1987 landing on red square. Matthias Rust: landing on Red Square and further fate (10 photos)

German sports pilot who, at the age of 19, flew a Cessna 172B light aircraft from Helsinki to Moscow and landed on Red Square on May 28, 1987, untouched Soviet air defense. Rust's father was a businessman who sold Cessna aircraft.

Flight to Moscow

On the afternoon of May 27, 1987, 18-year-old Matthias Rust took off from Hamburg in a Cessna 172B Skyhawk four-seat light aircraft. He made an intermediate stop at Malmi Airport in Helsinki for refueling. Rust airport dispatcher said he was flying to Stockholm. At some point, Rust cut off communication with the Finnish control service, and then went to coastline Baltic Sea and disappeared from Finnish airspace near Sipoo. Rescuers found an oil slick in the sea and regarded it as evidence of a plane crash. Rust also crossed the Soviet border and headed for Moscow.

In one case (at the Tapa airfield), two fighters on duty were alerted. The fighters found Rust's plane, but did not receive instructions on further actions and, having made several flights over the Cessna plane (Rust's plane was moving at low altitude and at a low flight speed, which made it impossible to constantly accompany it with high-speed fighters), they simply returned to the airfield. Moving to Moscow, Rust was guided by railway Leningrad-Moscow. On the way of his flight, duty units from the airfields of Khotilovo and Bezhetsk rose into the air, but the order to shoot down the Cessna was never received.

The automated air defense system of the Moscow Military District was turned off for preventive maintenance, so tracking of the intruder aircraft had to be done manually and coordinated by telephone connection. Thus, the aircraft of Matthias Rust was not included in the list of aircraft shot down during the Cold War.

Rust landed on the Bolshoy Moskvoretsky Bridge, coasted to St. Basil's Cathedral, got off the plane at 19:10 and began signing autographs. 10 minutes later he was arrested.

Versions about the air defense reaction

According to one version, Rust's flight was an action by foreign intelligence services. As General of the Army Pyotr Deinekin, Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Air Force in 1991-1997, said in an interview, “There is no doubt that Rust's flight was a carefully planned provocation by Western intelligence agencies. And most importantly, it was carried out with the consent and knowledge of individuals from the then leadership Soviet Union". The same point of view is shared by Igor Morozov, a former colonel of the KGB of the USSR, who noted: “It was a brilliant operation developed by Western intelligence services. After 20 years, it becomes obvious that the secret services, and this is no longer a secret to anyone, were able to attract grandiose project persons from the inner circle of Mikhail Gorbachev, and with absolute accuracy they calculated the reaction of the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU. And the goal was one - to decapitate the Armed Forces of the USSR, to significantly weaken the positions of the Soviet Union in the international arena.

The commander of the anti-aircraft missile forces of the USSR Air Defense Rasim Akchurin said: “The action was not at all harmless, but planned to discredit our army.<...>Commander-in-Chief Alexander Ivanovich Koldunov was removed - an amazing person, twice Hero of the Soviet Union. In addition, the commander was removed from us - I don’t know his fate, and I don’t even remember his name anymore. At that time, a lot of people were “swept away” in the air defense, and the operational duty officer was even condemned. ... they removed the excellent Minister of Defense Sergei Leonidovich Sokolov and put Dmitry Yazov in his place. According to the general on duty at the central air defense post on May 28, 1987, Sergei Melnikov, the former KGB chairman Vladimir Kryuchkov told him in a confidential conversation that he "personally prepared this operation on Gorbachev's instructions."

Consequences

Rust was accused of hooliganism (his landing, according to the court, threatened the lives of people who were on the square), violation of aviation legislation and illegal crossing of the Soviet border. Rust stated in court that his flight was a "call for peace". On September 4, Rust was sentenced to four years in prison. Matthias Rust returned to the FRG on 3 August 1988 after Andrei Gromyko, then chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, signed an amnesty decree. Rust spent a total of 432 days in pre-trial detention and prison.

In the popular stage, Rust is described as a reckless, freedom-loving and reckless guy.

Despite early detection of Rust by air defense forces, his flight was presented in Soviet newspapers as a failure of the Soviet air defense system. Mikhail Gorbachev used the incident to remove Defense Minister Sergei Sokolov and Air Defense Commander Alexander Koldunov, as well as to further reduce armed forces. Both of them were political opponents of Gorbachev. Instead, he appointed people who supported his political course, although one of them - the new Minister of Defense Dmitry Yazov - subsequently participated in the coup against Gorbachev. In addition to those named, two more marshals lost their posts - Air Force Commander Alexander Efimov and Commander of the Moscow Air Defense District Anatoly Konstantinov. As the newspaper "Trud" noted, an American specialist in national security William E. Odom noted that "after the passage of Rust, radical changes were carried out in the Soviet army, comparable to the purge of the armed forces organized by Stalin in 1937."

Rust's life after the flight

In November 1989, Rust, who was doing alternative service in a hospital in German city Rissen stabbed a nurse because she refused to go on a date with him. For this, in 1991 he was sentenced to 4 years in prison, but was released after only 5 months. In April 1994, Rust announced that he wanted to return to Russia. There he visited an orphanage and began to donate money to it. Then he disappeared for 2 years. There were rumors about his death, but in reality, Rust was selling shoes in Moscow.

Then, at the age of 28, having traveled all over the world, Rust returned to his homeland. There he announced his intention to marry an Indian girl named Geetha, the daughter of a wealthy Bombay tea merchant. Rust converted to Hinduism, and the marriage ceremony took place in India and according to the Hindu rite. After the marriage, Rust and his wife returned to Germany.

In April 2001, Rust appeared in court on charges of stealing a sweater from a department store. As of 2002, Rust lived in Hamburg with his second wife, Athena. Now Matthias Rust makes a living playing poker.

Rust's plane is now owned by a wealthy Japanese businessman. He keeps the plane in the hangar, hoping that over time its value will increase.

Humor

After the landing of M. Rust, for some time the people called Red Square Sheremetyevo-3. Also, a joke went around the country that a police post was set up at the fountain near the Bolshoi Theater in case an American submarine surfaced.

Also, among the military personnel of the aviation fighter regiments of the Air Defense Forces of the Country, there was an anecdote about two lieutenant pilots on Red Square, one of whom asked the other to smoke. The other replied in the sense of “What are you?! No smoking at the airport!

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

Even today, almost thirty years later, the controversy over the identity of a simple German student Matthias Rust, which brazenly landed on Red Square, flew through all the border cordons, do not subside. It is still not clear who he was - an ordinary air hooligan, adventurer, provocateur or 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 scandalous landing of a young German in the very heart of the USSR.

Spoiled Border Guard Day

May 28, 1987 from the Bolshoi stone bridge a small plane, like a toy, taxied in the direction of Red Square. The hosts of the nearby concert were surprised, but in a country where everything was happening on a grand scale, one could expect anything, even a plane landing in its very heart.

Concert, dedicated to the day border guard, continued, but the events unfolding in the square became more and more strange. The plane was surrounded by policemen, then the military appeared, pushed back the formed crowd. A young guy who piloted a sports Cessna smiled and kindly told that he was a “dove of peace”, that he flew in to “shake hands Gorbachev”,“ build bridges ”,“ peace to the world ”and so on.

There were many more beautiful and grandiloquent phrases. But is it really so cloudless, harmless and naive?

Looking at the chain of events that the visit of the allegedly peaceful-minded handsome German hippie led to, it's hard 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".

Suppose that everything happened exactly as Rust himself presents his act to the public: a naive idealist, carrying peace to the whole world on the wings of the Cessna, unjustly offended by the judicial system of the “evil empire”. Appearing in 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 elementary 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 met with flowers and taken to Gorbachev as a hero? Didn't he 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 a few hundred kilometers from Moscow?

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

The military say that during the entry of Rust into Soviet airspace, a Finnish fighter was loitering along the border, and several metallized balloons in order to divert the air defense systems located in the area.

The Cessna itself was also not chosen by chance: it is not clearly displayed on the radars and in general looks like a flock of birds. It can easily be lost when transferring from one area covered by radar to another, which happened several times.

Strange Details in the Matthias Rust Case

Matthias Rust flew to Moscow in 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 aircraft. He called this image in an interview "a counter-bomb designed to fight for world peace."

Little of. Considering cruising speed"Cessna", then Rust's plane was supposed to fly to Moscow 2 hours earlier. Where has he been all this time? Why did an inspection of the aircraft show that it fuel tanks almost full, even though he flew 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 passage of Rust, the military did not change the radar field, which, according to the regulations, changes every 24 hours? Like they were waiting. Subsequently, information also appeared that the air defense on duty that day spotted the plane - but the reports recorded a “flock of birds”.

Why was the fighter, which went to intercept the intruder and circled it twice, not given a command to destroy or to force a landing? Why, if Rust did not hide from Soviet radars, his route did not run in a straight line, as in his other flights? Why did they cut the trolleybus wires on the bridge on which Rust was supposed to land? And finally: where did three professional cameras with cameramen “accidentally” come from on the square, who managed to capture the scene with the plane from three points of high quality? Recall that at that time television cameras capable of giving such a high-quality picture could not fit in a jacket pocket.

There are many such questions. And over the years, the answers to them do not appear. And there are more and more guesses. The series of "accidents" that Matthias is trying to justify his unthinkable luck is too great.

On September 4, 1987, exactly thirty years ago, the trial of the scandalous case of Matthias Rust, a young German amateur pilot, who, a few months earlier, on May 28, 1987, landed on his plane on Red Square - in the very heart of the Soviet capital, ended with a guilty verdict .

The Cessna-172 aircraft, piloted by 18-year-old German citizen Matthias Rust, landed right at St. Basil's Cathedral in the center of Moscow. The Soviet leadership was in real shock. After all, not only did the plane of a simple German guy cover the distance from the Soviet border to the capital of the country and was not shot down by air defense systems, this event also happened, which is very symbolic, on May 28 - Border Guard Day. It was a real slap in the face of the entire Soviet system. Naturally, Matthias Rust was arrested immediately after the plane landed.

Almost immediately after Rust's plane landed on Red Square, General Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU Mikhail Gorbachev decided to dismiss a number of top military leaders, primarily those who were responsible for the air defense of the Soviet state. The highest-ranking "retiree" was the Minister of Defense of the Soviet Union, 72-year-old Marshal Sergei Sokolov. He has held this position since 1984, replacing the deceased Marshal Dmitry Ustinov. Prior to his appointment as Minister of Defense, Marshal Sokolov from 1967 to 1984, for seventeen years, was the First Deputy Minister of Defense of the USSR. A participant in the Great Patriotic War, Marshal Sokolov was one of the most prominent Soviet military leaders. In particular, from 1980 to 1985. he was responsible for directing the actions of Soviet troops on the territory Democratic Republic Afghanistan. However, the flight of the German youth cost the respected marshal his career. Of course, they could not throw the honored military leader “on the street” - already in June 1987 he took the post of inspector general of the Group of General Inspectors of the USSR Ministry of Defense.

In addition to Marshal Sokolov, Air Chief Marshal Alexander Koldunov, who served as Commander-in-Chief of the Air Defense Forces of the Soviet Union and was directly responsible for the security of the airspace of the Soviet country, was dismissed immediately after the flight of Matthias Rust. Twice Hero of the Soviet Union, Alexander Koldunov went through the Great Patriotic War as a fighter pilot, after the war he served in the fighter aviation of the Air Force, and then in the air defense. He took the post of commander-in-chief of the Air Defense Forces in 1978, nine years before the flight of Matthias Rust. But not only the top military leaders have lost their positions. About 300 senior officers were dismissed from the service. A powerful blow was dealt to the personnel of the Soviet armed forces. They also found "scapegoats" - two officers of the Air Defense Forces received real terms of imprisonment. They were Lieutenant Colonel Ivan Karpets, who was on duty at the Tallinn Air Defense Division on the day of Rust's flight, and Major Vyacheslav Chernykh, who was on duty at the radio engineering brigade that ill-fated day.

As for Rust himself, after being detained on Red Square, he was arrested. On June 1, a few days after the flight, Matthias Rust turned nineteen years old. The young German celebrated his birthday in prison. The whole world followed the fate of the guy who demonstrated that the defense system of the Soviet Union was by no means "iron". And it really was so - with outright traitors who penetrated the top leadership of the Soviet state, it simply could not be iron. Naturally, without "providing" at the highest level, Rust's flight would simply be impossible. He would have been shot down in the worst case while still in the sky over Estonia. However, Rust was literally given the green light to fly all the way to the Soviet capital. This could only happen with the sanction of the highest Soviet leaders. It is not very clear who specifically gave the go-ahead for Rust's landing on Red Square, and it is unlikely that we will ever know about it. But it is obvious that this was a person or people who were part of the highest group of the Soviet elite.

The displaced military leaders were in opposition to the course that by this time the Soviet leadership, headed by Mikhail Gorbachev, had begun to pursue. Attacking the command of the armed forces was one of the main tasks of those people who were behind the methodical and systematic destruction of the Soviet state. After all, the famous marshals and generals who went through the Great Patriotic War and were real patriots of the Soviet state could simply not allow all those manipulations with the country that led to the 1991 disaster. Subsequently, the American military expert William Odom even compared the "cleansing" of the Soviet military elite after the flight of Matthias Rust with the repressions against Soviet military leaders that took place in 1937-1938. Interestingly, after each such purge, three or four years later, a catastrophe ensued. In 1941, the terrible Great Patriotic War, and in 1991 the Soviet Union collapsed, and this process was also accompanied by rivers of blood in the former Soviet republics, numerous military conflicts, riots, an unprecedented wave of crime and violence.

Therefore, it is hardly worth evaluating the act of Matthias Rust as a "harmless prank" of a young romantic aviator. Most likely, a carefully thought-out and organized provocation took place here, in which Western intelligence services could participate, and an impressive cover with Soviet side. At least, many prominent Soviet and Russian military leaders agree in this opinion, who believe that without the "Kremlin roof" the flight of Matthias Rust would have ended tragically for him. The purpose of organizing such a flight was to weaken the Soviet state by solving the following tasks: 1) creating a pretext for a large-scale "purge" of objectionable top military leaders, 2) discrediting the Soviet defense system in the eyes of the citizens of the USSR and the world community, 3) strengthening anti-Soviet sentiments in society. It was after the flight of Matthias Rust and the dismissal of the Minister of Defense of the USSR Marshal Sergei Sokolov that Mikhail Gorbachev began a rapid reduction in the Armed Forces of the Soviet Union. Rust's flight in this context was another argument - why do we need "such an army", and even in "such numbers" that missed the flight and landing on Red Square of a sports plane of some German youth.

It is noteworthy that shortly before Matthias Rust's flight, USSR Minister of Defense Marshal Sokolov personally reported to Mikhail Gorbachev on how the air defense system of the Soviet state was organized and how it worked. Leaving the general secretary, Sokolov forgot some documents from him, including a very secret map. But the next day, when he tried to return the documents, Gorbachev said that he did not remember where they were. This version was subsequently voiced, according to a number of publications in the Russian media, by Colonel General Leonid Ivashov. Be that as it may, the majority of military leaders agree on one thing - the action with the flight of Rust was thought out and planned. There is also another very interesting version, according to which Rust landed on Red Square with full tanks fuel, which indicates only one thing - it was refueled somewhere on Soviet territory. And they could do this only directly under the control of the "omnipotent" Soviet KGB.

The trial of Matthias Rust was scheduled for September 2, 1987. Matthias Rust was charged under three articles of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR - illegal crossing of the air border, violation of international flight rules and malicious hooliganism. In the definition of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR, hooliganism was interpreted as deliberate actions grossly violating public order and expressing clear disrespect for society, while malicious hooliganism meant the same actions, but accompanied by "exceptional cynicism or special audacity." The landing of the plane on Red Square, where a lot of Soviet people were walking, was regarded in this way. For malicious hooliganism, the Criminal Code of the RSFSR provided for liability in the form of imprisonment for up to five years or corrective labor for up to two years. Violation of the rules of international flights provided for an even wider range of punishment - from one year to ten years in prison, however, under the same article it was possible to get off without a real term - by paying a large fine.

At the trial, Matthias Rust said that he flew to Moscow in order to demonstrate to the Soviet people his desire for peace. However, the prosecution did not heed these arguments of the young German. The prosecutor asked for Matthias Rust under three articles of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR ten years in prison. But the trial turned out to be much more lenient than the accusation.

On September 4, 1987, Matthias Rust was sentenced. He was sentenced to four years in prison. On the one hand, anti-Soviet elements in the Soviet Union itself and the world community immediately expressed indignation at such, from their point of view, cruel reprisal against the "messenger of peace." On the other hand, on the contrary, today there are many questions about the verdict, which seems to some to be overly liberal. Firstly, those articles of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR were applied to Matthias Rust, which were not tough and could not entail such serious measures as, say, the death penalty. Secondly, all the same, four years of imprisonment for such an act of state significance looked very strange, especially in comparison with what ordinary Soviet citizens were then given four years for.

The mildness of Rust's sentence testified that no one was going to punish him seriously. In the old days, when the Soviet Union was really an opponent of the capitalist West, Matthias Rust would have received at best ten years in distant northern camps, and at worst he would have simply been sentenced to death. But in 1987 the situation changed. It is possible that the liberal measure of punishment for Rust was to demonstrate to the West the further readiness of the Soviet Union for "democratization".

At the beginning of August 1988, less than a year after the trial, Matthias Rust was granted amnesty and safely returned to his homeland. In pre-trial detention and in the colony, the young German spent only 14 months. In fact, Mikhail Gorbachev generously forgave Matthias Rust for the biting slap in the face of the Soviet Union and the Soviet Army, inflicted before the eyes of the whole world. Of course, “Western friends” persistently asked for Matthias Rust (by that time Moscow was already looking at the West with wide eyes), German Chancellor Helmut Kohl could personally turn to Mikhail Gorbachev. Mikhail Sergeevich, who a few years later successfully transferred the GDR to the FRG, could not refuse his West German colleague.

The decision to release Matthias Rust was enthusiastically received both in the West, where it once again confirmed the weakening of the superpower and its readiness to concede to the West from now on in everything, and in the Soviet Union itself, since anti-Soviet sentiments at that time in society were already very strong, especially among the "active" part of society - the capital's intelligentsia, young representatives of the nomenklatura. Both the flight of Matthias Rust, and the lenient sentence, and his imminent release demonstrated the beginning of changes in the life of the Soviet Union and fit perfectly into Gorbachev's perestroika. First they forgave Rust, then they allowed the GDR to be included in the FRG, to overthrow all the pro-Soviet regimes in Eastern Europe and, in the end, destroy the Soviet Union itself.

By the way, the life of Matthias Rust after returning to his homeland in Germany was very interesting. Some actions perfectly characterize the true image of the "messenger of peace." So, already in November 1989, after 15 months after his release from the Soviet colony, Matthias Rust, who by that time was doing alternative service in a hospital in Riessen, began to look after a nurse. He invited her on a date, and after the nurse refused to go with him, he stabbed her with a knife. For this, Matthias Rust was arrested - already "native" German authorities. In 1991, he was sentenced to four years in prison - just the same term was given to Rust for landing on Red Square. But after 15 months, Rust was released from prison (and it repeats again - in the USSR he was released after fourteen months).

In 1997, ten years after his flight, Rust, who by then lived in the distant West Indies, in the state of Trinidad and Tobago, converted to Hinduism and married a local girl of Indian origin. Then he returned with his young wife to his homeland, to Germany, but in 2001 he again came to the attention of the police - this time for stealing a sweater in one of the supermarkets. In the mid-2000s, twenty years after his flight, Matthias Rust claimed he wanted to "build bridges" between West and East. But oh true history his flight, he still prefers to remain silent.

2002-05-28T11:16Z

2008-06-05T12:22Z

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15 years ago, the German Matthias Rust violated the state border of the USSR

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On May 28, 1987, when the USSR celebrated another Border Guard Day, 19-year-old German Matthias Rust got into a small sports plane "Cessna-172", without an entry visa, crossed the Soviet border, flew 800 km over the territory of the USSR and landed his plane on Krasnaya Moscow square. The aircraft brand "Sesna-172" was designed in the 1950s. This two-seat aircraft achieves with its relatively low-power motor top speed 220 km/h However, the aircraft is popular with flying sports because of its ease of operation and reliability. According to Muscovites and guests of the capital, who walked around the center of Moscow on May 28, 1987, the plane with a left turn and a descent came in for landing between the Spasskaya Tower of the Kremlin and St. Basil's Cathedral. Rust failed to land the plane directly on Red Square (there were too many people on the square). Having made one more U-turn over the hotel "Rossiya", he went down, landed in the middle of the Moskvoretsky bridge and taxied to ...

The aircraft brand "Sesna-172" was designed in the 1950s. This two-seat aircraft reaches a maximum speed of 220 km/h with its relatively small engine. However, the aircraft is popular with flying sports because of its ease of operation and reliability.

According to Muscovites and guests of the capital, who walked around the center of Moscow on May 28, 1987, the plane with a left turn and a descent came in for landing between the Spasskaya Tower of the Kremlin and St. Basil's Cathedral. Rust failed to land the plane directly on Red Square (there were too many people on the square). Having made one more U-turn over the hotel "Rossiya", he went down, landed in the middle of the Moskvoretsky bridge and taxied to Vasilyevsky Spusk.

A crowd immediately formed around the blue and white single-engine Cessna. Matthias Rust got out of the cockpit and started signing autographs. When the police arrived and demanded documents, he declared that he had come "as a fighter for peace." Rust was taken away, according to eyewitnesses, in a black ZIL, and a special truck towed the plane from Red Square in an unknown direction.

Rust began his flight from Hamburg, the extreme eastern point his itinerary was to be Stockholm. But Rust took a course through Soviet Estonia to Moscow, which he reached unhindered by low altitudes after five hours, five hours later.

Rust was spotted by Soviet locators, but for a long time the commanders could not decide whether or not to shoot down the "object".

Rust's flight to Moscow was clearly provocative. The incident had serious political consequences. In the West, his "feat" was praised, Rust was called "a brave lone hero who, risking his life, punched a hole in the Iron Curtain in order to convey the message of peace to the leadership of the USSR." Roots spoke about this in all Western talk shows. But in the courtroom, Rust claimed that he had crossed the border of the USSR "on a dare."

In the Soviet Union, Rust was found guilty of illegally crossing the border and had to serve a four-year prison sentence. However, his Lefortovo imprisonment lasted only a year. The Soviet government, as a "goodwill gesture," decided to release Matthias ahead of schedule, and he was handed over to the German authorities.

Punishment awaited not only the "air hooligan". On May 30, 1987, a meeting of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU was held, which ended with the dismissal of the Minister of Defense Marshal of the Soviet Union Sergei Sokolov and the Commander-in-Chief of the Air Defense Forces Chief Marshal of Aviation Alexander Koldunov. By June 10, 34 officers and generals were brought to justice in the Air Defense Forces. Many were removed from their positions, expelled from the CPSU, fired from the Armed Forces, put on trial. In fact, the entire leadership of the Ministry of Defense, up to the commanders of military districts, was replaced.

In a petition for clemency, Rust wrote: “Now, after many months of imprisonment, everything has become clear to me. I deeply regret what I have done. was able to carry out legal work for world peace in the FRG. Flying home from Sheremetyevo-2, Rust shed a tear and promised reporters that he would certainly return to the Soviet Union as a tourist "to get to know this wonderful country better."

Rust's flight to Moscow in May 1987 launched a campaign to discredit the Armed Forces When the German pilot Matthias Rust landed on Red Square in May 1987, this event made many non-professionals doubt the perfection of the domestic air defense system. A lot has been written about this incident, but practically nothing has been published about the true causes, and how it all happened. Here it is appropriate to mention some of the events that preceded this flight. At the end of August 1983, air defense forces on Far East in the area of Moneron Island, a South Korean Boeing 747 was destroyed, violating our airspace to a depth of 500 km. The aircraft did not keep in touch with the ground, and did not react to the actions of fighters near the cockpit. In addition, the course of the aircraft crossed areas of airspace that were closed even for flights of its own aircraft. Counteraction to the flight of the aircraft took place in compliance with the provisions of combat documents and in strict accordance with international rules. (Note that the crash incident South Korean aircraft not the first.) The press and television, especially foreign ones, opened up a discussion, and sometimes just hysteria, about the legitimacy of the actions of the air defense forces to prevent this flight. Since 1985, the winds of democratic change have blown the issue further. However, no concrete proposals were made by the Ministry of Defense to correct combat documents. POSTCARDS WITH VIEWS OF CHURCHES And so, on May 28 at 14.00 on the air route Helsinki-Moscow at an altitude of 600 m, an air defense unit on duty near the Estonian town of Kohtla-Jarve discovers a small aircraft without an identification signal "I am mine", which is absent in the application as allowed for entry into the airspace of the Soviet Union. This is how events unfolded to prevent the illegal entry into the airspace of the USSR of an aircraft of unknown nationality, unknown type and with unknown purposes. In general, the situation was reminiscent of the Far East scenario with the South Korean Boeing, but one cannot discount the fact that the "Moneron syndrome" was still in force, and all this happened on one of the busiest air routes, practically in the center of Europe. Only later, the materials of a thorough investigation will confirm that the technical complex of means throughout the entire route of Rust's flight, and it was about 1130 km, worked flawlessly, and this small plane was observed almost along the entire route. And only the human factor and a number of incredible but tragic coincidences ultimately led to the disruption of the combat mission by the air defense forces on duty, to serious personnel changes in the USSR Ministry of Defense and the beginning of the reorganization of the air defense system. To the question "Is it by chance that 19-year-old German citizen Matthias Rust ended up in Moscow?" one can unequivocally answer: "No, not at all by chance." From the case file, it turned out that he was young, but capable pilot he was fond of flights to the maximum range on his favorite, as he said, Cessna-172 aircraft. Only in 1986 did he fly several times to Shetland and Faroe islands. Flying over the ocean out of sight of the earth is not considered easy. Rust had decent experience in instrument navigation. During 1986, he carefully studied the area on the map, over which he was to fly a year later, collecting postcards with views of churches and temples in the area as landmarks. In May 1987, Rust decided that he was ready for the planned flight. He took off from Helsinki airport at 13.30 Moscow time. The flight plan listed Stockholm, it's only two hours on the Cessna-172. After 20 minutes, Matthias Rust got in touch with the dispatcher, reported that everything was fine on board and said goodbye. After that, he turned off all means of communication, except for the on-board radio compass receiver, and sent the plane to the Gulf of Finland with a decrease in altitude to 200 m, after which it turned 180 degrees and headed to the point that was predetermined by him and was exactly on the route connecting Helsinki and Moscow. Bodies of control and management air traffic Finland recorded a change in the flight level of the aircraft of Matthias Rust and a deviation from the established route. Since this created a threat to the safety of flights in the area, the controller requested (by radio) the Rust aircraft. Attempts to contact the pilot were unsuccessful. Soon Rust's plane disappeared on all radar screens of the surveillance system 40 km from the coastline above the waters. Gulf of Finland. Already 30 minutes later, a search helicopter and two patrol boats were sent to the area of the alleged crash of the aircraft, some objects and a small oil slick were found. Presumably, it was concluded that the plane crashed into the water and additional forces and means were needed to reliably verify this (a few months later, the Finnish rescue service will bill Rust for 120 thousand US dollars for search and rescue operations on the spot alleged disaster). Pyct meanwhile carried out his plan of reaching the city of Moscow. The weather at that moment was cloudy, with clearings, with the lower edge of the clouds 400-600 m, the wind was from the west, and drizzling rain fell from time to time. For about an hour of flight, Rust strictly maintained a course along a radio beacon, the navigation station of which was located in the Helsinki region. Further, the entire flight was carried out according to the readings of the magnetic compass and visual comparisons of objects that were previously plotted on the map. The main landmarks are Lake Peipsi, lake Ilmen, lake Seliger, railway line RzhevMoscow. With such extended landmarks, it is simply difficult to get lost. COMFORT So, information about the discovery of an unknown aircraft arrived at the automated command post of the unit at 14.10. About 15 minutes in the conditions of the "Moneron syndrome" there were negotiations with civilian dispatchers, what could it be? By this time the plane was already at the coastline. Three on-duty anti-aircraft missile battalions were put on alert, they observed the target, but they did not receive orders for destruction, everyone was waiting for the decision of the commander of the air defense OA, Major General Kromin. When it turned out that this was not a bid aircraft, all army units were alerted and a couple of duty fighters from the Tapa airfield were raised into the air to identify the object. At 14.29, the pilot, senior lieutenant Puchnin, reported that he had seen a white sports plane, Yak-12 type, with a dark stripe along the fuselage, in a break in the clouds. It was already in the area of the city of Gdov. The descent took place at the junction of the detection zones of two radar units, and Rust was not observed on the radars for a period of up to 1 minute. However, the flight route automated system remained stable. At 14.31, the object was detected, but with a heading of 90 degrees instead of 130. It was now moving along the Gdov-Malaya Vishera highway. It was decided that the same object was found. From the army command post, instructions were given to clarify the parameters of the object and a command was issued to raise a couple more duty fighters to identify it. The fighters returned with nothing. According to the reports of the pilots, they did not find anything on their onboard radars. However, the mark was steadily observed by all ground units. Changes in movement parameters were noted: speed within 80-85 km/h (instead of 180-210 km/h), altitude 1000 m (instead of 600 m). Professionals know that in spring and summer, under certain climatic conditions, stable vortex flows arise in the atmosphere that move with wind currents, exist for a long time and it is very difficult to distinguish them from a small-sized aircraft on radar screens. In such cases, you need a lot of experience and skill. At this point, apparently, it was not enough to make the right decision. The calculation was obliged to pay attention to the fact that within a minute the height of the object had almost doubled, and the speed had decreased by almost three times. At 15.00 Rust's plane was already in the Pskov area. The weather improved, the rain stopped, and Rust again took up a height of 600 m as the most economical for this type of aircraft and continued flying. In the same area there were training flights of one of the aviation regiments. There were from 7 to 12 aircraft in the air in different zones. Some took off, others landed, so their number was constantly changing. RUST LEGALIZED At 15.00, in accordance with the schedule, the code number of the state identification system was changed. All ground and air means and the systems had to perform this operation at the same time. With fighters, this did not happen immediately. Carried away by the piloting technique, not all young pilots switched the necessary toggle switch in time, and immediately they became "strangers" for the air defense system. The commander of the radio engineering unit, knowing the situation with an unidentified aircraft, orders the operational duty officer of the system in the zone of which the fighters were located to forcibly assign the sign "I am mine." "Otherwise, we can shoot down our own," he explains his position to the young officer. He, in turn, explains that this is contrary to the instructions and documents. The officer of the higher command post removes the intractable senior lieutenant from duty and changes him to a young lieutenant who, without understanding the military situation, carried out the order, assigning the sign "I am mine" to all fighters in the air, along with Matthias Rust's plane. By 16.00, already legalized, Pyct flies through Lake Seliger and falls into the area of responsibility of another unit. The system's tracking facilities again confirmed that the aircraft was detected without the "I am mine" signal. Another analysis of the situation. Again the rise of the duty pair of fighters. In conditions of low cloud cover, the commanders did not dare to lower the fighters to a height below 600 m, breaking through the clouds from top to bottom. It was too dangerous. Thus, Rust's aircraft was not visually detected. The day before Rust's flight, 40 km west of the city of Torzhok, an air crash occurred on one of the aircraft of the Air Force, a search and rescue group was working here. One of the helicopters on that day and hour served as a communications relay, loitering in the area. The decision was made that the plane without the signal "I am mine" is the application helicopter, which was in the search and rescue area. The twice legalized Rust continued flying to Moscow. There were less than two hours left before landing. Not understanding exactly the unidentified target, General Kromin reported it to the command post of the Moscow Air Defense District and the Central Command Post (CKP) of the Air Defense Forces as a simple violator of the flight regime, that is, a Soviet light aircraft that took off without an application. The operational duty officer of the TsKP, Major General Melnikov, without having complete characteristics about the aircraft violating the flight regime, did not report it to the Commander-in-Chief of the Air Defense Forces, Chief Air Marshal Koldunov, who was at that time at his workplace. The first deputy chief of the General Staff, Lieutenant-General Timokhin, who remained behind the chief of staff, did not react to the report of the duty officer. Hoping that the intruder would be sorted out by themselves in the Moscow District, General Melnikov gave the command to remove this target from the alert at the Central Command Center. At the command post of the district at that time, intense combat work was underway on control targets, which was led by the first deputy commander of the district troops, Lieutenant General Brazhnikov. He did not attach any importance to information about "a simple violator of the flight regime". IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE LAW Now let's turn to the legislative or legal basis for the actions of the air defense forces on duty. Law of the USSR on the State Border USSR dated November 1982. Article 36 read: "The air defense troops, protecting the State Border of the USSR ... in cases where the termination of the violation or the detention of violators cannot be carried out by other means, they use weapons and military equipment." Ten months will pass, and in accordance with this Law, on September 1, 1983, a South Korean Boeing that invaded the country's airspace will be shot down. The fact that he was shot down will be hidden behind the words "observation of him was lost" for some time. And only a week later, in the Statement of the Soviet government, it will be reported that "the fighter-interceptor carried out the order of the command post in full accordance with the Law ..." The law was, however, the order of the Minister of Defense of the USSR, by which it was put into effect, it was allowed to open fire only on military aircraft of the capitalist countries. And that is not always the case. As a result, having reached the units and subunits, the order "grew" to a special instruction of ... 20 pages. And already according to this document, the one who made the decision to use or not use fire could go to jail. If we add to this the Chicago Convention, according to which fire to kill on intruder aircraft is prohibited civil aviation , then one can imagine the position in which all those who led the air defense forces on duty on that ill-fated day were. GOAL - RED SQUARE Meanwhile, at 18.30 Matthias Rust had already approached the outskirts of Moscow, crossed Khodynka and headed straight for the Kremlin. The weather in Moscow was spring-like warm, windless and partly cloudy. Pyst's plans were to land the plane right in the Kremlin. But, having made sure from a height of 60 m that there is no suitable site there, he decides to land on Red Square, the size of which allowed him to do this. With a left turn and a descent, Rust comes in for a landing between the Kremlin's Spasskaya Tower and St. Basil's Cathedral. However, this could not be done due to the many people in the square. He makes a second attempt, climbing sharply and turning over the Rossiya Hotel. Also descending, turning on navigation lights and shaking his wings, Rust hoped that passers-by would understand his intentions and free up the diagonal of the square for landing. However, this did not happen. Having made one more U-turn over the Rossiya Hotel, Rust, nevertheless, managed to detect the operation mode of the traffic light on the Bolshoy Moskvoretsky Bridge using a stopwatch. Having begun the descent over Bolshaya Ordynka Street, Rust very accurately calculated the trajectory of his plane's descent. And, as soon as the red light of the traffic light at the beginning of the bridge turned on, the plane, almost touching the chassis of the roof of the cars, touched the bridge with its wheels. This distance was enough to, having extinguished the speed, taxied to the cathedral and turned off the engine. The clock on the Spasskaya Tower of the Kremlin showed 19 hours 10 minutes, but it was still far from evening. DISCUSSION The overflight of Rust gave rise to heavy accusations not only against the Air Defense Forces, but also against the Armed Forces. On May 30, a meeting of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU was held, which ended with the dismissal of the Minister of Defense Marshal of the Soviet Union Sergei Sokolov and the Commander-in-Chief of the Air Defense Forces Chief Marshal of Aviation Alexander Koldunov. By June 10, 34 officers and generals were brought to justice in the Air Defense Forces. The flywheel of punishment continued to spin. Many were removed from their positions, expelled from the CPSU, fired from the Armed Forces, put on trial. The prestige of the Armed Forces was dealt a blow. In fact, the entire leadership of the Ministry of Defense, up to and including the commanders of military districts, was replaced. The impression was created that there were some circles in the country interested in undermining the confidence of the people in their Armed Forces. This was evidenced by the unwillingness to understand that the country's air defense system was created not to fight against any means capable of flying into our airspace, but primarily to repel an attack from air and space by combat aircraft, cruise missiles and other unmanned vehicles that pose a danger to objects of the country that no air defense of any state in peacetime can withstand air hooligans who deliberately violate the airspace, especially on sports-type aircraft at low and extremely low altitudes. Such a task is beyond the power of the state from an economic point of view, and even more so for a country with a border length of more than 60,000 km. IMPACT ON PRESTIGE In this case, Rust's flight to Moscow was clearly provocative. The flight was planned in advance, as evidenced by the choice of an experienced pilot, his program of purposeful instrument training for the maximum range, and a thorough study of the features of the upcoming route over the territory of the USSR. One can only guess who was behind this provocation. The calculation of striking at the prestige of the Armed Forces of the USSR, their leadership, in the center of which were the Air Defense Forces, was accurate. Nevertheless, the power structures, starting with the Politburo, have created a state-wide hype around the Rust overflight problem. Thus, his people were confused, the prestige of the Armed Forces was undermined. It turns out that our potential enemy inflicted a serious defeat on the defense capability of the USSR with the hands of the "own" Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee. Rust marked the beginning of a decline in the prestige of service in the Armed Forces, which continues to this day. There was no need to dream of a better one. In the West, Rust's flight to Moscow was savored. The magazine "Stern" praised his "feat", breaking through the strongest air defense system of a hundred launch complexes of surface-to-air missiles, 6 air regiments with 240 fighter-interceptors, etc. The article informed that after 48 hours Alexander Koldunov, Commander-in-Chief of Air Defense, lost his post, having shot down 46 German aircraft that the incident with Rust gave Mikhail Gorbachev a reason to remove the 75-year-old Marshal Sergei Sokolov from the post of Minister of Defense ... It was also noted that on May 1 there were only five military men instead of fifteen on the podium of the Mausoleum. The calculation of the adventurous overflight of Rust was confirmed. We were able to deal with our own. On August 4, Rust was pardoned and sentenced to four years in prison. In an interview with an Izvestia correspondent, Andreev, a member of the board of the USSR Prosecutor's Office, in every possible way downplaying the severity of the criminal's guilt, reducing Rust's "leprosy" to malicious hooliganism, painted a picture of the fertile conditions in which Rust was kept in the colony. But our commanders were punished with all unjustified cruelty for this case. Nobody thought to rehabilitate them. It is worth recalling here how similar cases acted in other countries. On September 12, 1954, a Cessna-type plane landed at the White House in Washington, next to the presidential residence. The plane crashed from a collision with a tree near the building. The pilot died. Shortly after Rust's landing, a light-engine aircraft made unauthorized flights over Paris for several nights in a row, diverting known forces and means to prevent flights. But neither in the United States nor in France were ministers of defense removed for these flights, much less the honor of all armed forces was affected. They were more sensible there. First of all, the radar service was strengthened, more advanced technical means were urgently put into combat operation, and the flow of operational information was accelerated. The landing of Rust in Moscow at one time turned into a great tragedy for the Air Defense Forces in conditions when the air defense fully met the requirements of the time. Now let's try to imagine a similar span in our time, when the air defense system in relation to its main assets is significantly weakened due to the implementation of the so-called. principle of "reasonable sufficiency". Today, such a "Rust" can easily fly almost anywhere and at any time. There is something to think about.