The Hindu : Lebed killed in air crash

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Apr 29, 2002

International

International

Lebed killed in air crash

By Vladimir Radyuhin

MOSCOW: Former General Alexander Lebed, one of the most charismatic political figures in post-Soviet Russia, died in a helicopter crash on Sunday. A MI-8 helicopter carrying Gen. Lebed (in the picture) hit a power line in poor visibility and crashed in the mountains in the Krasnoarsk region, eastern Siberia, where he served as Governor for the past four years. Out of 19 persons who were on board seven were killed and the others were badly wounded. Gen. Lebed (52), played a crucial role in modern Russian history. As the Russian forces commander in the former Soviet republic of Moldova, he helped end civil strife in the region in 1992 and negotiated peace in the two-year bloody war in Chechnya in 1996. On two critical occasions he rescued the political career of the first non-Communist Russian President, Boris Yeltsin. In the 1991 hard-line Communist coup attempt he refused to obey the putschists' orders and prevented the storming of Mr. Yeltsin's headquarters in Moscow. In 1996, he came third in the Presidential election and decided the outcome of the close runoff by asking his supporters to back Mr. Yeltsin against the Communist leader, Gennady Zyuganov. In 1998, Gen. Lebed won election as Governor of the huge Krasnoyarsk region, a region two thirds the size of India. He is survived by his wife Inna, three children and five grandchildren.

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