those who prepared his adventure with landing in Moscow, the author of the publication summarizes, could not help but know how the duty forces of the Soviet air defense in September 1983 in the Far East shot down a South Korean Boeing, which allegedly flew into Soviet territory by mistake and did not responded to requests from the ground. This sad experience helped Rust to deceive the Soviet rocket scientists, because when the Cessna was detected again, the locator specialists displayed it on their screens not as an “air enemy”, but as an “aircraft without an identification signal,” that is, a violator of the flight regime. On the air defense side, this implied other, more loyal actions. However, as you know, our troops could not accurately identify Rust from the very beginning...

If events developed this way, the author continues, then calling the flight of the “dove of peace” that landed on Red Square simply a prank somehow defies the tongue. It seems that Rust and those who prepared him understood too well the system for collecting and processing radar information of the Soviet air defense system.

Again, only a strange coincidence of circumstances can explain the fact that the route of the state border violator ran through the area where the MiG-25 fighter and Tu-22m bomber crashed the day before. In the area where the planes were supposed to crash, active search and rescue operations were underway, and several “turntables” were spinning in the air. Naturally, in such a mix it was possible to miss the “air enemy,” who, I emphasize, was already identified at that time as a “flight violation.” Moreover, Rust flew his airplane at the same altitude and at the same speed as the search and rescue helicopters that were spinning along his route.

No less strange is the appearance of six unidentified targets in the area of ​​Ostashkov, Kuvshinovo and Selishcha. The duty shift of the radio engineering battalion, observing these marks on the screens of their radars, began to issue coordinates of targets at 16:39. Their escort lasted about half an hour. Then, having made sure that the targets were moving with a course and speed commensurate with the direction and speed of the wind, they stopped paying attention to them, deciding that they were seeing cloud marks on their indicators.

However, the then head of the radio engineering troops, Colonel A. Rudak, who after these events was removed from his post by the new Minister of Defense of the USSR Dmitry Yazov (although on that ill-fated day of May 28, 1987, Rudak was on vacation), still believes that the radar operators did not observe meteorological formation, and the so-called. MRS (small-sized balls). They were launched by someone in the area of ​​Lake Seliger. According to the officer, the configuration of the marks on the radar indicators most closely matched the configuration of the MRS. And their “clustered” arrangement on the locator screen speaks for itself: it means they were launched in one place.

Moreover, the balls appeared in the area of ​​​​responsibility of the radio engineering battalion just at the time when the Cessna was flying through it. The radar operator could easily lose the mark of the air intruder among the marks of the MRS, moving in the same direction-course of a tailwind blowing, as luck would have it, towards the Mother See. It later turned out that a group of West German tourists was in the area of ​​Lake Seliger on May 28. And launching such a ball, as knowledgeable people explained, is as easy as shelling pears. A gas lighter or an aerosol can is enough.

Experts do not rule out that at the time of Rust’s flight, the balloons were launched to overload air defense information channels: this tactic has been practiced more than once in the northern and northwestern directions by our Scandinavian neighbors. However, for some reason, experts from the authorities did not check this version.

By the way, it was precisely at a time when the radar operators were trying to make sense of the tinsel of all kinds of marks that littered the indicator screens that the operational duty officer of the command post of the Moscow Air Defense District, Major General V. Reznichenko, gave the command to turn off the automated control system to carry out unscheduled routine maintenance. This general’s decision during a complex search and rescue operation, when several important air objects were in the air at once, looked rather strange.

- I think there is no military secret in this if I say that during combat duty the ACS equipment is never turned off, - Vladimir Borisovich later recalled. - Even if the electricity suddenly goes out, the automated control system will be switched to backup power. Therefore, when unknown persons in civilian clothes approached me and asked me to turn off the automated control system, I was even taken aback. In the air - several unidentified targets, and among them - either an “air enemy” or a “flight violation”, and I’ll take it and turn off the equipment?! In addition, the troops had a group of inspectors from the General Staff who could “launch” a control target at any moment. I asked them directly: “Who are you?” And then they said that they were techies, that is, representatives of industry. I flatly refused to turn off the ACS...

The “industrialists” began to insist, and Major General Reznichenko demanded from them an official document signed by at least the Commander-in-Chief of the Air Defense Forces. The operational duty officer was sure that such a document was unlikely to be shown to him. And I was very surprised when “representatives of the plant” literally in a matter of minutes brought a paper signed by the commander in chief...

- After all, I had no intention of turning off the ACS, - Vladimir Borisovich was worried about the flood of memories, - but they began to threaten me: they say, we’ll call where we need to, and you won’t end up in trouble. Oh, if only I knew what it would lead to later...

Vladimir Borisovich admitted that from the very beginning he was alarmed by the ridiculous request of the “plant representatives” who started preventive work at an inopportune hour. Previously, in such cases, the opinion of the operational duty officer was always taken into account. Why was he neglected this time?

“The West managed to attract people from Gorbachev’s inner circle to implement the project”

Soviet newspapers of that time, Kirichenko writes, as if by agreement, dubbed Rust’s unprecedented flight a boyish prank, a hooligan prank, for which it seemed impossible to punish. At the same time, Rust’s “air hooliganism” led to the resignation of senior army officials and gave Mikhail Gorbachev a reason to begin a radical reduction of the armed forces. This was followed by the destruction of the Warsaw Pact, the fall of communist regimes in Eastern Europe and the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan, which was so prevented by the then USSR Minister of Defense Marshal Sokolov.

When you think about it, the trick of the German amateur pilot seems far from harmless. This whole story is very similar to a performance played out according to a carefully thought-out scenario, in which Western intelligence services and numerous agents of influence embedded in our echelons of power were probably involved.

The author of the publication cites in confirmation the words of American national security specialist William E. Odom, who believes that after the flight of Rust, radical changes were carried out in the Soviet army, comparable to the purge of the armed forces organized by Stalin in 1937.

“Since Gorbachev came to power, - writes Odom, - Only the Deputy Minister of Defense for Armaments retained his position. The replaced officials included the Minister of Defense, all his other deputies, the Chief of the General Staff and his two first deputies. Commander-in-Chief of the Allied Forces of the Warsaw Pact and Chief of Staff of the Allied Forces, all four “supreme commanders”, all commanders of groups of forces (in Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary), all fleet commanders, all commanders of military districts. In some cases (especially the command of military districts) commanders were replaced three times... It is difficult to say how far down the official ladder the wave of purges swept, but it probably reached at least the level of division commands, and perhaps went further lower"...

Given such devastating consequences, it can be assumed that the flight of the West German amateur pilot was not a boyish prank at all, but a skillfully disguised espionage mission to study missile-hazardous areas and the duty schedule of Soviet air defense radar systems.

- There is no doubt that Rust's flight was a carefully planned provocation by Western intelligence services, - The author quotes the words of Army General Pyotr Deinekin, Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Air Force in 1991-1997. - And, most importantly, this special operation was carried out with the consent and knowledge of individuals from the then leadership of the Soviet Union. This sad thought about internal betrayal is suggested by the fact that immediately after Rust’s landing on Red Square, an unprecedented purge of the top and middle generals began. It was as if they were specially waiting for the right occasion.

- At that time I was the commander of the anti-aircraft missile forces of the USSR Air Defense and found myself, as they say, at the forefront of events, - recalls another direct participant in those events - Colonel General Rasim Akchurin, brother of the famous cardiologist Renat Akchurin. - At that very fateful moment, I was checking the Leningrad Air Defense Army in the Baltics. If Rust had been shot down, I assure you, even his fragments would not have been collected. But we had no right to fire at him; we could only force him to land. However, it was not possible to land it, because the fighters and Rust’s airplane had too different speeds. But Rust was escorted, and our cars flew over him.

- I believe that this was a brilliant operation, developed by Western intelligence agencies, - says Igor Morozov, a former KGB colonel and participant in the war in Afghanistan. - After 25 years, it becomes obvious that the West (and this is no longer a secret to anyone) managed to attract people from Gorbachev’s inner circle to implement the grandiose project, and they calculated the reaction of the General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee with one hundred percent accuracy. But there was only one goal - decapitate the USSR Armed Forces.

These are the sad facts cited by military journalist Evgeniy Kirichenko in his publication.