Pavel Grachev

Infobox Military Person
name= Pavel Sergeyevich Grachev
lived= birth date and age|1948|1|1
placeofbirth= Rvy, Tula Oblast, RSFSR, Soviet Union
placeofdeath=


caption= Russian Defence Minister Pavel Grachev speaking in the State Duma in 1994. Photo by Mikhail Evstafiev.
nickname=
allegiance= USSR Russia
serviceyears= 1965 — 2007
rank= General
commands= Russian Ministry of Defence
unit=
battles= Afghan War, First Chechen War
awards= Hero of the Soviet Union Order of Lenin (2) Order of the Red Banner Order of the Red Star Order for Personal Courage Order of the Badge of Honor Order for Service to the Homeland in the Armed Forces
laterwork=

Pavel Sergeyevich Grachev ( _ru. Па́вел Серге́евич Грачё́в) is a Russian Army General and the former Defence Minister of the Russian Federation. In 1988 he was declared the Hero of the Soviet Union.

Life and career

oviet Union

Pavel Grachev, born in 1948 in the Tula Oblast region of RSFSR, graduated from the Ryazan Airborne Military Command School, the Frunze Military Academy and the General Staff Academy. He then joined the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and became a battalion commander in Lithuania from 1968 to 1981.

During the Afghan War, Grachev commanded a parachute-landing regiment in 1981-1983, and was in command of the Soviet Army's 103rd Guards Airborne Division in Afghanistan in the last years of the Afghan War.

In December 1990, he was appointed commander of the Soviet airborne troops (VDV). In August-December 1991, Grachev became the First Deputy Minister of Defence of the Soviet Union during the fall of the USSR.

Russia

For a period of time, in the early-to-mid-1990s, Grachev was a close friend of President of Russia Boris Yeltsin, ["War Scare: Russia and America on the Nuclear Brink" by Peter Vincent Pry] and held the post of the Minister of Defence of the Russian Federation from May 1992 to June 1996. Grachev took part in the Soviet coup attempt of 1991 and the events of the Russian constitutional crisis of 1993, during which he supported Yeltsin. In November 1994 Yeltsin said that Grachev is the best defense minister of the decade.

In 1994 to 1996, Grachev played a key role in initiating and leading the First Chechen War in the breakaway Republic of Chechnya. He promised to swiftly crush the Chechen armed drive for independence in a couple of hours [ [http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb1367/is_199501/ai_n6388504 Botched operation. (Russian troops in Chechnya) (Editorial)] ] by with a single airborne regiment, [ [http://www.amina.com/article/whyrus_failed.html Why the Russian Military Failed in Chechnya] ] and was rumoured to launch the disastrous storming of Grozny during celebrations his birthday. As the "TIME" magazine commented in 1995:

"Grachev had remarked recently that only an 'incompetent commander' would order tanks into the streets of central Grozny, where they would be vulnerable to rocket launchers, grenades, even Molotov cocktails. Yet at the end of December he did it." [ [http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,982351,00.html Why It All Went So Very Wrong] ]

In July 1996, Yeltsin sacked Grachev from his ministerial post after his 1996 re-election.

In December 1997, Grachev was appointed a senior military adviser to Rosvooruzhenie State Corporation (later renamed Rosoboronexport), the Russian arms export monopoly. On April 25, 2007, Grachev was fired from this position. [ [http://www.echo.msk.ru/news/371589.phtml Экс-министр обороны Павел Грачев, уволен сегодня с должности советника гендиректора «Рособоронэкспорта», которую он занимал на протяжении последних 10-ти лет. — "Эхо Москвы"] ]

Corruption accusations

Grachev was accused of being personally involved in major military corruption scandals, which was not proven in court, that occurred during the withdrawal of the Soviet troops from East Germany. The alleged corruption, which gained Grachev the nickname of "Pashka Mercedes", was the focus of a series of articles published by the investigative journalist Dmitry Kholodov, who was killed by a booby-trapped suitcase in 1994.

Quotes

*"We shall respond to every Chechen shot with thousands of our own." [ [http://books.google.com/books?id=inc4KfEHymYC&printsec=frontcover#PPA146,M1 "The Chechen Wars: Will Russia Go the Way of the Soviet Union?" Author: Matthew Evangelista] ]
*"These 18-year-old youths [Russian conscripts in Grozny] died for Russia, and they died with a smile." [http://www.ciaonet.org/conf/jfk04/jfk04ac.html]
*"Everybody keeps saying - reform, reform. The T-72 has proved itself wonderfully in Chechnya. So we will be making reform on the basis of T-72." [http://www.amina.com/article/chapter4.html The War in Chechnya: Implications for Military Reform and Creation of Mobile Forces] ]

References

External links

* [http://www.moscowtimes.ru/stories/1995/07/13/034.html Grachev: Here for a While] "The Moscow Times" on July 13, 1995
* [http://www.jamestown.org/publications_details.php?volume_id=3&issue_id=140&article_id=1670 Pavel Grachev: Disgraced but Indispensable] The Jamestown Foundation on May 3, 1996
* [http://www.rusnet.nl/encyclo/g/grachev.shtml Pavel Grachev] RusNet on 03.12.2003