Chris Doss, how is Lebed seen in Russia today? Does anyone care?
Doug ------------- Calling Lebed the midwife of democracy is pretty wierd; he said on many occasions that he couldn't give a fig for democracy, but didn't fire on the crowd in 1991 because he couldn't bring himself to kill Russians.
Lebed is (was) a pretty highly respected political figure. He was considered an opponent of Yeltsin, which is going to win anybody popularity points, and he was pivotal in ending the first war in Chechnya.
Below is a short piece on him from Russian (pro-Kremlin) media.
Chris Doss The Russia Journal ------------------
Krasnoyarsk Governor Alexander Lebed Dies in an Air Crash Sunday: End of Epoch (The Russian Issues) Alexander Lebed died as a soldier by Aram Yavrumyan April 29, 2002
Izvestia reports about the death in an air crash on Sunday (April 28) of the
head of the administration (governor) of the Krasnoyarsk Territory, Alexander Lebed. The former paratroops general was helicopter-flown to attend the opening of a downhill course at a location called Bars Gorge in the Sayan Mountains. As is believed, the helicopter hit an electric transmission line while heading for a touchdown in a dense fog. The crash killed eight out of 20 passengers on board, including the governor himself.
Alexander Lebed died as a soldier: his last flight was aboard a Mi-8, the type of helicopter that had been most extensively used in Afghanistan, where
he had fought, writes Kommersant. The Sayan Mountains are in many respects like the mountain terrain in Afghanistan too, adds the paper.
He was headed for the Buibinsky Pass and a locality called Bars Gorge, where
an international Alpine skiing center of the same name, complete with a downhill course and a lift, had been built not so long ago. He was fetching along quite a team - the press and administration officials - in two helicopters to attend the opening ceremony.
The meteorological conditions in the mountains are always a tricky thing, says the paper. It may be 15 degrees Centigrade and sunny on the plain and snowing hard at the altitude of one and a half kilometer, like it was on Sunday. Though warned about weather deterioration, the helicopter carrying the governor and his team appeared in the area about ten in the morning local time and, flying blindly, approached the power transmission line feeding electricity from the Sayano-Shushenskoye station to the near-by town of Turan. Next, according to eyewitnesses, it ducked under the line and caught the wire by its tail rotor. The wire snapped, the chopper's tail broke down the middle and it collapsed on the two-meter-deep packed snow below, something that saved the life of 12 out of 20 people on board.
Alexander Lebed was still alive when pulled out of the debris. Along with other victims he was rushed to hospital in Abakan, but died en route. President Vladimir Putin appointed a commission of investigation, putting at
its head the Emergencies Minister, Sergei Shoigu, who left for Krasnoyarsk Sunday. The Territorial Prosecutor's Office started criminal proceedings. According to experts, the helicopter was in good condition and piloted by an
experienced crew. The pilots saw the transmission line on their flight map, but failed to avoid it on account of fog and snow. "Listen, careful, there seems to be a line somewhere near here," was the last spoken message from the Mi-8, says the paper.
Moskovsky Komsomolets names other victims, deceased and otherwise, of the crash. They are Alexander Lebed's deputy for social matters Nadezhda Kolba, territorial sports and tourism committee chief Gennady Tonachyov, Lebed's press secretary Gennady Klimik, deputy editor-in-chief of Krasnoyarsky Rabochiy Yelena Lopatina, TV crewman Igor Gareyev, his colleagues Emma Mamutova and Stanislav Smirnov, and others.
Speaking in the wake of the event, acting Governor Nikolai Ashpapov, Alexander Lebed's former first deputy, said the story about the crash having
been an organized affair had no right to live. But, says the paper, according to some unofficial information, the governor's helicopter should have been piloted by a different crew. Its flight schedule was changed at the last moment, with the crew replaced. If this information is confirmed, the assumptions about a sabotage attack are certain to start circulating in the air again. There are dozens of persons who might have paid a contract for this "accident," says the paper.
Nezavisimaya Gazeta says the demise of Alexander Lebed closes an entire chapter of Russian history. His career, both political and military, received a powerful boost during the events in Moscow in August 1991, when his paratroops unit was sent to protect Boris Yeltsin and his following, who had
barricaded themselves inside the Parliament building (White House). Immediately after that he was appointed commander of the 14th Army stationed
in the Transdniestria area and managed to stop the civil war there. Following that he resigned from the armed forces and ran, unsuccessfully, for the Duma. During the 1996 presidential elections he stepped down in favor of Boris Yeltsin, calling on his supporters to vote for him. In reward, he was appointed Secretary of the Security Council and sent to make peace with Chechnya. He was the man who signed, along with Aslan Maskhadov, the Khasavyurt agreements.
Shortly afterwards he was kicked upstairs, becoming head of the Defense Council created especially for himself. The next - and last - step in his political career was the governorship of the Krasnoyarsk Territory. His death puts an end to an entire epoch: there are no generals and politicians of his
caliber today any longer, says the paper in conclusion.