Landing on Red Square in 1987. Truth and fiction about the scandalous landing of an airplane on Red Square

At the helm of the plane, which landed on Red Square in 1987, sat 18-year-old German Matthias Rust. A joke immediately appeared that in the center of Moscow there is now Sheremetyevo-3 airport. The Soviet generals were no longer in a joke - many lost their posts, up to the Minister of Defense.

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

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

“I sometimes dream about that flight, usually in the afternoon, when I take a nap in the afternoon. And if there is a little free time, the memories come up on their own,” says Matthias Rust.

Rust sat down on the Bolshoy Moskvoretsky Bridge. Then he drove to Vasilyevsky Spusk, willingly signed autographs, said, brought a letter of peace to Gorbachev. They even brought him bread and salt. And it seemed that the iron curtain was just a smokescreen, 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. ", - recalls Matthias Rust.

Here is the route of an 18-year-old pilot who flew at that time only 50 hours: a long flight from Germany over the sea to the Faroe Islands, followed by Iceland (Reykjavik), Norway (Bergen), Finland (Helsinki), and then almost at random to Moscow. He was guided by the railroad. This part of the route is full of the most amazing coincidences. Rust's plane flew into the area of \u200b\u200bthe rescue operation. The bomber crashed. There are many helicopters in the air. Rust's "Cessna" is mistaken for a light Soviet aircraft. Then he is once again assigned the code "I am mine". At the same time, Rust was found immediately after crossing the state border and could have been shot down, including on the way to Moscow.

“We have the S-300 system, it takes a target for 100 meters. And if I launch three missiles at this shabby airplane and they explode at an altitude of 50-100 meters, and there is a kindergarten below, what will I do then? a provocation that was planned 100% advantageously, "says the commander of the Moscow Air Defense District in 1987-1989. Vladimir Tsarkov.

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 had already visited Moscow in advance. Rust says: he sat down at random.

"Without visiting the place, it is impossible to land in such difficult conditions. And what if there is a cable over the road, it is not known," - said the instructor of the Pegasus pilot school Michael Hanke.

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

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

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

"It turned out this way because it had to happen. It's just my destiny," says Matthias Rust.

The plane on which Rust made the historic flight is exhibited in Berlin at the Technical Museum. Here it is one of the symbols of the end of the Cold War. However, its wings are still decorated with signs resembling a bomb. There are too many questions in this story today. Pilot Rust's case files are still classified.

Matthias Rust (it. Mathias Rust, genus. June 1, 1968, Wedel) is a German amateur pilot who, at the age of 18, flew in a light plane from Hamburg via Reykjavik and Helsinki to Moscow.

On May 28, 1987 (on the Day of the Border Troops of the USSR), he landed on Vasilyevsky Spusk, having flown over a thousand kilometers unhindered.

Matthias Rust (it. Mathias Rust, genus. June 1, 1968, Wedel) is a German amateur pilot who, at the age of 18, flew in a light plane from Hamburg via Reykjavik and Helsinki to Moscow. On May 28, 1987 (on the Day of the USSR Border Troops), he landed on Vasilievsky Spusk, having flown over a thousand kilometers unhindered.

Biography

Born into the family of Karl-Heinz Rust (born 1937), who worked as an electrical engineer for the AEG concern, and Monica Rust (born 1941). From the age of 5, when his father first brought him to the airfield, he dreamed of flying. In 1986 he received a pilot's license at the Hamburg Aero Club.

Flight to Moscow

On May 13, 1987 Matthias Rust took off from the airport of the city of Utersen (German. Uetersen) on the plane "Cessna-172 Skyhawk" (tail number D-ECJB), rented by him from his flying club and modified by installing additional fuel tanks in place of the second row of seats. After five hours of flight over the North Sea, he landed at one of the Shetland Islands airfields. The next day Rust flew to Vagar (Faroe Islands).

On May 15, Rust flew to Iceland (Keflavik airport), where he visited Khovdi, the place where Reagan and Gorbachev met in October 1986.

… I felt that I had come into contact with the spirit of this place. I was filled with emotions and disappointment from the failure of the summit, from the fact that I could not be here last fall. This motivated me to continue.

- "Air & Space Magazine"

On May 22, Rust flew to Bergen (Norway), from there on May 25 to Helsinki (Finland). Now, having covered almost 2,600 miles from Hamburg, he felt he had enough skills to achieve his main goal. However, doubts about their ability to withstand nervous tension did not leave. He constantly hesitated: "Yes, I have to do it" - "No, this is crazy."

On the morning of May 28, he arrived at the airport, refueled the Cessna, checked the weather and submitted a plan for a two-hour flight to the southwest to Stockholm to the dispatch service. According to him, it was an alternative route in case he did get cold feet.

At 13:21 (Moscow time) Rust took off. After 20 minutes, in the area of \u200b\u200bthe city of Nummela, his plane left the airport control zone. Rust turned off all means of communication, abruptly changed course and echelon, at an altitude of about 200 m flew along the coastline of the Baltic Sea to a predetermined point, which was exactly on the airway connecting Helsinki and Moscow, and at about 14:00 disappeared from the screens radar stationslocated near Sipoo. The dispatchers launched a search and rescue operation. Rescuers found an oil slick 40 km from the coastline of the Gulf of Finland and suggested that the plane had crashed. To be sure of this, additional forces were brought in. Rust, at a low altitude under a busy airway, crossed the Soviet border near the town of Kohtla-Järve and headed for Moscow. He would later be billed for a false rescue alarm for over $ 100,000.

The weather was cloudy, with clearings, with the lower edge of clouds 400-600 m. Rust was guided by a magnetic compass and pre-planned objects - Lake Peipsi, Lake Ilmen, Lake Seliger, the Rzhev - Moscow railway. Air defense radio engineering units on duty discovered him at 14:10. Three anti-aircraft missile divisions were put on alert, observed the "target 8255", but did not receive orders for destruction. Duty units of the MiG-21, MiG-23 rose into the air from the Tapa, Andreapol, Hotilovo and Bezhetsk airfields. In the area of \u200b\u200bthe city of Gdov it was found visually - at 14:29 the pilots reported that in the break in the clouds they were observing "a sports aircraft of the Yak-12 type of white color with a dark stripe along the fuselage." Rust's plane moved at low altitude and at a low flight speed, which made it impossible to constantly accompany him with high-speed fighters. Having made several flights over it and not having received a clear command on the impact, the pilots simply returned to the airfield.

According to Marshal of the Soviet Union DT Yazov, the air defense forces drove the Cessna to Moscow and did not stop the flight, because after the incident with the South Korean liner, they received orders not to shoot down civilian planes. In addition, in accordance with the Chicago Convention, to which the USSR was a party, when airspace is violated by light-engine sports aircraft, they can only be forced to land, which is much more difficult than destroying:

Contracting States recognize that each State must refrain from resorting to the use of weapons against civil aircraft in flight and that, if intercepted, the lives of persons on board and the safety of the aircraft must not be jeopardized.

Article 3 bis, clause "a" of the Chicago Convention, unanimously added at the 25th Session of the ICAO Assembly on 10 May 1984.

Rust was in the Pskov region when at 15:00, in accordance with the schedule, the code number of the "friend or foe" system changed. There were training flights of one of the aviation regiments, and an inexperienced young lieutenant on the duty shift of the air defense command post assigned the sign "his" to all objects in the air. About an hour later, Rust flies over Seliger and falls into the zone of responsibility of another unit, but now he was mistaken for a participant in a search and rescue operation at the site of the Air Force plane crash 40 km west of the city of Torzhok the day before. When the military realized that they were observing the intruder, he was already entering the zone of the Moscow Air Defense District. There and at the Central Command Post of the Air Defense, they reported on a Soviet light-engine aircraft that had taken off without an application - such air objects were observed quite often. The operational duty officer of the Central Command Center, Major General S. I. Melnikov and the Acting Chief of the General Staff of Air Defense, Lieutenant General E. L. Timokhin hoped that in the Moscow District they would deal with him themselves and, having no characteristics of the intruder, did not report to the Commander-in-Chief of the Air Defense, Marshal A. I. Koldunov. At the command post of the Moscow District, they did not attach importance to "a simple violator of the flight regime."

The commander of the Soviet anti-missile and anti-space defense forces (1986-1991) V. M. Kraskovsky expressed the opinion many years later that Marshal Koldunov "would not have stopped before taking the most extreme measures" if he had learned about the incident in time.

At 18:30 Rust flew up to Moscow. Here the weather was calm and little cloudy. He intended to land directly in the Kremlin or on Red Square, but this turned out to be impossible. After making a few laps, he detected the cycle of traffic lights on the Bolshoy Moskvoretsky Bridge. Having descended over Bolshaya Ordynka Street, his plane, almost touching the roofs of cars, sat on the bridge and rode up to St. Basil's Cathedral. At 19:10, Rust got off the plane and started signing autographs. About an hour later, he was arrested.

Effects

On September 2, 1987, the trial began. Rust was accused of hooliganism (his landing, according to the court, threatened the lives of people on the square), violation of aviation legislation and illegal crossing of the Soviet border. Rust said at the trial that his flight was a "call for peace." On September 4, Rust was sentenced to four years in prison. On August 3, 1988, he returned to Germany after Andrei Gromyko, then Chairman of the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet, signed an amnesty decree. Rust spent a total of 432 days in pre-trial detention and in prison.

In Soviet newspapers, his flight was presented as a failure of the country's air defense system. At the same time, it was not taken into account that this system was intended to repel an attack that could cause damage on a national scale. The task of countering air hooligans in light-engine vehicles flying at low altitudes in peacetime is beyond the strength of the economy of a state with a border length of more than 60 thousand km.

Mikhail Gorbachev used the incident to reduce the armed forces. Already on May 30, Defense Minister Sergei Sokolov and Air Defense Commander Alexander Koldunov, both political opponents of Gorbachev, were dismissed from their posts. Instead, he appointed people who supported the course of his reforms. The new Defense Minister Dmitry Yazov became an active participant in the GKChP speech after 4 years.

By June 10, 34 officers and generals were brought to justice. The commander of the Moscow Air Defense District, Colonel-General Vladimir Tsarkov, who had been appointed to the post a few days before the event, was reprimanded, but retained his post.

One of the most cited estimates of the consequences of Rust's flight for the Soviet Armed Forces is given by American national security specialist William Odom: "After Rust's flight, radical changes were made in the Soviet army, comparable to the purge of the armed forces organized by Stalin in 1937." Almost the entire leadership of the Ministry of Defense was replaced, including the commanders of military districts.

Versions about Rust's motives

The world media put forward different versions of the reasons for Rust's flight, among them - to win a bet, to impress a girl.

Many representatives of the Soviet Armed Forces considered the flight to be an act of foreign special services. General of the Army Pyotr Deinekin, Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Air Force in 1991-1997:

There is no doubt that Rust's flight was a carefully planned provocation by Western intelligence agencies. And most importantly, it was carried out with the consent and with the knowledge of individuals from the then leadership of the Soviet Union.

Igor Morozov, former colonel of the KGB of the USSR:

It was a brilliant operation designed by Western intelligence agencies. 20 years later, it becomes obvious that the special services, and this is no longer a secret to anyone, were able to involve people from Mikhail Gorbachev's inner circle in the implementation of the grandiose project, and they calculated the reaction of the General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee with absolute accuracy. And the goal was one - to behead the Armed Forces of the USSR, significantly weaken the position of the Soviet Union in the international arena.

Aviation Colonel General Nikolai Moskvitelev:

In my opinion, it was a well-thought-out action by some special service.

Commander of the anti-aircraft missile forces of the USSR Air Defense Rasim Akchurin:

The action was not at all harmless, but planned to discredit our army.<…> Commander-in-chief Alexander Ivanovich Koldunov was removed - an amazing person, twice Hero of the Soviet Union. In addition, the army commander was removed from us - I don't know his fate, and I don't even remember his name. At that time, there were a lot of people in the air defense system, and the operational duty officer was even sued. ... They removed the excellent Defense Minister Sergei Leonidovich Sokolov and put Dmitry Yazov in his place.

General of the Army Pyotr Deinekin, Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Air Force in 1991-97:

There is no doubt that Rust's flight was a planned provocation by the Western intelligence services. And it was carried out with the consent and with the knowledge of individuals from the then leadership of the USSR. The fact that immediately after the landing of Rust on Red Square, an unprecedented purge of the top and middle generals began to lead me to the idea of \u200b\u200binternal betrayal. As if they were specially waiting for a suitable occasion ... They could shoot down "Cessna" as many times as necessary.

The flight was prepared on the direct instructions of the General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee. When Rust landed in Moscow, his tanks were full. It was refueled. Near Staraya Russa, right on the road. I asked Rust: "Do you want me to show you a photo of how your plane is refueled?" Rust did not answer, only his eyes ran around ...

Colonel General Leonid Ivashov:

Three weeks before Rust's arrival, Defense Minister Marshal Sokolov reported to Gorbachev how the air defense system worked. When the marshal returned from the report, it turned out that the top-secret documents remained on Gorbachev's desk. The next morning I rushed to the Kremlin: "Mikhail Sergeyevich, the minister was on your report and forgot the map." - “I don’t remember where she is, look for it yourself ...” Gorbachev did not return the card ... ”.

Colonel Oleg Zvyagintsev, former deputy commander of the Air Defense Corps:

When the showdown began, I remembered that for three days in the north of the country the radar field had not changed. It usually changes every day. And then - three days! Air defense officers spotted Rust instantly as soon as he crossed the border. But in the reports they wrote down: "a flock of birds" ...

In 2003, the Krasnaya Zvezda newspaper, citing an unnamed TV channel, wrote that Sergei Melnikov, the general on duty at the central air defense point on May 28, 1987, referred to the former KGB chairman Vladimir Kryuchkov, who allegedly admitted that he was preparing this operation at the direction of Gorbachev. In 2011, Air Defense General Sergei Melnikov's confession about Kryuchkov's participation in the development of Rust's flight plan was shown in Andrey Karaulov's author's TV program Moment of Truth.

In 2007, 20 years later, Rust himself explained his motives as follows:

Then I was full of hope. I believed that anything is possible. My flight was to create an imaginary bridge between East and West.

In 2012, he declared his flight irresponsible, stating the following:

I was 19 then. My ardor and my political convictions told me that landing on Red Square was the only option for me ... Now I look at what happened in a completely different way. I would definitely not repeat this and would call my plans of that time unrealizable. It was an irresponsible act.

Two circumstances remain unreported in the press:

• how an oil slick appeared in the Gulf of Finland, due to which a search operation was carried out;
• what is the reason and when the symbolic image of an atomic bomb resembling the "Fat Man" appeared on the vertical stabilizer of Rust's plane - when he took off in Helsinki, this image was not, however, it is clearly visible in the pictures from Vasilievsky Spusk (see photo).

Rust's life after the flight

After returning to Germany, Rust was deprived of his pilot's license.

In November 1989, Rust, who was doing alternative service at a hospital in Rissen, stabbed a nurse for refusing to go on a date with him. In 1991, he was sentenced to 4 years in prison, but was released after just 15 months. He sold shoes, donating money to an orphanage.

In 1994, Rust again visited Russia, 3 weeks unsuccessfully trying to meet with Gorbachev.

For a long time, Rust lived in Trinidad. In 1997 he converted to Hinduism and married an Indian girl named Gita, the daughter of a wealthy tea merchant from Bombay. After the marriage, Rust returned with his wife to Germany.

In April 2001, Rust appeared in court on charges of stealing a sweater from a department store.

He made a living by playing poker and, according to him in 2012, teaching yoga and analytics for an investment bank.

The fate of the plane

Until 2008, Rust's plane was owned by a wealthy Japanese businessman. He kept the Cessna in a hangar, hoping its value would rise over time. In 2008, the aircraft was purchased by the German Technical Museum, where it is currently on display in the lobby.

• Rust's plane was not the first foreign intruder plane to land in Moscow. As Lieutenant General P. Sudoplatov recalled, on May 15, 1941, the German "Junkers 52" invaded Soviet airspace and, flying unnoticed along the Bialystok - Minsk - Smolensk route, landed at the central airfield in Moscow near the Dynamo stadium.
• On July 4, 1989, an uncontrollable MiG-23M of the USSR Air Force, after the pilot left the emergency vehicle, flew about 900 km over the territory of Poland, the German Democratic Republic, the Federal Republic of Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium and fell on a residential building near the Franco-Belgian border. The 18-year-old son of a local farmer died. The Soviet government paid his family almost 700 thousand dollars in compensation, but this incident did not have such personnel consequences as a "breakthrough of the country's air defense system" in the form of landing in Moscow of an unarmed sports plane Rust.
• On September 12, 1994, the Cessna plane crashed from a collision with a tree while trying to land near the residence of the President of the United States in Washington. The pilot was killed.
• In 2015, Russian journalist Alexei Egorov tried to check whether he could bypass the air defense system in the Kaliningrad region. Together with the extreme pilot, he took off in a similar plane, but was immediately intercepted by an Mi-24 helicopter.

Reflection in art

• In the same year Igor Irteniev wrote a poem about the flight of Rust "Eroplan flies German ...". On these verses the song "Dedication to the pilot Rust" was written by the group "Zodchie".
• Evgeny Yevtushenko noted his impressions of these events in the poem "Russian Koalas": " ... The impudent air chicken almost knocked over the Kremlin - all because he was sleepwalked by koalas from the air defense.»
• Julius Kim in the song "Quadrille for Matthias Rust" described him as a reckless and reckless guy.
• The Lesopoval group performed a song called Minin and Pozharsky (music by Sergei Korzhukov, lyrics by Mikhail Tanich), in which the main character is Matias Rust.
• The group "Zero" recorded a song called "I am an airplane".
• The group "Modern Trouble" in 1987 recorded the song "Fly to Moscow".
• The name of Matthias Rust was mentioned in the song "Wind-Shalun" (by V. Shakhrin) by the "Chaif" group - " ... and like Mathias Rust, I would be breaking borders ...».
• In "Song without a name" by Alexander Gradsky there are words: " ... And Rust skillfully fit into the box of the Procrustean square. What do we need Rust and "Procrustes" and scoundrels of all stripes!».
• In Leonid Gaidai's film "The weather is good on Deribasovskaya, or it rains again on Brighton Beach" (1992), at the beginning of the film there is an episode with the landing of the film's hero on Red Square, which is an allusion to Rust's landing.
• After the landing of Rust, Red Square was popularly called Sheremetyevo-3 for some time. Among the servicemen of the air-fighter regiments of the country's air defense forces, there was a joke about two lieutenants-pilots, one of whom asked the other to smoke a cigarette in Red Square; he replied: "No smoking at the airfield!" There was also a joke around the country that a police post was set up at the fountain near the Bolshoi Theater - in case an American submarine surfaced.

On September 4, 1987, exactly thirty years ago, the trial of the scandalous case of Matthias Rust, a young German amateur pilot, who a few months earlier, on May 28, 1987, landed on his plane on Red Square, in the very heart of the Soviet capital, ended with a guilty verdict. ...

The plane "Cessna-172", piloted by 18-year-old German citizen Matthias Rust, landed right in front of St. Basil's Cathedral in the center of Moscow. The Soviet leadership was in real shock. After all, not only was the plane of a simple German guy covered the distance from the Soviet border to the capital of the country and was not shot down by air defense systems, but this event also happened, which is very symbolic, on May 28 - on Border Guard Day. It was a real slap in the face of the entire Soviet system. Naturally, Matthias Rust was arrested immediately after the plane landed.

Almost immediately after the landing of Rust's plane on Red Square, the General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee Mikhail Gorbachev decided to dismiss a number of top military leaders, primarily those who were responsible for the air defense of the Soviet state. The highest-ranking "retiree" was the 72-year-old Marshal Sergei Sokolov, the Soviet Union's defense minister. He held this position since 1984, replacing the deceased Marshal Dmitry Ustinov. Prior to his appointment as Minister of Defense, Marshal Sokolov from 1967 to 1984, for seventeen years, was the First Deputy Minister of Defense of the USSR. A participant in the Great Patriotic War, Marshal Sokolov was one of the most prominent Soviet military leaders. In particular, from 1980 to 1985. he was responsible for managing the actions of Soviet troops in the territory of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. However, the flight of the German youth cost the respected marshal a career. Of course, the honored military leader could not be thrown into the street - already in June 1987 he took over the post of inspector general of the Group of Inspectors General of the USSR Ministry of Defense.

In addition to Marshal Sokolov, Air Chief Marshal Alexander Koldunov, who served as Commander-in-Chief of the Air Defense Forces of the Soviet Union and was directly responsible for the safety of the airspace of the Soviet country, was dismissed immediately after the flight of Matthias Rust. Twice Hero of the Soviet Union, Alexander Koldunov went through the Great Patriotic War as a fighter pilot, after the war he served in the Air Force fighter aviation, and then in the air defense. He took the post of commander-in-chief of the Air Defense Forces in 1978, nine years before the flight of Matthias Rust. But not only the top military leaders lost their positions. About 300 senior officers were dismissed from service. A powerful blow was dealt to the personnel of the Soviet armed forces. They also found "scapegoats" - two officers of the Air Defense Forces received real terms of imprisonment. These were Lieutenant Colonel Ivan Karpets, who was the operational duty officer for the Tallinn Air Defense Division on the day of Rust's flight, and Major Vyacheslav Chernykh, who was on duty for the radio engineering brigade that ill-fated day.

As for Rust himself, after being detained on Red Square, he was arrested. On June 1, a few days after the flight, Matthias Rust turned nineteen years old. The young German celebrated his birthday in prison. The whole world followed the fate of the guy who demonstrated that the defense system of the Soviet Union was by no means "iron". And it really was so - with outright traitors who penetrated the top leadership of the Soviet state, she simply could not be iron. Naturally, without "support" at the highest level, Rust's flight would simply have been impossible. In the worst case, he would have been shot down in the skies over Estonia. However, Rust was literally given the green light to fly all the way to the Soviet capital. This could only happen with the sanction of the highest Soviet leaders. It is not very clear who specifically gave the go-ahead for Rust's landing on Red Square, and it is unlikely that we will ever know about it. But it is obvious that this was a person or people who were part of the highest group of the Soviet elite.

The displaced military leaders were in opposition to the course that the Soviet leadership headed by Mikhail Gorbachev had begun to pursue by that time. Striking the command of the armed forces was one of the main tasks of those people who stood behind the methodical and systematic destruction of the Soviet state. After all, the famous marshals and generals who went through the Great Patriotic War and who were real patriots of the Soviet state could simply not allow all those manipulations with the country that led to the 1991 catastrophe to be carried out. Subsequently, the American military expert William Odom even compared the "cleansing" of the Soviet military elite after the flight of Matthias Rust with the repressions against the Soviet military leaders that took place in 1937-1938. Interestingly, after each such purge, after three or four years a catastrophe occurred. In 1941, the terrible Great Patriotic War began, and in 1991 the Soviet Union collapsed, and this process was also accompanied by rivers of blood in the former Soviet republics, numerous military conflicts, riots, an unprecedented wave of crime and violence.

Therefore, it is hardly worth evaluating the act of Matthias Rust as a "harmless prank" of a young romantic aviator. Most likely, a carefully thought-out and organized provocation took place here, in which both Western special services and an impressive cover from the Soviet side could participate. At least, this opinion is shared by many prominent Soviet and Russian military leaders who believe that without the "Kremlin roof" the flight of Matthias Rust would have ended tragically for him. The purpose of organizing such a flight was to weaken the Soviet state by solving the following tasks: 1) creating a pretext for a large-scale "purge" of objectionable top military leaders, 2) discrediting the Soviet defense system in the eyes of the citizens of the USSR and the world community, 3) strengthening anti-Soviet sentiments in society. It was after the flight of Matthias Rust and the dismissal of the Minister of Defense of the USSR, Marshal Sergei Sokolov, that Mikhail Gorbachev began to rapidly reduce the Armed Forces of the Soviet Union. Rust's flight in this context was another argument - why do we need “such an army”, and even in “such an amount”, which missed the flight and landing on Red Square of a sports plane of some German youth.

It is noteworthy that shortly before the flight of Matthias Rust, the Minister of Defense of the USSR, Marshal Sokolov, personally reported to Mikhail Gorbachev on how the air defense system of the Soviet state was organized and how it works. Leaving the secretary general, Sokolov forgot some of his documents, including a very secret map. But the next day, when he tried to return the documents back, Gorbachev said that he did not remember where they were. This version was later voiced, according to a number of publications in the Russian media, by Colonel General Leonid Ivashov. Whatever it was, but the majority of military leaders agree on one thing - the action with Rust's flight was thoughtful and planned. There is another very interesting version, according to which Rust landed on Red Square with full tanks of fuel, which indicates only one thing - he was refueled somewhere on Soviet territory. And this could only be done directly under the control of the "omnipotent" Soviet KGB.

The trial of Matias Rust was scheduled for September 2, 1987. Matthias Rust was charged under three articles of the RSFSR Criminal Code - illegal crossing of the air border, violation of international flight rules and malicious hooliganism. In the definition of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR, hooliganism was interpreted as deliberate actions that grossly violate public order and express obvious disrespect for society, while malicious hooliganism was understood as the same actions, but accompanied by "exceptional cynicism or special audacity." The landing of the plane on Red Square, where many Soviet people were walking, was regarded as such. For malicious hooliganism, the RSFSR Criminal Code provided for liability in the form of imprisonment for up to five years or correctional labor for up to two years. Violation of the rules of international flights provided for an even wider range of punishment - from one to ten years in prison, however, under the same article it was possible to get rid of without a real term - by paying a large fine.

At the trial, Matthias Rust said that he had flown to Moscow in order to demonstrate to the Soviet people his desire for peace. However, the accusation did not heed these arguments of the young German. The prosecutor asked Matthias Rust for ten years in prison under three articles of the RSFSR Criminal Code. But the court turned out to be much softer than the accusation.

On September 4, 1987, Matthias Rust was sentenced. He was sentenced to four years in prison. On the one hand, anti-Soviet elements in the Soviet Union itself and the world community immediately expressed indignation at such, from their point of view, a cruel reprisal against the "messenger of peace." On the other hand, on the contrary, today many questions arise about the verdict, which seems to some to be overly liberal. Firstly, those articles of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR were applied to Matthias Rust that were not tough and could not entail such serious measures as, say, the death penalty. Secondly, all the same, four years of imprisonment for such an act of state significance looked very strange, especially compared to what was then given to ordinary Soviet citizens for four years.

The mildness of the sentence to Rust indicated that no one was going to punish him seriously. In the old days, when the Soviet Union was really an enemy of the capitalist West, Mathias Rust would have received ten years in distant northern camps at best, and at worst he would have been simply sentenced to death. But in 1987 the situation changed. It is possible that the liberal punishment for Rust was supposed to demonstrate to the West the further readiness of the Soviet Union to "democratize".

In early August 1988, less than a year after the trial, Matthias Rust was amnestied and safely left for his homeland. The young German spent only 14 months in pre-trial detention and in a colony. In fact, Mikhail Gorbachev generously forgave Matthias Rust for the biting slap in the face of the Soviet Union and the Soviet Army, inflicted in front of the whole world. Of course, “Western friends” persistently asked for Matthias Rust (by that time Moscow was already looking at the West with wide-open eyes), the Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany Helmut Kohl could personally appeal to Mikhail Gorbachev. Mikhail Sergeevich, who a few years later successfully transferred the GDR to the FRG, could not refuse his West German colleague.

The decision to release Matthias Rust was enthusiastically received both in the West, where it once again confirmed the weakening of the superpower and its readiness from now on to yield to the West in everything, and in the Soviet Union itself, since anti-Soviet sentiments at that time in society were already very strong, especially among the "active" part of society - the capital's intelligentsia, young representatives of the nomenklatura. And the flight of Matthias Rust, and the lenient sentence, and his imminent release showed the beginning of changes in the life of the Soviet Union and fit perfectly into Gorbachev's perestroika. First, Rust was forgiven, then they were allowed to include the GDR in the FRG, to overthrow all pro-Soviet regimes in Eastern Europe, and in the end - and to destroy the Soviet Union itself.

By the way, the life of Matthias Rust after his return to his homeland in Germany was very interesting. Some actions perfectly characterize the true appearance of the “messenger of peace”. So, already in November 1989, 15 months after his release from the Soviet colony, Matthias Rust, who by that time was doing alternative service at the hospital in Rissen, began to look after a nurse. He asked her out on a date, and after the nurse refused to go with him, he stabbed her. For this, Matthias Rust was arrested - already "native" German authorities. In 1991 he was sentenced to four years in prison - just the same term was given to Rust for landing on Red Square. But after 15 months, Rust was released from prison (and again it is repeated - in the USSR he was released after fourteen months).

In 1997, ten years after his flight, Rust, who by that time lived in the distant West Indies, in the state of Trinidad-and-Tobago, converted to Hinduism and married a local girl of Indian origin. Then he returned with his young wife to his homeland, to Germany, but in 2001 he again came to the attention of the police - this time for stealing a sweater in one of the supermarkets. In the mid-2000s, twenty years after his flight, Matthias Rust claimed that he wanted to "build bridges" between the West and the East. But he still prefers to remain silent about the true history of his flight.

28 May 1987, a citizen of the Federal Republic of Germany Rust landed on Red Square.
It happened exactly on the "Day of the border guard". His American-made sports plane "Cessna" was not touched by the Soviet air defense and landed in Moscow on the Bolshoy Moskvoretsky bridge and already coasted up to St. Basil's Cathedral.

Rust flew through Helsinki. And he made one landing in the USSR to cover up his tracks.

Rust's plane crossed the Soviet Union air border at 14.20 at an altitude of 600 meters above the Gulf of Finland near the Estonian town of Kohtla-Järve. The air defense radars recorded this, and the missile divisions on duty were put on alert. A fighter was sent to intercept and quickly spotted the intruder. But he was not allowed to shoot down "Cessna", and further, up to Moscow, Rust's plane was "led" (periodically losing and discovering again).

The intruder was reported upstairs, although officially it was allegedly flying "incognito." The fact is that since 1984, an order has been in force in the USSR prohibiting the opening of fire on civilian and sports aircraft, and this aircraft was clearly civilian.

They reported to the top, but no one wanted to take responsibility for themselves and was playing for time, pushing responsibility onto each other. So he flew to Moscow, where the air defense system that day was generally turned off for preventive measures.

Why was it allowed through their territories by Norway, Sweden and Finland? There is a suspicion that everything with the plane was not as straightforward as it seems.

Nevertheless, the plane flew safely to Moscow. When the pilot got out of the cockpit, he immediately began to sign autographs. There was no shortage of photographers, including among the foreign media. He was arrested only 10 minutes later.

The violator was a citizen of Germany, 19-year-old sportsman-pilot Mathias Rust. His father was a businessman selling Cessna planes in Germany.

Rust after receiving a flight license before flying to Moscow.

Newspapers of that time wrote: “The country is in shock! An amateur pilot, and, as luck would have it, a German one, immediately dishonored the enormous defense arsenal of the USSR and on such a holiday - the Day of the Border Guard. Defense Minister Sergei Sokolov, Commander-in-Chief of the Air Defense Forces Alexander Koldunov, and about 300 other officers have lost their posts.

Defense Minister Sergei Sokolov

People began to call Red Square "the Sheremetyevo-3 airport".

On September 4, 1987, Rust was sentenced to 4 years in prison for illegal crossing of the air border, violation of international flight rules and malicious hooliganism.

His parents came to the court. Rust himself said in court that his flight was a "call for peace."

After spending a total of 432 days in pre-trial detention and in prison, on August 3, 1988, he was pardoned by the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet and expelled from the territory of the USSR.

On the morning of May 28, 1987, German amateur aviator Matthias Rust took off in a Cessna 172R monoplane from an airfield near Helsinki, where he had flown from Hamburg the day before. In flight documents, Stockholm was listed as the final destination of the route.

At 13.10, having received permission, Rust lifted his car into the air and headed for the planned route. After 20 minutes of the flight, he reported to the dispatcher that he was in order on board, and traditionally said goodbye. After that, turning off the on-board radio station, he turned the plane abruptly towards the Gulf of Finland and began to descend to an altitude of 80-100 m. This planned

the maneuver was supposed to ensure a reliable exit of the aircraft from the observation zone of the air traffic control radar and hide the true flight route.

At this altitude, Matias headed to the calculated point of the Gulf of Finland near the Helsinki-Moscow air route. Having turned the plane in the direction of the first landmark on the coast of the Soviet Union (the shale plant of the city of Kohtla-Järve with its smoke, which could be seen from a hundred kilometers away) and checking the readings of the radio compass with the calculated ones, Rust went on a "combat course".

Rust's approximate route from Hamburg to Moscow

Wikipedia / Europe_laea_location_map.svg: Alexrk2 / CC BY-SA 3.0

The violator of the USSR state border, noticed on the approach, followed the international air route. Information about him was issued to the command post of the radio technical battalion in the Estonian town of Tapa, the 4th radio technical brigade and the Intelligence Information Center of the 14th Division. In fact, information about the target already from 14.31 was displayed on the screens of the automated workstations of the duty combat crew of the command post of the division.

The operational duty officer of the brigade, Major Krinitsky, did not immediately declare the target a violator of the state border and continued to clarify the characteristics of the object and its belonging until Rust left the brigade's radar visibility zones. Deputy duty officer

major Chernykh, according to the report, knowing the real situation and the fact that the target was moving from the Gulf of Finland to the coastline, "acted irresponsibly"

and assigned her a number only at 14.37.

The operational duty officer of the division's command post, Lieutenant Colonel Karpets, did not demand clear reports and clarification of the type and nature of the target, "thereby violating the requirements for the immediate issuance of a target for notification," as well as the procedure for deciding on the takeoff of duty crews to identify the target.

In fact, a decision was made: until the situation is fully clarified, not to issue information "upstairs". Over the territory of Estonia at that moment there were at least ten light-engine aircraft of various departmental affiliations. None of them were equipped with a state identification system.

At 2:28 pm it is finally revealed that there are no civilian small aircraft in this area. At 14.29, the operational duty officer of the command post of the 14th Air Defense Division made a decision to assign the offender "combat number" 8255, to issue information "upward" and declare readiness No. 1.

Only at 14.45 the movement was reported to the higher command post of the 6th separate air defense army.

"Thus, due to the fault of the command post of the 14th Air Defense Division, 16 minutes of time were lost, and most importantly, the acuity of the perception of the air situation by the Army Command has disappeared, proceeding from the fact that the target came from the Gulf of Finland and entered the borders of the USSR," report.

At the same time, Lieutenant Filatov, the command control officer of the 656th Fighter Aviation Regiment in the city of Tapa, at 14.33 alerted the number 1 fighters on duty, repeatedly requesting permission to lift them, but the division gave the go-ahead only at 14.47.

Meanwhile, Rust's plane was approaching Lake Peipsi. At 14.30 on the route of the Cessna 172R the weather deteriorated sharply. Rust made a decision to leave with a descent under the lower edge of the clouds and change the course to the area of \u200b\u200ban alternate landmark: the railway junction of the Dno station.

On May 28, 1987 at 6:15 pm, a Cessna civilian plane flew unhindered from Germany to Red Square in the heart of the Soviet Union. In the cockpit: Mathias Rust from Hamburg

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The target has actually already passed the zone of the continuous duty officer radar field at low altitudes and the affected area of \u200b\u200bthe anti-aircraft missile battalions on duty. Time was wasted precious for interception.

Later, the command regarded the delay in the calculations of the 14th division as "inexplicable, except as complete irresponsibility, bordering on a crime."

The commander of the 14th division, who arrived at the command post at 14.53, was informed that a fighter had been raised in the area of \u200b\u200bcorridor No. 1 of the Helsinki-Moscow route to clarify the type of target. The duty officer kept silent about the fact that the target was discovered near the state border over the Gulf of Finland.

The operational duty officer at the command post of the 6th Army, Colonel Voronkov, having received information about the target, a minute later - at 14.46 - alerted No. 1 to the duty forces of the 54th Air Defense Corps and finally allowed a pair of fighters on duty from the 656th regiment to rise into the air with the task of one of them to close the border, to the other - to identify the violator of the flight regime.

After another five minutes, its commander, General Herman Kromin, arrived at the command post of the army, who took over the leadership of the duty forces. He alerted No. 1 all formations and units of the 54th Air Defense Corps. The commanders of three anti-aircraft missile battalions of the 204th Guards Brigade in Kerstovo, which were on the route of Rust's flight, reported that the target was being observed and ready to launch missiles.

Launched into the air, the MiG-23 of Senior Lieutenant Puchnin waited until 15.00 until the shift chief of the Regional Center of the Unified Air Traffic Control System of the Air Force of the Leningrad Military District, Colonel Timoshin, would give permission to enter the airspace.

Only at 15:23, when controlled from the targeting point of the 54th Air Defense Corps, the pilot was brought to the target for its identification. flew up to the target at an altitude of 2 thousand m in conditions of 10-point clouds with a lower edge of 500-600 and an upper edge of 2.5-2.9 thousand m.Rust went almost 1.5 km lower, right under the clouds - at an altitude 600 m.

On the first call, Puchnin did not find the target. When re-entering, already at an altitude of 600 m, the pilot visually detected a target 30-50 m below him and at 15.28 transmitted its characteristic to the guidance point: "Light-engine white aircraft of the Yak-12 type."

The type of target was reported to the command of the 6th Army, but no decision was made there, approving the withdrawal of the fighter. At the same time, the "MiG" had fuel for one more call and more accurate target identification and, most importantly, determination of its nationality.

The flight between St. Basil's Cathedral and the Kremlin wall

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"The signal" Carpet "(demand for immediate landing. -" Gazeta.Ru ") was not announced," - emphasized in the official documents.

During the investigation, Rust was asked whether he had seen the fighter. The German confirmed and said that he even greeted the Soviet pilot, but received no return signals. The radio station of the Cessna 172R was turned off.

The report of the MiG-23 pilot was ignored, as it was believed that the discovered aircraft belonged to one of the local flying clubs, where scheduled flights were taking place at that time.

At this time, the Finnish side continued to search for Rust for almost two hours. In connection with the unexpected disappearance from the screen of the airport control radar of the mark from the taken off plane, the dispatcher tried to contact Matias Rust. After several unsuccessful attempts, the plane was declared in distress, and rescuers were sent to the alleged area of \u200b\u200bthe fall.

The search continued for several hours. Later, Rust will be charged about $ 100 thousand for "services rendered."

At 15.31, the second fighter was taken off the Tapa airfield. The previous order of guidance was repeated with a delay before the zone of responsibility of the Air Force of the Leningrad Military District. Only at 15.58, at an altitude of 1.5 thousand meters, the Soviet pilot found himself in the target area, but he did not visually detect it and returned to the base airfield without result. By that time, Soviet radars had lost a weak signal from Rust's low-flying single-engine aircraft and switched to tracking reflections from meteorological formations that resembled it.

Some clarification is needed here. In the mid-70s, when powerful high-potential radars began to enter service with the RTV air defense, already in the course of their field tests, markers with movement parameters commensurate with the characteristics of light-engine aircraft began to be detected. They were jokingly dubbed the Echo Angels. This phenomenon has caused serious difficulties in automated information processing. Even if the operator does not distinguish them well, how to teach the "machine" to work without errors?

In the course of serious research and a lot of experiments, it was found that the radar, due to its high emitting potential, can observe specific meteorological objects. This phenomenon is typical for the spring period in the middle latitudes and during the movement of a powerful warm front. In addition, the seasonal migration of dense flocks of birds creates a very similar effect. Radar operators needed help in recognizing objects of this class. Detailed methods and instructions were developed for the command and control bodies of the Air Defense Forces.

The significant changes in target parameters that occurred at a certain moment within just one minute did not alert the calculation and were left without due attention. The operators clearly lacked qualifications. In addition, the loss of radar contact with Rust's aircraft occurred at the junction of the boundaries of responsibility of two air defense formations - the 14th division and the 54th corps, where the coordination of calculations of command posts plays an important, if not decisive role.

The fighters that subsequently rose sequentially at 15.54 and 16.25 from the Lodeynoye Pole airfield in the Leningrad Region entered false targets.

At this time, along the route of Rust, the warm air front moved to the southeast. Overcast clouds, rains in places, the lower edge of the clouds - 200-400 m, the upper edge - 2.5-3 thousand m were observed. The search was carried out for 30 minutes. Fighters were forbidden to descend into the clouds, it was too dangerous.

Only at 16.30 did the 6th Army commander personally inform the officer on duty at the command post of the Moscow Air Defense District about the situation, concluding that target 8255 was a dense flock of birds. At the same time, the current methods and instructions contained the necessary information about which species of birds and at what time of day can fly in fog and clouds, as well as under what circumstances a dense flock can change the direction of flight.

After receiving information from the 6th Army, the Moscow Air Defense District switched on the radar of the 2266th radio technical battalion in the town of Staraya Russa, Novgorod Region at 4:32 pm, and the duty crews at the Andreapol and Hotilovo airfields in Tver were transferred to readiness number 1. The rise of two fighters from there did not lead to target detection: the pilots continued to direct them to ghostly meteorological formations.

In court, Matthias Rust was supposed to be responsible for violation of the Soviet state border, violation of international flight rules and serious hooliganism

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As it turned out later, the lost intruder aircraft at 4:16 pm was discovered by the radar duty officer of the 1074th separate radar company of the 3rd radio technical brigade of the 2nd air defense corps in the Tver region. These targets until 16.47 in automatic mode were issued to the command post of a higher radio technical battalion.

At the command post of the 2nd Air Defense Corps on the special equipment "Proton-2" later, the data of the intruder aircraft's wiring from 16.18 to 16.28 was found, but due to the low preparedness of the corresponding calculations, the information was not used.

Matias at that time was 40 km west of the city of Torzhok, where the plane crash occurred the day before.

Two planes collided in the air - Tu-22 and MiG-25. Several groups of rescuers and experts were working on the crash site of the car fragments. People and goods were delivered to the crash site by helicopters of the aviation unit near the city of Torzhok. One of the helicopters was in the air as a communication relay. At 16.30, Rust's plane was identified with a helicopter, so he did not cause any concern in this segment of the flight.

The air situation in the zone of detection of the next unit, where Matthias's plane entered, was also tense. Here they fought with the notorious long-lived meteorological objects. They were observed on the radar indicator screens for 40 minutes (several at a time). All objects were moving southeast. Here Rust again fell "under the amnesty" - he was removed from the escort as a meteorological object. This happened already at the exit from the detection zone of the unit.

Nevertheless, the command post noticed the directional difference of this route from the previously dropped air objects from the escort. At 4:48 pm, by the decision of the commander of the 2nd Air Defense Corps, two duty fighters were raised from the Rzhev airfield with the task of searching for small aircraft or other aircraft southeast of the city of Staritsa. The search did not give any results.

By 17.36 at the command post of the Moscow Air Defense District, Lieutenant-General Brazhnikov, deputy commander of the Air Defense Ministry, appeared, who, after assessing the situation, within a few minutes set the task of alerting No. 1 of the anti-aircraft missile forces on duty of the 2nd Air Defense Corps and ordered to search for the target with radars illuminating goals of the S-200 complexes. This also did not bring results, since by this time Rust had passed the border of responsibility of the above-named corps. The tasks of the 1st Special-Purpose Air Defense Army covering Moscow were not assigned.

At 17.40, Matthias's plane fell into the range of civilian radars of the Moscow air hub. The plane was not listed in the plan, it flew in violation of the rules, there was no communication with the crew. This seriously threatened the safety of air traffic in the Moscow aviation zone. Until the situation was clarified, the administration stopped receiving and dispatching passenger airliners.

When coordinating a plan of joint actions with the command of the Moscow Air Defense District, it was decided that civilian specialists would deal with the violator of the flight regime themselves.

When it was discovered that the intruder was already above the urban development of Moscow, where flights are generally prohibited, it was too late to do anything.

At 18.30, Rust's plane appeared over the Khodynskoye field and continued its flight to the city center. Deciding that it was impossible to land on the Kremlin's Ivanovskaya Square, Matthias made three unsuccessful attempts to land on Red Square. The size of the latter made it possible to do this, but there were many people on the paving stones.

After that, the German made a risky decision - to land on the Moskvoretsky bridge. Having turned over the hotel "Russia", he began to descend over Bolshaya Ordynka Street, turning on the landing lights. In order to avoid an accident on the bridge, the guard turned on the red light of the traffic light.

Rust made the landing masterfully, considering that he had to sniper into the area between the guy wires of the trolleybus network.

This happened at 18.55. After taxiing to the Intercession Cathedral and turning off the engine, Matthias got off the plane in a brand new red overalls, put pads under the landing gear and began signing autographs.

Cessna at the edge of Red Square

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Already at the first stage, the consequences of the reform began to manifest themselves - the dismemberment of the unified control system of the country's Air Defense Forces between the military districts in 1978.

In the second half of the 70s, the air defense forces of the USSR developed at such an active pace that the West recognized their superiority over similar systems in other countries of the world.

The re-equipment of the Air Defense Forces with the latest weapons and military equipment for those times was nearing completion. The country's air defense system during this period was a single automated organizational and technical complex, which was in constant combat readiness and was continuously improved.

During the Cold War, the air borders of the USSR were constantly tested for strength. By the way,

back in the mid-70s, violations of the state border by light-engine aircraft (such as Cessna, Beechcraft, Piper, etc.) from Finland became a real scourge of the USSR air defense system in the North-West region.

As a rule, the cause of such incidents was the loss of orientation by amateur pilots.

However, this was not enough. On April 20, 1978, in the area of \u200b\u200bthe Kola Peninsula, a Voeing 707 passenger plane of the South Korean KAL airline crossed the state border. After unsuccessful attempts to force the plane to land, the commander of the 10th Air Defense Army decided to use weapons. The Su-15 air defense fighter opened fire and damaged the left wing of the liner. He made an emergency landing on the ice of Lake Kolpijärvi near the city of Kem. Two passengers were killed and several were injured. The actions of the air defense command were subsequently recognized as correct, and all participants in the interception were presented for state awards.

By that time, an influential group of top leaders had conceived a reform of the USSR's air defense, which provided for the transfer of the largest, best and most efficient part of the Air Defense Forces to the border military districts. The commander-in-chief of the Air Defense Forces of the country, Marshal of the Soviet Union Pavel Batitsky, strongly opposed this.

In the summer of 1978, a harmful decision was made. Air defense corps and divisions were placed at the disposal of administrative and economic structures, which in practice were military districts. The reform took place in unjustified vanity. A few years later, it was still decided to return the troops to their original state, but the damage in the air defense is still remembered.

Meanwhile, the tension in the field of state border protection did not subside. In the Far East alone, at the beginning of the 80s, operators of radio-technical troops accompanied on PLC screens near the borders more than three thousand air objects annually.

Mathias Rust participates in a talk show, 2012

Picture Аlliance / Jazzarchiv

The air defense officers became hostages of the adopted decisions of a political nature. And the procedure for forcing such violators to land the state border has not been unambiguously defined until now.

During the approach of Rust to the territory of the USSR, the "holy principle of the border" was also violated - the immediate issuance of information on the target until the situation was clarified. However, instead of a rational analysis of the failure that happened, a search began for the perpetrators, who were discovered almost immediately.

The country's leadership removed from their posts three marshals of the Soviet Union and about three hundred generals and officers. The army did not know such a personnel pogrom literally since 1937.

As a result, people came to the leadership of the Armed Forces and services of the Armed Forces, an order of magnitude (or even two) inferior in their professional, business and moral qualities to the removed marshals and generals.