Pavel Sergeevich Grachev

Pavel Sergeevich Grachev

Pavel Grachev ( Russian Павел Сергеевич Грачёв ., Scientific transliteration Pavel Grachev Sergeevič * 1. January 1948 in the village Rwy in the Tula Oblast ; † 23. September 2012 in Krasnogorsk ) was a Soviet and Russian officers and politicians . He was Russia's Defense Minister from 1992 to 1996 .

Life

Grachev joined the Soviet Army in 1965 , graduated from the Airborne Forces Officers' College in Ryazan and the "MW Frunze" military academy in Moscow, from which he left in 1981. From 1982 to 1983 he commanded a paratrooper regiment during the war in Afghanistan and from 1985 to 1988 the 103rd Airborne Guard Division. He then attended the Academy of the General Staff , which he graduated in 1990. Grachev most recently had the rank of Army General and since 1988 has held the title Hero of the Soviet Union . On April 7, 1992 he became First Deputy Minister of Defense and on May 21, 1992 Minister of Defense. Grachev became known because the first Chechnya war began during his tenure . Gratschow tried to cover up the incompetent implementation of this undertaking with martial slogans, among other things. He was also involved in serious corruption scandals.

He achieved his decisive achievements in 1991 and 1993. In the August putsch in 1991 he refused to support the state committee for the state of emergency of the coup plotters, but in the bloodshed of the constitutional crisis of 1993 he remained loyal to President Boris Yeltsin and was vice-president for a few days. However , he never achieved the rank of marshal that Zhirinovsky had promised him in 1995 if he won the election. On June 18, 1996, Yeltsin dismissed him as Minister of Defense.

literature

• It started with a murder . In: Der Spiegel . No. 45 , 1994, pp. 142-145 ( online ).

Web links

• Pawel Gratschow on lenta.ru (Russian)
• Pawel Grachev on biografija.ru (Russian)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Obituary (Russian)