A quarter of a century ago, a small German plane landed near the walls of the Kremlin. Flying guest. How the German Matthias Rust helped Mikhail Gorbachev

On May 28, 1987, on the Day of the Border Guard, a sports aircraft of the American manufacturing company Cessna violated the airspace of the Soviet Union. He landed in the capital not far on Vasilyevsky Spusk in the very vicinity of 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 got out of the cockpit, he was surrounded by people who wanted to take an autograph. He was arrested ten minutes later. The violator turned out to be Matthias Rust, a nineteen-year-old athlete pilot. His father is an aircraft salesman in Germany. At 14:20, Ruta's plane crossed the air border of the USSR at an altitude of 600 m above the Gulf of Finland near the town of Kohtla-Järve (Estonia). This was recorded by air defense radars, as a result of which the missile battalions were put on full alert. The fighter was sent to intercept the Cessna aircraft. He quickly discovered him, but no command was given to shoot him down. Therefore, the intruder's plane was "led" almost to Moscow itself. Since 1984, the Soviet Union had an order that forbade opening fire on sport/civilian aircraft.

It is unlikely that Rust knew that at about 15:00, when he was flying in the area of ​​​​the city of Pskov, the local air regiment would be conducting training flights there. Some planes were landing, others were taking off. Equally at three o'clock, the code of the state recognition system was replaced, which meant the simultaneous change of the code by all pilots. However, many inexperienced pilots did not perform this operation: lack of experience or forgetfulness summed it up. Be that as it may, the system recognized them as "alien". In this situation, one of the commanders could not figure it out and assigned all the aircraft the sign "I am mine", including the Rust sports aircraft. He made a further flight with a local air registration. But there was also a secondary legalization near Torzhok, where rescue work was carried out 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 pilot-athlete dishonored the serious huge defense arsenal of the USSR on the Day of the Border Guard. Also, the world media put forward more "romantic" versions - the guy tried to win a bet or impress the chosen one. They also said that the flight of Matthias Rust is nothing more than a marketing ploy. Since his father sold Cessna aircraft in Western Europe, and the rate of sales for this period just decreased. It is clear that such a PR move was the impetus for sales aircraft. After all, in fact, this is the only aircraft that managed to "defeat" the air defense system of the USSR. The Soviet military were sure that such an action was the intrigues of foreign intelligence services.

After this incredible incident, many people began to invent various jokes on this topic. For example, to refer to Red Square as "Sheremetyevo-3". No less popular was the joke that the Moscow-Leningrad highway is the softest, as it was covered with hats of generals and colonels. After the Russian people passed the state of shock, he began to have fun with his characteristic enthusiasm. An anecdote 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?! You can't smoke on the airfields! And one more thing: a crowd of people with things gathered on Red Square. Passers-by ask: “What are you doing here?” To which they answer: “We are waiting for a plane to land from Hamburg.” There was another story that police were patrolling near the fountain of the Bolshoi Theater. "For what?". “What if an American submarine emerges from there?”

Punishment of Matthias Rust

September 2, 1987 panel of judges Supreme Court The USSR on criminal cases began hearing the case of Rust. He was accused of hooliganism. According to the court, his landing threatened the lives of people who were on the square. He illegally crossed the border and violated aviation law. The case was held in open session. Lost their posts: Alexander Koldunov (Head of the Air Defense Forces), Sergei Sokolov (Minister of Defense) and about three hundred other officers.

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

Rust returned to Germany, but in his homeland he was remembered as a madman who threatened the world. He was permanently stripped of his pilot's license. He worked as a nurse in a hospital in the city of Rissen. During his regular duty in November 1989, Rust attacked a nurse with a knife, who refused him a kiss, for which the court decided to put him in jail for four years, but after keeping him in prison for five months, he was released.

In the middle of 1994, Rust announced that he was going to live in Russia again. Then he disappeared for 2 years. Some said that he was selling shoes in Moscow, others spread rumors about his death. In fact, Rust traveled a lot. After seeing the world, upon returning to his homeland, he announced that he was going to marry the daughter of a wealthy tea merchant. The wedding ceremony was held in India according to the local rite. After the wedding, he and his wife returned to Germany. In 2001, he again appeared before the court. This time he was accused of stealing in a department store, where he was going to pull off 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 is going to fly again.

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 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.

The concert dedicated to the Day of the Border Guard continued, but the events unfolding on 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. Given the cruising speed of the Cessna, 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 May 28, the Soviet Union celebrated the Day of the Border Guard. In 1987, this holiday was hopelessly spoiled by the Soviet border guards - in the center of Moscow, near St. Basil's Cathedral, a foreign plane landed.

Light aircraft "Cessna-172", piloted by an 18-year-old German Matthias Rust, on history Soviet Union had a huge impact.

Landing on Red Square was the reason for the resignation of the Minister of Defense Sergei Sokolov and the Commander-in-Chief of Air Defense Alexandra Koldunova, who were opposed to politics Mikhail Gorbachev, as well as for a large-scale "purge" in the ranks of the Soviet military, which, according to foreign experts, was comparable only to the "purge" of the "great terror" of the late 1930s.

Even 28 years later, there is no consensus on whether Rust's flight was the prank of a lone youth or an elaborate intelligence operation.

Rust himself insisted years later that it was a mission of peace. Inspired by the thaw in relations between West and East, the young man decided to build a air bridge”, Arriving in Moscow and landing in the very center of the Land of Soviets.

Lost over the Baltic

Rust received his pilot's license in 1986 at the Hamburg Aeroclub. In the same flying club in May 1987, the German rented a Cessna-172, and also received detailed maps required for the flight. According to Rust, he did not inform anyone about his true intentions.

Starting on May 13 from the airport of Uetersen, Rust through Shetland Islands and the Faroes on May 15 reached Iceland. On May 22, the German flew to Norwegian Bergen, from there on May 25 to Finnish Helsinki.

In the capital of Finland, he made the final decision to fly to Moscow.

On the morning of May 28, having refueled the Cessna, Rust took off from the airfield, declaring Stockholm as the target. The airfield staff noticed that the Cessna was not only filled to capacity, but additional fuel tanks were also installed in the cabin. The flight to Stockholm obviously did not require such an amount of fuel. Nevertheless, Rust was allowed to take off.

The Cessna took off at 12:21, and twenty minutes later the plane left the airport control area. Rust stopped communicating with the dispatch service, turned to coastline Baltic Sea and at about 13:00 disappeared from airspace Finland near Sipoo.

The disappearance of the Cessna was regarded by Finnish dispatchers as a possible accident, raising the alarm for rescue services.

"Cessna" was led from the very border

Rescuers found an oily spot in the sea, which allowed them to conclude that a disaster had occurred. Where the stain came from is not clear to this day. Subsequently, when it became known where Rust's plane actually flew, the Finns billed him for 100 thousand dollars for the work of rescuers. True, when there was a big fuss around the world around the flight, the lawsuit was withdrawn.

"Cessna" Matthias Rust at that moment crossed the Soviet border near the town of Kohtla-Jarve and headed for Moscow. The pilot was guided by magnetic compass and predetermined objects - Lake Peipsi, Lake Ilmen, Lake Seliger, railway line Rzhev - Moscow.

Immediately after the flight of Rust, a persistent myth appeared that the military, who were celebrating the Day of the Border Guard, “slammed” the intruder aircraft, as they say. Actually it is not.

At 14:10 "Cessna" was detected by radio equipment of air defense units. Three anti-aircraft missile battalions were put on alert, but they did not receive orders for destruction.

Later, Rust's plane was also visually detected near the city of Gdov. Soviet fighters, who defined it as "a sports aircraft of the Yak-12 type".

The Cessna was flying at low altitude and low speed, and the fighters were unable to escort the light aircraft. Therefore, having flown around the intruder, they returned to base.

To shoot down - it is impossible, to plant - it does not work

The picture of the helplessness of the Soviet military in front of Matthias Rust, which is firmly entrenched in many, is completely wrong. Indeed, the air defense system is built with an eye on much more serious and dangerous targets than a light aircraft.

First of all, because the history of the destruction of the passenger South Korean Boeing on September 1, 1983 dominated the USSR. And although in that story, by and large, for the Soviet side there was no fault, the Kremlin in no case wanted a repetition of such an incident.

In addition, the report of the pilots confirmed that we are talking about a light-engine civil aircraft, and to shoot down civil aircraft the Soviet military had no right. Actually, it was the same in the case of the South Korean Boeing, since it was mistakenly identified as an American reconnaissance aircraft.

Convention on international aviation, also known as the "Chicago Convention", prescribes that in case of violation of the airspace of countries by light-engine sports aircraft, they should not be shot down, but forced to land. It was not possible to plant Rust with the help of combat fighters for the reasons described above, and the military did not quickly find another way.

Rust Bridge

Thus, the Cessna flew safely to Moscow at 18:30. As Rust himself said, he wanted to sit in the Kremlin or on Red Square, since he simply did not know other places in Moscow. But there were no conditions for landing in the Kremlin, and there were a lot of people on Red Square.

As a result, the pilot, entering from the direction of Bolshaya Ordynka, landed on the Bolshoi Moskvoretsky Bridge, which with good reason can be called Rustov Bridge from that time, and coasted to St. Basil's Cathedral.

Curious people gathered around the plane. Rust got out of the cab, began to communicate with people. Among Muscovites and guests of the capital there was a schoolboy with excellent knowledge foreign language who served as a translator. The German pilot began to take autographs.

Surprisingly, in the first minutes, there were no special services among those who surrounded Rust. Only the policeman on duty asked if the pilot had a visa and, having learned that it was not, left the German alone.

While Matthias Rust was telling Muscovites about his desire to talk with Gorbachev, the military appeared, cordoned off the plane, but did not take tough actions. It was only around 20:00 that three people in civilian clothes suggested that Rust come in to give explanations.

Later, the pilot said that he was interrogated somewhere near Red Square. This is not surprising - Muscovites know that the complex of buildings of the Committee state security is located from the Kremlin within walking distance.

Lefortovo hospitality

We communicated politely with Rust, asking who organized the flight and what his goals were. The German insisted - he was for peace and friendship, he flew in to express his support for Gorbachev.

He really supported Gorbachev - thanks to his flight, the Soviet leader dealt a powerful blow to the positions of the military, who critically assessed his policies.

But Gorbachev did not want to meet with Rust. The hopes of the German that he would be reprimanded and released were not justified either. He was charged with hooliganism, violation of aviation law and illegal border crossing. On September 4, 1987, Matthias Rust was sentenced to 4 years in prison.

In fact, Rust spent only 432 days in the Lefortovo pre-trial detention center. Although they treated him correctly, the German was in a depressed state. And in vain - the Soviet prison looked like a much more pleasant alternative than the surface-to-air missile, which could well have "visited" Rust during the flight.

In the summer of 1988, the famous head of the USSR Foreign Ministry, and at that time the chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, Andrei Gromyko, signed a decree amnestying Rust. On August 3, 1988, the pilot returned to Germany, where for some time he became a very popular person.

An open meeting of the Judicial Collegium for Criminal Cases of the Supreme Court of the USSR in the case of German citizen Matthias Rust, a 19-year-old amateur pilot, who is accused of violating the rules of international flights and malicious hooliganism. Photo: RIA Novosti / Yuri Abramochkin

"It was an irresponsible act"

However, it didn't last too long. Rust was again remembered in the fall of 1989, when he was already on trial in Germany. He did an alternative service in a hospital, where he stabbed a nurse who did not share his love feelings. In 1991, a German court sentenced Matthias Rust to 4 years - that is, to the same term as the Soviet court had previously. As in the USSR, in Germany they showed leniency towards him, releasing him after 15 months in prison.

Rust then traveled the world, married an Indian, converted to Hinduism, became disillusioned with both his wife and religion, returned home, where he was again on trial - in 2001 he was caught stealing a sweater in a department store.

It seems that the memories of the flight to Moscow have become for him the main business of life. He willingly meets with journalists, talking about him, for his 25th birthday in 2012 he even released a memoir.

Then, in 2012, the Stern magazine published the opinion of 44-year-old Matthias Rust about his act committed in May 1987: “Now I look at what happened in a completely different way. I certainly would not repeat this and would call my then plans unrealizable. It was an irresponsible act."

VKontakte Facebook Odnoklassniki

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 impudent 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 powerful, perfect for those times, air defense system was able to "overcome" a small single-engine aircraft, piloted by the same "amateur".

How could this happen? Unfortunately, many circumstances of what happened a quarter of a century ago are still carefully hidden by someone. Nevertheless, over the years, more and more evidence has been found that that "breakthrough" Soviet system The air defense, which allegedly testified to the collapse of the entire Soviet system, was in fact someone carefully planned secret operation, 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 Yevgeny Kirichenko tells about this today on the pages of the Free Press.

Rust: “I was waiting for the command to land. But it didn't follow."

In fact, Rust's plane, which did not respond to the request "Own - alien”, was immediately detected by our radar facilities. The radar operator, Private Dilmagombetov, was the first to spot him, about which he immediately reported to Captain Osipov, on duty at the company's control point. 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 “upstairs” was delayed for 15 minutes, taking a timeout to figure out who was flying - violator of the state border or violator of the flight regime. Lieutenant Colonel Karpets and Major Chernykh decided, who were later made guilty of this whole story. - demoted and convicted by a military tribunal for five years.

But after all, the information, although 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 - "light-engined sports aircraft with a blue stripe along the fuselage." If he had received a command from the ground to destroy the border violator, he would have done it easily. According to Rust, recorded in the interrogation protocol, he only once saw a Soviet interceptor and even made out orange overalls and oxygen masks Soviet pilots who sat in a row.

- I was waiting for the command to land - Rust said. - But it didn't follow. So I kept heading 117, moving at altitude 600.

Rust was lying. He was not going to land, because his task was to fly to Red Square at all costs. And the intruder flew around 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 ways to counteract our air defense system.

Although Rust could have been easily shot down that day. This decision has already been made by General Kromin - Commander of the Leningrad Separate Air Defense Army. The instruction that appeared after the September events of 1983, when Far East A South Korean Boeing was shot down, as if by mistake it violated the Soviet border. The instruction forbade 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 talks at the army command post:

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

It was the similarity of the Rust aircraft with the Yak-12 that misled our pilot, and behind him - and everyone else. The general decided that he was dealing with a violator of the flight regime, who forgot to turn on the identification mode on board or took off with faulty equipment. The target was handed over for escort to the units of the Moscow District, which regularly "led" it until the mark from the "Cessna" disappeared from the indicator screens.

Rust sat down for refueling near Novgorod, where was he "dressed"?

As you know, 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 about 880 km. This means that the Cessna came with average speed about 140 km / h, which is much lower than the cruising speed of this type of aircraft, which is 220 km / h.

Moreover, over for the most part the territory where the violator of the Soviet border flew, a favorable wind blew for him. That is, according to all calculations, Rust should have been in Moscow two hours earlier than the actual landing time. Consequently, the Cessna either deviated significantly from the route (it is not known for what purpose), or made an intermediate landing somewhere.

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

Rust's version of the intermediate landing is also supported by the fact that shortly after the Soviet interceptors flew over the intruder, air defense reconnaissance equipment began to issue information to the higher command post about the reduction of the target, then at about 15:32 it was lost. Apparently, the Cessna, having met with the fighters, decided not to tempt fate and, choosing a suitable site, landed.

Incidentally, in the region Staraya Russa, where Rust could make the alleged forced (or maybe 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 communication with the authorities controlling the order and rules for the use of airspace. In a word, even if they wanted to, the witnesses of the landing of the overseas guest would not be able to call where they should. Just perfect place in order to "dive" from the all-seeing locators of the Soviet air defense. And if Rust accidentally chose such a landing site, then this accident is a match for winning all the main prizes in one lottery.

But still - could a German amateur pilot need an intermediate landing? Judging by how skillfully, with a sharp loss of altitude, he got away from the Finnish air defense fighters, we can conclude that Rust was not afraid of interceptors. Masterfully simulating 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 calmed to the base.

Here, by the way, is another mystery: how could an oil stain appear on its own at the place of Rust's "fall"? A technical examination, carried out later, showed that it was impossible to fake such a stain using a canister or a barrel dropped into the bay from an aircraft. Such camouflage support for a German pilot could only be provided by a submarine or boat.

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

- More likely, - as Lieutenant Colonel V. Petrenko, senior navigator of the Aviation Administration of the Moscow Air Defense District, then 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 to expect 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, having gone to a low altitude, where it is not like a fighter - not a single locator will hook. Or even took it and landed ...

The former deputy head of the combat training department of the radio engineering troops of the Moscow Air Defense District, Lieutenant Colonel E. Sukhoverov, believes that the German pilot deliberately went to an intermediate landing in order to confuse our radar officers. That is, from the border violator, as he was identified in the area Gulf of Finland, to become simply a violator of the flight regime, at which no one will shoot anymore.

Those who prepared his adventure with a landing in Moscow, sums up the author of the publication, 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 Soviet rocket scientists, because when the Cessna was re-detected, the locators conducted it on their screens not as an “air enemy”, but already as an “aircraft without an identification signal”, that is, a violator of the flight regime. On the part of the air defense, this already meant other, more loyal actions. However, as you know, our troops could not accurately identify Rust from the very beginning ...

If the events unfolded in this way, the author continues, then calling the flight of the “dove of peace” that landed on Red Square is simply a prank somehow the language does not turn. It seems that Rust and those who prepared him imagined the system for collecting and processing radar information of the Soviet air defense system too well.

Again, only a strange coincidence can explain the fact that the route of the intruder state border ran through the area where the MiG-25 fighter and the Tu-22m bomber had crashed the day before. Active search and rescue operations were going on in the zone of the alleged fall of the aircraft, several “turntables” were spinning in the air. Naturally, in such a hodgepodge it was possible to miss the “air enemy”, which, I emphasize, was already identified at that time as a “violator of the flight regime”. Moreover, Rust flew his plane at the same height 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 at once in the area of ​​​​Ostashkov, Kuvshinovo and Selishche. The duty shift of the radio engineering battalion, observing these marks on the screens of their radars, began to give out the coordinates of the targets at 16:39. Their escort lasted about half an hour. Then, making 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 saw marks from the clouds 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 Rudak was on vacation on that ill-fated day on May 28, 1987), still believes that the locators observed not meteorological formations, and the so-called. MRSH (small balls). They were launched by someone in the Lake Seliger area. According to the officer, the configuration of marks on the radar indicators most of all coincided with the configuration of the MRS. And their "heap" location on the locator screen speaks for itself: it means that 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 flew through it. The radar operator could easily lose the mark of an air intruder among the marks of the MRS, moving in the same direction, the course of a tailwind, which, as luck would have it, was blowing towards the Mother See. Later it turned out that on May 28 there was a group of West German tourists in the area of ​​\u200b\u200bLake Seliger. And launch a similar ball, as explained knowledgeable people, as easy as pie. Enough gas lighter or aerosol can.

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

By the way, just at the time when the radar operators were trying to figure out the tinsel of all kinds of marks that covered the indicator screens, 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 for unscheduled routine maintenance. This is a general decision during a difficult search rescue operation, when several important air objects were in the air at once, it 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 electricity suddenly disappears, the automated control system will be transferred to backup power supply. 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 “violator of the flight regime”, and I will take it and turn off the equipment ?! In addition, a group of inspectors from the General Staff worked in the troops, which at any moment could “launch” a control target. 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 paper signed by at least the Commander-in-Chief of the Air Defense Forces. The operational duty officer was sure that such a document would hardly be shown to him. And I was very surprised when the "representatives of the plant" literally in a matter of minutes brought a paper signed by the commander in chief ...

- After all, I was not going to turn off the ACS after that, - worried from the surging memories Vladimir Borisovich, - but they began to threaten me: they say, we will call where necessary, and you will not end up with troubles. Oh, if only I knew what it would lead to later ...

Vladimir Borisovich admitted that he was alerted from the very beginning ridiculous request"representatives of the plant", who started maintenance work at an odd hour. Earlier in similar cases always reckoned with the opinion of the operational duty officer. Why were they neglected this time?

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

The Soviet newspapers of that time, writes Kirichenko, as if by agreement, dubbed Rust's unprecedented flight a boyish prank, a hooligan trick, for which, it seems, one should not be punished. At the same time, Rust's "air hooliganism" led to the resignations of the highest army officials and gave Mikhail Gorbachev a reason to start a radical reduction in the armed forces. This was followed by the destruction of the Warsaw Pact, the fall of communist regimes in the countries of Eastern Europe and the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan, which was so prevented by the then Minister of Defense of the USSR, Marshal Sokolov.

When you think about it, the prank of a German amateur pilot seems far from harmless. This whole story is very much like a performance played out according to a carefully thought-out scenario, in which Western intelligence agencies 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 an American specialist in national security William E. Odom, who believes 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.

“From the moment Gorbachev came to power, - writes Odom, - only the Deputy Minister of Defense for Armaments remained in his post. Among the replaced officials were the Minister of Defense, all his other deputies, the Chief of the General Staff and his two first deputies. Commander-in-Chief of the Warsaw Pact Allied Forces and Chief of Staff of the Allied Forces, all four "supreme commanders", all commanders of groups of troops (in Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary), all commanders of fleets, all commanders of military districts. In some cases (especially with regard to the command of the military districts), commanders were replaced three times ... It is difficult to say how far the wave of purges swept down the official ladder, but it probably reached at least the level of command of divisions, and possibly went even lower"...

Given such devastating consequences, it can be assumed that the flight of the West German amateur pilot was not at all a boyish prank, but a skillfully disguised spy mission to study missile-hazardous directions 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 agencies, - 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 the landing of Rust on Red Square, an unprecedented purge of the highest and middle generals began. It was like they were waiting for the right occasion.

- At that time I was the commander of the anti-aircraft missile forces of the air defense of the USSR 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 were shot down, I assure you, even his fragments would not be able to be collected. But we did not have the right to fire at him, we could only force him to land. Landing him, however, did not work out, because the fighters and Rust's plane had too much different speeds. But Rust was escorted, and our cars flew over him.

- I believe that it was a brilliant operation developed by Western intelligence agencies, - considers Igor Morozov, a former KGB colonel, a 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 to the implementation grandiose project persons from Gorbachev's inner circle, and calculated with absolute accuracy the reaction of the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU. But there was only one goal - decapitate the Armed Forces of the USSR.

These are the sad facts that military journalist Yevgeny Kirichenko cited in his publication.

Mathias Rust, an 18-year-old German, was at the helm of the plane that landed on Red Square in 1987. A joke immediately appeared that in the center of Moscow there is now Sheremetyevo-3 Airport. The Soviet generals were no longer in the mood for jokes - many lost their posts, up to the Minister of Defense.

Matthias Rust himself, who has served time both in the USSR and at home since that time, recently in an interview with the Stern magazine called that his flight irresponsible and added that now he definitely would not repeat it. However, it cannot. The sky of Europe is still closed to him, although history itself is not closed even 25 years later.

Matthias Rust prefers to be in control. He recently returned from Latin America. There he again passed on the pilot. I flew. In Europe, Rust has not been allowed to fly a plane for 25 years.

“Sometimes I dream about that flight, usually in the afternoon when I take a nap after lunch. And if there is some free time, memories pop up on their own,” says Matthias Rust.

Rust sat on the Bolshoi Moskvoretsky Bridge. Then he drove to Vasilyevsky Spusk, willingly signed autographs, spoke, brought a letter of peace to Gorbachev. They even brought him bread and salt. And it seemed that the iron curtain was just a smoke screen, because everything was so simple.

“Flight maps were available. The KGB still didn’t want to believe me that I just ordered them, like any other road atlases. Then they themselves ordered the same maps through the Soviet embassy in Bonn and were very surprised when they received them ", - says Matthias Rust.

Here is the itinerary of an 18-year-old pilot who flew only 50 hours at that time: a long flight from Germany over the sea to Faroe Islands, followed by Iceland (Reykjavik), Norway (Bergen), Finland (Helsinki), and then almost at random to Moscow. He was guided by railway. This part of the route is full of the most amazing coincidences. Rust's plane flew into the area of ​​the rescue operation. The bomber crashed. Lots of helicopters in the air. "Cessna" Rust is mistaken for a light-engine Soviet aircraft. Then he is once again assigned the code "I am mine." At the same time, Rust was discovered immediately after he crossed the state border and could have been shot down, including on approach to Moscow.

“We have S-300 systems, it takes a target at 100 meters. And if I launch three missiles at this shabby airplane and they explode at a height of 50-100 meters, and under the bottom there will be kindergarten What am I going to do next? It was a provocation planned 100% advantageously,” said Vladimir Tsarkov, commander of the Moscow Air Defense District in 1987-1989.

Tsarkov claims: Rust's flight is an operation of the Western special services. And the border violator himself is a well-trained pilot, and he has already visited Moscow in advance. Rust says: sat at random.

“Without visiting the place, it is impossible to land in such difficult conditions. What if a cable passes over the road there, it’s unknown,” said Michael Hanke, an instructor at the Pegasus Pilot School.

And although pilots of the same planes in Germany still sometimes jokingly say: "Well, let's wave to Moscow," they all understand that such an adventure would be impossible now.

In fact, Matthias Rust's flight to development small aviation in Europe had little effect. Influenced by the September 11 attacks. After them, a special device is installed on any aircraft, which transmits the individual aircraft identification number to ground services. That is, on the radar it is no longer just a dot, but a dot with its own unique number, that is, for example, this plane cannot be confused with any other in the air.

Soviet court sentenced Matthias Rust to 4 years in prison. He served a little more than 14 months in an exemplary colony. After his release, his fate was not easy. He returned to Germany, but even after that he broke the law. First, an attack on a woman with a knife. Time again. Then stealing a sweater from a department store. Explains - barely making ends meet.

"It all worked out because it had to happen. It's just my destiny," says Matthias Rust.

The aircraft in which Rust made the historic flight is on display at the Technical Museum in Berlin. Here is one of the symbols of the end cold war. However, his wings are still decorated with signs resembling a bomb. There are too many questions in this story today. The materials of the pilot Rust's case are still classified.