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 in from Hamburg the day before. In the flight documents, the final destination of the route was Stockholm.

At 13.10, having received permission, Rust took his car into the air and headed along the planned route. After 20 minutes of flight, he reported to the dispatcher that there was order on board and said his traditional goodbyes. After which, turning off the onboard radio, the plane turned sharply towards the Gulf of Finland and began descending to an altitude of 80-100 m. This planned

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

At this altitude, Mathias headed to the calculated point of the Gulf of Finland near the Helsinki-Moscow air route. Having turned the plane towards the first landmark on the coast of the Soviet Union (the oil shale plant of the city of Kohtla-Jarve with its smoke, which was visible a hundred kilometers away) and checking the radio compass readings with the calculated ones, Rust set off on the “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, spotted on approach, was following the international air route. Information about him was issued to the command post of the radio engineering battalion in the Estonian town of Tapa, the 4th radio engineering brigade and the Intelligence Information Center of the 14th division. In fact, information about the target was already displayed on the screens of automated workstations of the duty combat crew of the division command post as early as 14.31.

The operational duty officer of the brigade command post, 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 affiliation until Rust left the visibility range of the brigade’s radar. Deputy duty officer

Major Chernykh, according to the report, knowing the real situation and the fact that the target was coming 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 command post, Lieutenant Colonel Karpets, did not demand clear reports and clarification of the type and nature of the target, “thus violating the requirements for the immediate issuance of the target for notification,” as well as the procedure for making decisions on the takeoff of duty crews to identify the target.

In fact, a decision was made: until the situation is fully clarified, information should not be released “upstream.” At that moment there were at least ten light aircraft of various departmental affiliations over the territory of Estonia. None of them were equipped with a state identification system.

At 14.28 it finally becomes clear that there are no civil small aircraft in the area. At 14.29, the operational duty officer of the command post of the 14th Air Defense Division made a decision to assign the “combat number” 8255 to the intruder, to issue information “to the top” and to 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, through the fault of the command post of the 14th air defense division, 16 minutes of time were lost, and most importantly, the acuity of perception of the air situation of the army command post disappeared, based on the fact that the target was coming from the Gulf of Finland and entered the borders of the USSR,” it is stated in report.

At the same time, the duty command post of the 656th Fighter Aviation Regiment in the city of Tapa, Lieutenant Filatov, already at 14.33, alerted No. 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 2:30 p.m., along the Cessna 172R flight route, the weather suddenly deteriorated. Rust decided to descend under the lower edge of the clouds and change course to the area of ​​​​an alternate landmark: the railway junction of the Dno station.

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

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The target had actually already passed through the zone of a continuous duty radar field at low altitudes and the engagement zone of duty anti-aircraft missile battalions. Precious time for interception was lost.

Later, the command regarded the delay in the calculations of the 14th division as “cannot be explained by anything other than complete irresponsibility, bordering on crime.”

The commander of the 14th division, who arrived at the checkpoint at 14.53, was informed that a fighter had been scrambled to clarify the type of target in the area of ​​corridor No. 1 of the Helsinki-Moscow highway. The officer on duty kept silent about the fact that the target was discovered close to the state border over the Gulf of Finland.

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

After another five minutes, its commander, General German Kromin, arrived at the army command post and took charge of the forces on duty. He alerted No. 1 to 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, who were on Rust’s flight route, reported that the target was being observed and were ready to launch missiles.

Senior Lieutenant Puchnin's MiG-23, which was lifted into the air, waited until 15.00 for the shift manager of the Regional Center for the Unified Air Traffic Control System of the Air Force Area of ​​Responsibility of the Leningrad Military District, Colonel Timoshin, to give permission to enter the airspace area.

Only at 15.23, while flying from the guidance point of the 54th Air Defense Corps, the pilot was brought to the target to identify it. flew up to the target at an altitude of 2 thousand m in conditions of cloudiness of 10 points with a lower edge of 500-600 and an upper edge of 2.5-2.9 thousand m. Rust was almost 1.5 km lower, right under the clouds - at an altitude 600 m.

On the first approach, Puchnin did not find the target. During the repeated approach, already at an altitude of 600 m, the pilot visually detected the target below him at 30-50 m and at 15.28 he transmitted its description to the guidance point: “A light-engine white aircraft of the Yak-12 type.”

The type of target was reported to the command of the 6th Army, but they did not make any decision, approving the withdrawal of the fighter. At the same time, the MiG had fuel left for one more approach and more accurate identification of the target and, most importantly, determining its nationality.

Span between St. Basil's Cathedral and the Kremlin wall

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“The “Carpet” signal (demand for immediate landing - Gazeta.Ru) was not announced,” the official documents emphasize.

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 did not receive any response signals. The Cessna 172R's radio was turned off.

The report of the MiG-23 pilot was ignored, since 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 rescue search for Rust by the Finnish side had been going on for almost two hours. Due to the unexpected disappearance of the mark from the plane taking off from the airport control radar screen, the dispatcher tried to contact Matthias Rust. After several unsuccessful attempts, the plane was declared in distress, and rescuers were sent to the suspected crash area.

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

At 15.31 a second fighter was lifted from Tapa airfield. The previous guidance procedure was repeated with a delay in front of the area of ​​​​responsibility of the Air Force of the Leningrad Military District. Only at 15.58 at an altitude of 1.5 thousand m did the Soviet pilot find himself in the target area, but did not visually detect it and returned to the home airfield without results. By that time, Soviet radars had lost the weak signal from Rust's low-flying single-engine aircraft and switched to tracking reflections from meteorological formations that resembled it.

Some clarification is required here. In the mid-70s, when powerful high-potential locators began to enter service with RTV air defense systems, already during their field tests, marks with movement parameters commensurate with the characteristics of light-engine aircraft began to be discovered. They were jokingly dubbed echo angels. This phenomenon has caused serious difficulties in automated information processing. Even if the operator can’t distinguish them well, how can he teach the machine to work without errors?

In the course of serious research and a lot of experiments, it was found that radars, due to their high emitting potential, can observe specific meteorological objects. This phenomenon is typical for the spring period in mid-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 control bodies of the Air Defense Forces.

Significant changes in the target parameters that occurred at a certain moment within just one minute did not alert the crew and remained without due attention. The operators clearly lacked qualifications. In addition, the loss of radar contact with Rust’s plane occurred at the junction of the boundaries of responsibility of two air defense formations - the 14th division and the 54th corps, where the coherence of command post crews plays an important, if not decisive, role.

The fighters, which subsequently took off sequentially at 15.54 and 16.25 from the Lodeynoye Pole airfield in the Leningrad region, already approached false targets.

At this time, along the Rust route, a warm air front was moving to the southeast. There was continuous cloud cover, rain in places, the lower edge of the clouds was 200-400 m, the upper edge was 2.5-3 thousand m. The search was carried out for 30 minutes. Fighters were forbidden to descend into the clouds; it was too dangerous.

Only at 16.30 the commander of the 6th Army personally informed the duty officer at the command post of the Moscow Air Defense District about the current 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 what types 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 at 16.32 turned on the radar of the 2266th radio engineering battalion in the city of Staraya Russa, Novgorod Region, and the duty crews at the Tver airfields Andreapol and Khotilovo were transferred to readiness number 1. The rise of two fighters from there did not lead to the detection of the target: the pilots continued to be directed towards ghostly meteorological formations.

In court, Matthias Rust had to answer for violating the Soviet state border, violating international flight rules and serious hooliganism

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As it turned out later, the lost intruder aircraft was discovered at 16.16 by the radar on duty of the 1074th separate radar company of the 3rd radio engineering brigade of the 2nd air defense corps in the Tver region. Until 16.47, these targets were automatically issued to the command post of a higher-level radio engineering battalion.

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

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

Two planes collided in the air - Tu-22 and MiG-25. Several teams of rescuers and incident investigation specialists worked at the site where the car fragments fell. People and cargo were delivered to the scene of the disaster by helicopters from the aviation unit in the area of ​​​​the city of Torzhok. One of the helicopters was in the air as a communications relay. At 16.30 Rust’s plane was identified with a helicopter, so it did not cause any concern to anyone during this part of the flight.

The air situation in the detection zone 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 (and several at a time). All objects were moving to the southeast. Here Rust again fell “under amnesty” - he was removed from support as a meteorological object. This happened already at the exit from the unit’s detection zone.

Nevertheless, at the command post they noticed the course difference between this route and the airborne objects previously dropped from escort. At 16.48, by the decision of the commander of the 2nd Air Defense Corps, two fighters on duty were scrambled 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 return any results.

By 17.36, the deputy commander of the Moscow Air Defense District, Lieutenant General Brazhnikov, appeared at the command post of the Moscow Air Defense District, who, having assessed the situation, within a few minutes set the task of alerting No. 1 duty forces of the anti-aircraft missile forces of the 2nd Air Defense Corps and ordered to search for the target with illumination radars targets 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-mentioned corps. The tasks of the 1st Special Air Defense Army covering Moscow were not assigned.

At 17.40, Matthias’s plane fell within the coverage area of ​​the civilian radars of the Moscow air hub. The plane was not listed in the plan, the flight was carried out 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 is clarified, the administration has stopped receiving and sending passenger planes.

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

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 Khodynka Field and continued its flight to the city center. Deciding that landing on the Kremlin's Ivanovo Square was impossible, Mathias made three unsuccessful attempts to land on Red Square. The size of the latter allowed this to be done, but there were many people on the paving stones.

After this, the German made a risky decision - to land on the Moskvoretsky Bridge. Turning around over the Rossiya Hotel, he began descending over Bolshaya Ordynka Street, turning on the landing lights. To avoid an accident on the bridge, the guard turned on the red traffic light.

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

This happened at 18.55. Having taxied to the Intercession Cathedral and turning off the engine, Matthias got out of the plane in a brand new red jumpsuit, put chocks under the landing gear and began signing autographs.

Cessna on the edge of Red Square

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

The air defense forces of the USSR in the second half of the 70s 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 at that time was completed. 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, the real scourge of the USSR air defense system in the North-West region was violations of the state border by light aircraft (such as Cessna, Beechcraft, Piper, etc.) from Finland.

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

However, this was not the end of the matter. On April 20, 1978, in the area of ​​the Kola Peninsula, a Boeing 707 passenger plane of the South Korean airline KAL 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. A Su-15 air defense fighter opened fire and damaged the left wing of the airliner. He made an emergency landing on the ice of Lake Kolpiyarvi near the city of Kem. Two passengers were killed and several people were injured. The actions of the air defense command were subsequently recognized as correct, and all participants in the interception were presented with state awards.

By that time, an influential group of senior leaders had conceived a reform of the USSR's air defense, which included the transfer of the largest, best and most combat-ready part of the Air Defense Forces to the border military districts. The Commander-in-Chief of the country's Air Defense Forces, 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 fuss. A few years later, a decision was finally made to return the troops to their original state, but the damage in the air defense is still remembered.

Meanwhile, tensions in the field of border protection did not subside. In the Far East alone, in the early 80s, operators of radio technical troops accompanied on radar screens near borders more than three thousand air objects annually.

Matthias Rust participates in a talk show, 2012

Picture Alliance/Jazzarchiv

Air defense officers became hostages of political decisions. And the procedure for forcing the imprisonment of such state border violators has not yet been clearly defined.

During Rust’s approach to the territory of the USSR, the “sacred principle of the border” was also violated - the immediate release of information on the target until the situation was clarified. However, instead of a rational analysis of the failure that occurred, a search began for the culprits, who were revealed almost immediately.

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

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

On August 3, 1988, an unusual prisoner was released early from a Soviet prison. He was the German amateur pilot Matthias Rust, who a year earlier became famous throughout the world for landing a plane on Red Square. Then this event caused a lot of noise: how did a 19-year-old guy manage to discredit the Soviet air defense system, why did he need to commit this crazy act, and what punishment did the brave man suffer?

German amateur pilot Matthias Rust

One day, 18-year-old Matthias Rust was watching TV and the news was talking about how negotiations between the American and Soviet governments in Reykjavik had reached a dead end. The young man decided that he should help the USSR and the West improve relations. At least, this is how he explained his motives at trial: “I thought I could use the plane to build an imaginary bridge between the West and the East, to show how many people in Europe want to improve relations with the USSR.”

Rust flight map

At that time, Matthias Rust had the right to fly the plane, and he had already spent about 50 hours in the air. On May 13, 1987, he informed his parents that he intended to travel by plane to Northern Europe in order to fly the required number of hours to obtain his professional pilot's license. On May 25, Mathias arrived in Helsinki; on May 28, he told dispatchers that he was heading to Stockholm. But Rust was moving in the wrong direction, and later disappeared from the radar altogether.

A search and rescue operation immediately began in the area of ​​the Finnish coast. A large oil slick was noticed on the surface of the sea, and it was then assumed that the plane had crashed. While they were searching for the pilot at sea, he crossed the Soviet border over Estonia. Of course, the radars immediately detected him, and soon a MiG fighter was next to him. He accompanied him for some time, but no order for further action was received, and the MiG soon disappeared.

*Peace mission* or provocation?

The fact is that in 1984, the Soviet military shot down a South Korean passenger plane, which violated USSR airspace. As a result, people died, and after that it was prohibited to shoot at civilian and sport aircraft. When Matias was flying in the Pskov area, the local air regiment was conducting training flights. Some planes were taking off, others were landing. At 15:00, all pilots were supposed to change code at the same time, but due to inexperience, many did not do this. Due to the confusion that arose, all aircraft were assigned the “me-us” attribute, including Rust’s plane, which was among them. When he flew over Torzhok, rescue work was carried out there after a plane crash, and Rust’s plane was mistaken for a Soviet search helicopter.

Matthias Rust's plane on Red Square

On the evening of May 28, a German Cessna plane landed on the Bolshoy Moskvoretsky Bridge and drove to St. Basil's Cathedral. The pilot climbed out of the cockpit and began signing autographs to surprised passers-by and tourists. He was arrested a few minutes later. The next morning, all the newspapers reported a sensation: “The country is in shock! The German sports pilot dishonored the huge defense arsenal of the USSR on Border Guard Day.”

*Peace mission* or provocation?

There were several versions about the reasons for Mathias’s action: he was trying to win a bet, he wanted to impress his girlfriend, he was carrying out an assignment from foreign intelligence services, he made a spectacular marketing move in support of his father’s business - he was selling Cessna aircraft in Western Europe, and the news that this - the only aircraft that defeated the Soviet air defense system could help revive demand.

Matthias Rust's plane on Red Square

Matthias Rust was arrested and tried for hooliganism and illegal border crossing. He was sentenced to 4 years in prison, but a year later he was released early. The head of the air defense forces, the minister of defense and about 300 officers lost their positions. And people began to call Red Square “Sheremetyevo-3” and write jokes on this topic.

Matthias Rust in the courtroom

Upon returning to his homeland, Rust was deprived of his piloting rights as a “mentally unbalanced” person. Soon, he ended up behind bars again: while working as a nurse in a hospital, he rushed with a knife at a nurse who refused his advances. In 2001, he was tried again - this time for stealing a pullover. Apparently, he really couldn’t be called mentally stable.

Matthias Rust

Rust’s “peace mission” is still called into question: there are too many inconsistencies and large-scale consequences: after that, mass purges were carried out in the Soviet army - as if they were waiting for the right occasion. Therefore, many call Rust’s flight a carefully planned provocation, of which there were many during that period

2002-05-28T11:16Z

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15 years ago, German Matthias Rust violated the state border of the USSR

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On May 28, 1987, when the USSR celebrated the next Border Guard Day, 19-year-old German Matthias Rust boarded a small Cessna-172 sports plane, without an entry visa, crossed the Soviet border, flew 800 km over the territory of the USSR and landed his plane on Krasnaya Moscow square. The Cessna-172 aircraft was designed in the 1950s. This two-seater aircraft reaches a maximum speed of 220 km/h with its relatively low-power engine. Nevertheless, the aircraft is popular among fans of flying sports because it is easy to fly and reliable. According to the testimony of Muscovites and guests of the capital, walking in the center of Moscow on May 28, 1987, the plane made a left turn and descended to land between the Kremlin’s Spasskaya Tower and St. Basil’s Cathedral. Rust failed to land the plane directly on Red Square /there were too many people on the square/. Having made another turn over the Rossiya Hotel, he descended, landed in the middle of the Moskvoretsky Bridge and taxied to...

On May 28, 1987, when the USSR celebrated the next Border Guard Day, 19-year-old German Matthias Rust boarded a small Cessna-172 sports plane, without an entry visa, crossed the Soviet border, flew 800 km over the territory of the USSR and landed his plane on Krasnaya Moscow square.

The Cessna-172 aircraft was designed in the 1950s. This two-seater aircraft reaches a maximum speed of 220 km/h with its relatively low-power engine. Nevertheless, the aircraft is popular among fans of flying sports because it is easy to fly and reliable.

According to the testimony of Muscovites and guests of the capital, walking in the center of Moscow on May 28, 1987, the plane made a left turn and descended to land between the Kremlin’s Spasskaya Tower and St. Basil’s Cathedral. Rust failed to land the plane directly on Red Square /there were too many people on the square/. Having made another turn over the Rossiya Hotel, he descended, landed in the middle of the Moskvoretsky Bridge and taxied onto Vasilyevsky Spusk.

A crowd immediately formed around the blue and white single-engine Cessna. Matthias Rust climbed out of the cockpit and began signing autographs. When the police arrived and demanded documents, he stated that he had come “as a fighter for peace.” Rust was taken away, according to eyewitnesses, in a black ZIL, and the plane was towed by a special truck from Red Square in an unknown direction.

Rust began his flight from Hamburg; the easternmost point of his route was supposed to be Stockholm. But Rust set a course through Soviet Estonia to Moscow, which he reached unhindered at low altitudes five hours later.

Soviet radars spotted Rust, but for a long time the military leaders could not decide whether or not to shoot down the “object.”

Rust's flight to Moscow was clearly provocative. The incident had serious political consequences. In the West, they praised his “feat” and called Rust “a brave lone hero who, risking his life, punched a hole in the Iron Curtain in order to convey a message of peace to the leadership of the USSR.” Roots spoke about this on all Western talk shows. But in the courtroom, Rust claimed that he crossed the border of the USSR “on a dare.”

In the Soviet Union, Rust was found guilty of illegally crossing the border and had to serve a four-year prison sentence. However, his Lefortovo imprisonment lasted only a year. The Soviet government, as a “gesture of goodwill,” decided to release Matthias early, and he was handed over to the German authorities.

Punishment awaited not only the “air hooligan”. On May 30, 1987, a meeting of the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee was held, which ended with the dismissal of the Minister of Defense, Marshal of the Soviet Union Sergei Sokolov, and the Commander-in-Chief of the Air Defense Forces, Chief Marshal of Aviation Alexander Koldunov. By June 10, 34 officers and generals were brought to justice in the Air Defense Forces. Many were removed from their positions, expelled from the CPSU, dismissed from the Armed Forces, and put on trial. In fact, the entire leadership of the Ministry of Defense was replaced, right down to the commanders of military districts.

In his petition for pardon, Rust wrote: “Now, after many months of imprisonment, everything has become clear to me. I deeply repent of what I did. I ask for mercy not only in order to save my life, but also so that I was able to carry out legal work for world peace in Germany." Flying home from Sheremetyevo-2, Rust shed tears and promised reporters that he would certainly return to the Soviet Union as a tourist, “to get to know this wonderful country better.”

At the controls of the plane that landed on Red Square in 1987 was 18-year-old German Matthias Rust. A joke immediately appeared that there was now a Sheremetyevo-3 airport in the center of Moscow. The Soviet generals had no time for jokes - many lost their posts, including the Minister of Defense.

Matthias Rust himself, who has since served time both in the USSR and at home, recently in an interview with Stern magazine called that flight irresponsible and added that he would definitely not repeat it now. However, he won’t be able to. 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 I passed as a pilot again. Flew. In Europe, Rust has not been allowed to fly an airplane for 25 years.

“I sometimes dream about that flight, usually during the day, when I take a nap after lunch. And even if I have a little free time, the memories come up on their own,” says Matthias Rust.

Rust sat down on the Bolshoi Moskvoretsky Bridge. Then he drove to Vasilievsky Spusk, willingly signed autographs, spoke, and brought a letter of peace to Gorbachev. They even brought him bread and salt. And it seemed that the Iron Curtain was just a smoke screen, because everything was so simple.

“The flight maps were available. The KGB still didn’t want to believe me that I simply ordered them, like any other road atlases. Then they themselves ordered the same maps through the Soviet embassy then in Bonn and were very surprised when they received them "- recalls Matthias Rust.

Here is the route of an 18-year-old pilot who had flown only 50 hours at that time: 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 navigated by railroad. This part of the route is full of the most amazing coincidences. Rust's plane flew into the rescue operation area. The bomber crashed. Many helicopters in the air. Rust's Cessna is mistaken for a light-engine Soviet aircraft. Then he is once again assigned the code “I am mine.” At the same time, Rust was discovered immediately after he crossed the state border and could have been shot down, including on the approach to Moscow.

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

Tsarkov claims: Rust’s flight is an operation of Western intelligence 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 site, it is impossible to land in such difficult conditions. What if there is a cable passing over the road, this is unknown,” notes Michael Hanke, instructor at the Pegasus pilot school.

And although pilots of the same planes 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, Matthias Rust’s flight had virtually no impact on the development of small aviation in Europe. The terrorist attacks of September 11 had an impact. After them, a special device is installed on any aircraft, which transmits the individual identification number of the aircraft to ground services. That is, on the radar it is no longer just a dot, but a dot with its own unique number, that is, for example, this plane cannot be confused with any other in the air.

A Soviet court sentenced Matthias Rust to 4 years in prison. He served a little more than 14 months in a model colony. After his release, his fate was not easy. He returned to Germany, but even after that he broke the law. First, an attack on a woman with a knife. It's time again. Then stealing a sweater from a department store. He explains that he was barely making ends meet.

“Everything turned out this way because it had to happen. It’s just my destiny,” says Matthias Rust.

The plane in 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, his wings are still decorated with signs resembling a bomb. There are still too many questions in this story today. The case materials of the pilot Rust are still classified.

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Today is the 25th anniversary of the landing of a German “amateur” pilot under the walls of the Kremlin

Today is the 25th anniversary of the landing of the German pilot Matthias Rust in the very heart of Moscow, under the walls of the Kremlin. His defiantly insolent flight on May 28, 1987 from Finland to Moscow, which was never stopped by our air defense systems, became one of the milestones in the collapse of the great power - the Soviet Union. A small single-engine airplane, piloted by an “amateur”, managed to “overcome” a powerful air defense system that was perfect for those times.

How could this happen? Unfortunately, many of the circumstances of what happened a quarter of a century ago are still being carefully hidden by someone. Nevertheless, over the years it has been possible to find more and more evidence that that “breakthrough” of the Soviet air defense system, which supposedly testified to the collapse of the entire Soviet system, was in fact a carefully planned secret operation by someone, which was successfully implemented primarily with the help of traitors from the highest echelons of the Soviet leadership. And these traitors then used this incident to discredit the Soviet army and almost completely replace its command. Military journalist Evgeniy Kirichenko talks about this today on the pages of Free Press.

Rust: “I was waiting for the landing command. But it didn’t come.”

In fact, Rust’s plane, which did not respond to the request “Own - alien” was immediately detected by our radar equipment. The first to spot him was the radar operator, Private Dilmagombetov, who immediately reported this to the duty officer at the company control center, Captain Osipov. Then the mark from Rust’s Cessna was spotted by the operator of another station, Corporal Shargorodsky, and informed the operational duty officer that he was observing an unidentified target. However, at the higher checkpoint, the issuance of information “upward” was delayed for 15 minutes, taking a time out to figure out who was flying - state border violator or flight regime violator. The decision was made by Lieutenant Colonel Karpets and Major Chernykh, who were later made to blame for this whole story - demoted and sentenced by a military tribunal to five years.

But the information, albeit belatedly, was issued further on command. A fighter piloted by Senior Lieutenant Puchnin took off to intercept Rust. He circled the Cessna twice and reported to the ground that in front of him - "a light-engine sports aircraft with a blue stripe along the fuselage." If he had then received a command from the ground to destroy the border violator, he would have easily done it. According to Rust, recorded in the interrogation report, he only saw the Soviet interceptor once and even distinguished in the cockpit the orange overalls and oxygen masks of the Soviet pilots, who were sitting in one row.

- I was waiting for the landing command, - Rust asserted. - But it didn't come. So I maintained course 117, moving at 600 altitude.

Rust was lying. He was not going to land, because his task was to fly to Red Square at any cost. And the violator was circled more than once. To avoid further encounters with fighters, Rust will then go to low altitude. Such a decision could only be made by a pilot who was well aware of the methods of countering our air defense system.

Although Rust could have easily been shot down that day. This decision had already been made by General Kromin - Commander of the Leningrad Separate Air Defense Army. The instructions that came to light after the September events of 1983, when a South Korean Boeing was shot down in the Far East, as if by mistake, violating the Soviet border, were in the way. The instructions prohibited shooting down passenger and light-engine sports aircraft, and the general painfully searched for a solution, thereby saving the life of the German guy. Here is an excerpt from the transcript of his negotiations at the army command post:

- Well, are we going to shoot it down? The pilot reports: Yak-12 type (Soviet light-engine sports aircraft, similar to Cessna).

It was the similarity of Rust’s plane with the Yak-12 that misled our pilot, and after him - and everyone else. The general decided that he was dealing with a flight violator who had forgotten to turn on the identification mode on board or had taken off with faulty equipment. The target was handed over for escort to units of the Moscow District, which regularly “followed” it until the mark from the Cessna disappeared from the indicator screens.

Rust was landing to refuel near Novgorod, where he was “changed”?

As is known, the Cessna 172, piloted by Rust, took off from Helsinki at 13:15 Moscow time and landed on Red Square at 19:30. That is, she was in the air for 6 hours and 15 minutes, covering a distance of approximately 880 km. This means that the Cessna was traveling at an average speed of about 140 km/h, which is much lower than the cruising speed of this type of aircraft, which is 220 km/h.

In addition, over most of the territory where the violator of the Soviet border flew, the wind was favorable to him. That is, according to all calculations, Rust should have arrived in Moscow two hours earlier than the actual landing time. Consequently, the Cessna either deviated significantly from the route (it is unknown for what purpose) or made an intermediate landing somewhere.

It is not surprising that inquisitive people, including the correspondent of the West German magazine Bunde M. Timm, having made similar calculations, asked the questions: where did the “amateur” pilot “sit down” and who could change his clothes? “After all, from Helsinki, - the correspondent was perplexed, - Matthias Rust took off in jeans and a green tunic, and after landing in Moscow he got off the plane in a red jumpsuit.” In Helsinki, according to Timm, there was no image of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima on the Cessna's tail fin. Where did it come from on the plane after it landed on Red Square?

Rust’s version of an intermediate landing is also supported by the fact that soon after the Soviet interceptors flew over the intruder, air defense reconnaissance systems began to provide information to the higher command post about the target’s descent, then at about 15:32 they lost it. Apparently, the Cessna, having met with the fighters, decided not to tempt fate and, having chosen a suitable site, landed.

By the way, in the area of ​​Staraya Russa, where Rust could have made an alleged forced (or perhaps planned) landing, at that time there were up to fifty airfields and more than 60 sites belonging to various departments. None of these sites in that area had any connection with the authorities controlling the order and rules of use of airspace. In a word, even if they wanted, witnesses to the landing of an overseas guest would not be able to call where they should. Just an ideal place to “dive” from the all-seeing radars of the Soviet air defense. And if Rust accidentally chose such a landing site, then this accident is comparable to winning all the main prizes in one lottery.

But still - Could a German amateur pilot have needed an intermediate landing? Judging by how skillfully, with a sharp loss of altitude, he escaped from the Finnish air defense fighters, we can conclude that Rust was not afraid of interceptors. Having masterfully simulated a fall into the bay, he crossed our border, and the Finnish pilots, having discovered a rainbow spot on the waves from the air, returned reassured to their base.

Here, by the way, is another mystery: how could an oil stain appear on its own at the site of Rust’s “fall”? A technical examination carried out later showed that it was impossible to fake such a stain using a canister or barrel dropped into the bay from an airplane. Only a submarine or boat could provide such camouflage support to a German pilot.

Another mystery. Why did not only our fighters sent to intercept Rust, but also the locators of several radio engineering units at once lose the air intruder? This happened somewhere in the middle of the route.

- More likely, - as Lieutenant Colonel V. Petrenko, senior navigator of the aviation department of the Moscow Air Defense District, explained to the author of the publication in SP, - being an experienced pilot, of which there is no doubt, Rust had a good idea of ​​what could be expected from a meeting with fighters. It was enough for the interceptor to pass over the Cessna in afterburner, and it would have been blown to pieces. Therefore, it is quite possible that Rust dived sharply, going to a low altitude, where he was not exactly a fighter - not a single locator will catch. Or maybe he just took it and landed...

Former deputy head of the combat training department of the radio technical troops of the Moscow Air Defense District, Lieutenant Colonel E. Sukhoverov, believes that the German pilot deliberately made an intermediate landing in order to confuse our radar operators. That is, from a border violator, as he was identified in the Gulf of Finland region, to simply a violator of flight regulations, at whom no one will shoot.

Those who prepared his adventure with landing in Moscow, the author of the publication summarizes, could not help but know how the duty forces of the Soviet air defense in September 1983 in the Far East shot down a South Korean Boeing, which allegedly flew into Soviet territory by mistake and did not responded to requests from the ground. This sad experience helped Rust to deceive the Soviet rocket scientists, because when the Cessna was detected again, the locator specialists displayed it on their screens not as an “air enemy”, but as an “aircraft without an identification signal,” that is, a violator of the flight regime. On the air defense side, this implied other, more loyal actions. However, as you know, our troops could not accurately identify Rust from the very beginning...

If events developed this way, the author continues, then calling the flight of the “dove of peace” that landed on Red Square simply a prank somehow defies the tongue. It seems that Rust and those who prepared him understood too well the system for collecting and processing radar information of the Soviet air defense system.

Again, only a strange coincidence of circumstances can explain the fact that the route of the state border violator ran through the area where the MiG-25 fighter and Tu-22m bomber crashed the day before. In the area where the planes were supposed to crash, active search and rescue operations were underway, and several “turntables” were spinning in the air. Naturally, in such a mix it was possible to miss the “air enemy,” who, I emphasize, was already identified at that time as a “flight violation.” Moreover, Rust flew his airplane at the same altitude and at the same speed as the search and rescue helicopters that were spinning along his route.

No less strange is the appearance of six unidentified targets in the area of ​​Ostashkov, Kuvshinovo and Selishcha. The duty shift of the radio engineering battalion, observing these marks on the screens of their radars, began to issue coordinates of targets at 16:39. Their escort lasted about half an hour. Then, having made sure that the targets were moving with a course and speed commensurate with the direction and speed of the wind, they stopped paying attention to them, deciding that they were seeing cloud marks on their indicators.

However, the then head of the radio engineering troops, Colonel A. Rudak, who after these events was removed from his post by the new Minister of Defense of the USSR Dmitry Yazov (although on that ill-fated day of May 28, 1987, Rudak was on vacation), still believes that the radar operators did not observe meteorological formation, and the so-called. MRS (small-sized balls). They were launched by someone in the area of ​​Lake Seliger. According to the officer, the configuration of the marks on the radar indicators most closely matched the configuration of the MRS. And their “clustered” arrangement on the locator screen speaks for itself: it means they were launched in one place.

Moreover, the balls appeared in the area of ​​​​responsibility of the radio engineering battalion just at the time when the Cessna was flying through it. The radar operator could easily lose the mark of the air intruder among the marks of the MRS, moving in the same direction-course of a tailwind blowing, as luck would have it, towards the Mother See. It later turned out that a group of West German tourists was in the area of ​​Lake Seliger on May 28. And launching such a ball, as knowledgeable people explained, is as easy as shelling pears. A gas lighter or an aerosol can is enough.

Experts do not rule out that at the time of Rust’s flight, the balloons were launched to overload air defense information channels: this tactic has been practiced more than once in the northern and northwestern directions by our Scandinavian neighbors. However, for some reason, experts from the authorities did not check this version.

By the way, it was precisely at a time when the radar operators were trying to make sense of the tinsel of all kinds of marks that littered the indicator screens that the operational duty officer of the command post of the Moscow Air Defense District, Major General V. Reznichenko, gave the command to turn off the automated control system to carry out unscheduled routine maintenance. This general’s decision during a complex search and rescue operation, when several important air objects were in the air at once, looked rather strange.

- I think there is no military secret in this if I say that during combat duty the ACS equipment is never turned off, - Vladimir Borisovich later recalled. - Even if the electricity suddenly goes out, the automated control system will be switched to backup power. Therefore, when unknown persons in civilian clothes approached me and asked me to turn off the automated control system, I was even taken aback. In the air - several unidentified targets, and among them - either an “air enemy” or a “flight violation”, and I’ll take it and turn off the equipment?! In addition, the troops had a group of inspectors from the General Staff who could “launch” a control target at any moment. I asked them directly: “Who are you?” And then they said that they were techies, that is, representatives of industry. I flatly refused to turn off the ACS...

The “industrialists” began to insist, and Major General Reznichenko demanded from them an official document signed by at least the Commander-in-Chief of the Air Defense Forces. The operational duty officer was sure that such a document was unlikely to be shown to him. And I was very surprised when “representatives of the plant” literally in a matter of minutes brought a paper signed by the commander in chief...

- After all, I had no intention of turning off the ACS, - Vladimir Borisovich was worried about the flood of memories, - but they began to threaten me: they say, we’ll call where we need to, and you won’t end up in trouble. Oh, if only I knew what it would lead to later...

Vladimir Borisovich admitted that from the very beginning he was alarmed by the ridiculous request of the “plant representatives” who started preventive work at an inopportune hour. Previously, in such cases, the opinion of the operational duty officer was always taken into account. Why was he neglected this time?

“The West managed to attract people from Gorbachev’s inner circle to implement the project”

Soviet newspapers of that time, Kirichenko writes, as if by agreement, dubbed Rust’s unprecedented flight a boyish prank, a hooligan prank, for which it seemed impossible to punish. At the same time, Rust’s “air hooliganism” led to the resignation of senior army officials and gave Mikhail Gorbachev a reason to begin a radical reduction of the armed forces. This was followed by the destruction of the Warsaw Pact, the fall of communist regimes in Eastern Europe and the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan, which was so prevented by the then USSR Minister of Defense Marshal Sokolov.

When you think about it, the trick of the German amateur pilot seems far from harmless. This whole story is very similar to a performance played out according to a carefully thought-out scenario, in which Western intelligence services and numerous agents of influence embedded in our echelons of power were probably involved.

The author of the publication cites in confirmation the words of American national security specialist William E. Odom, who believes that after the flight of Rust, radical changes were carried out in the Soviet army, comparable to the purge of the armed forces organized by Stalin in 1937.

“Since Gorbachev came to power, - writes Odom, - Only the Deputy Minister of Defense for Armaments retained his position. The replaced officials included the Minister of Defense, all his other deputies, the Chief of the General Staff and his two first deputies. Commander-in-Chief of the Allied Forces of the Warsaw Pact and Chief of Staff of the Allied Forces, all four “supreme commanders”, all commanders of groups of forces (in Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary), all fleet commanders, all commanders of military districts. In some cases (especially the command of military districts) commanders were replaced three times... It is difficult to say how far down the official ladder the wave of purges swept, but it probably reached at least the level of division commands, and perhaps went further lower"...

Given such devastating consequences, it can be assumed that the flight of the West German amateur pilot was not a boyish prank at all, but a skillfully disguised espionage mission to study missile-hazardous areas and the duty schedule of Soviet air defense radar systems.

- There is no doubt that Rust's flight was a carefully planned provocation by Western intelligence services, - The author quotes the words of Army General Pyotr Deinekin, Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Air Force in 1991-1997. - And, most importantly, this special operation was carried out with the consent and knowledge of individuals from the then leadership of the Soviet Union. This sad thought about internal betrayal is suggested by the fact that immediately after Rust’s landing on Red Square, an unprecedented purge of the top and middle generals began. It was as if they were specially waiting for the right occasion.

- At that time I was the commander of the anti-aircraft missile forces of the USSR Air Defense and found myself, as they say, at the forefront of events, - recalls another direct participant in those events - Colonel General Rasim Akchurin, brother of the famous cardiologist Renat Akchurin. - At that very fateful moment, I was checking the Leningrad Air Defense Army in the Baltics. If Rust had been shot down, I assure you, even his fragments would not have been collected. But we had no right to fire at him; we could only force him to land. However, it was not possible to land it, because the fighters and Rust’s airplane had too different speeds. But Rust was escorted, and our cars flew over him.

- I believe that this was a brilliant operation, developed by Western intelligence agencies, - says Igor Morozov, a former KGB colonel and participant in the war in Afghanistan. - After 25 years, it becomes obvious that the West (and this is no longer a secret to anyone) managed to attract people from Gorbachev’s inner circle to implement the grandiose project, and they calculated the reaction of the General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee with 100% accuracy. But there was only one goal - decapitate the Armed Forces of the USSR.

These are the sad facts cited by military journalist Evgeniy Kirichenko in his publication.