Aleksandr Ivanovich Lebed

Aleksandr Ivanovich Lebed (1950-2002), Russian military commander and politician who served as national security adviser of the Russian Federation (1996) and governor of Krasnoyarsk Territory (1998-2002). Lebed is perhaps best known for his refusal to support the military coup staged by Communist hardliners in 1991 against the pro-democracy government of Russian president Boris Yeltsin, in a series of events that led to the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Lebed was born in the southern Russian town of Novocherkassk to a working-class family. He graduated from the Ryazan Higher School of Airborne Troops in 1973 and from the Frunze Military Academy in 1985. From 1981 to 1982, during the Soviet-Afghan War (1979-1989), he commanded a battalion of Soviet paratroopers in Afghanistan. After serving as a regimental commander from 1985 to 1986, and then a deputy commander until 1988, Lebed became commander of the elite Tula paratroop division. In 1991 he became deputy commander of all airborne forces for training and education.

In August 1991, during an attempt by Communist hardliners to take over the Soviet government, Lebed stood guard with a battalion of paratroopers at the Supreme Soviet building (now the House of Parliament), or White House, in Moscow. Although the Communist hardliners included the military high command, Lebed refused orders to storm the building, where Russian president Boris Yeltsin had taken refuge and was organizing a popular uprising to fight the coup attempt. When the coup failed, Yeltsin publicly hailed Lebed as a hero. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union at the end of 1991, Lebed took command of the Russian 14th Army in Tiraspol, in the Trans-Dniester region of Moldova, a former Soviet republic located west of Ukraine. Serving there until 1994, he helped bring about a peace agreement between Russian separatists and the new, independent government of Moldova, a role that earned him popularity in Russia.

Lebed retired from the armed forces in 1995 and entered the political arena, winning a seat to represent Tula Oblast in western Russia in that year’s parliamentary elections. He then entered the 1996 presidential race but finished third in the first-round balloting, excluding him from the two-candidate runoff. Although Yeltsin finished in first place as the incumbent candidate, he took the opportunity to capitalize on Lebed’s popularity by appointing him to the dual posts of national security adviser and secretary of the policy-making Security Council. Following his reelection to the presidency in July, Yeltsin officially named Lebed his national security adviser, placing the nation’s immense security apparatus—including the military, police, and secret services—under Lebed’s command. Lebed immediately began to seek a peace settlement to end the brutal and unpopular war in the Russian republic of Chechnya, which was invaded by Russian troops in 1994 to halt the republic’s movement toward independence. In late August 1996, following a major defeat of Russian troops in the Chechen capital of Groznyy, Lebed and Chechen leaders reached a cease-fire agreement, and Lebed ordered the removal of Russian troops. The truce, later ratified by the Russian government and Chechen rebels, ended a 21-month war. (Renewed fighting in 1999 abrogated the peace agreement.) Lebed’s public criticisms of Yeltsin, however, and his open ambition to hold the office of the presidency, created a rift that resulted in Yeltsin’s angry dismissal of Lebed in October. In May 1998 Lebed was elected governor of Krasnoyarsk Territory, in the region of Siberia. With that post, he automatically gained a seat in the Council of the Federation, the upper chamber of the Russian legislature. In April 2002 Lebed died in a helicopter crash in the province.