Word: koldunov
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...action against the military in the wake of West German Pilot Mathias Rust's spectacular landing just outside Red Square. When the Hamburg teenager's single-engine Cessna penetrated some 400 miles of Soviet airspace with impunity, Gorbachev immediately sacked Defense Minister Sergei Sokolov and Air Defense Chief Alexander Koldunov. In addition to giving the country an object lesson in the personal accountability of those in power -- and demonstrating the military's subservience to the political leadership -- Gorbachev seized the occasion to place a reform-minded ally, General of the Army Dmitri Yazov, 63, in the Defense Minister...
Three weeks after West German Flyer Mathias Rust's daring touchdown outside the Kremlin, another Soviet air-defense official joined the list of the unemployed. Rust's flight was quickly followed by the ouster of Defense Minister Sergei Sokolov and Air Defense Chief Alexander Koldunov. Last week a report in Red Star, the Defense Ministry newspaper, announced the replacement of Marshal Anatoly Konstantinov, commanding officer of the Moscow air-defense district. Four high-ranking officers had been expelled from the Communist Party, Red Star added, and other party members would soon be asked to account for their "irresponsibility...
...airspace. Soviet and Western military experts were still digesting the news of the abrupt departure of Defense Minister Sergei Sokolov, the first official of that rank to be ousted since Nikita Khrushchev's celebrated firing of Georgi Zhukov for meddling in party affairs in 1957. Marshal of Aviation Alexander Koldunov was also dismissed. Further casualties were expected in the course of a top-level investigation ordered by the ruling Politburo into why Rust's aircraft had not been forced out of the skies before it buzzed the Kremlin, the country's political and military nerve center. Meanwhile, speculation mounted that...
...Moscow on Friday from East Berlin, where he and Defense Minister Sergei Sokolov had been attending a Warsaw Pact summit, acted decisively. The next day Gorbachev convened an emergency meeting of the Politburo in the Kremlin. After that session, the Politburo fired Sokolov, 75, and Marshal of Aviation Alexander Koldunov, 63, who headed the nation's air- defense system. Sokolov was replaced as the top Soviet military leader by General of the Army Dmitri Yazov, 64, a former commander of the Far East military district who had recently been named Deputy Defense Minister for personnel. No replacement was immediately announced...
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