Topic: Aleksandr Rutskoi

Photo by Mikhail Evstafiev.

Alexander Vladimirovich Rutskoy (Russian: Александр Владимирович Руцкой) (born September 16, 1947) is a Russian politician and a former Soviet military officer. Rutskoy served as the only Vice President of Russia from July 10, 1991 to October 4, 1993, and as the governor of Kursk Oblast from 1996 to 2000. In the course of the Russian constitutional crisis of 1993, he was proclaimed acting president of Russia, in opposition to Boris Yeltsin.

Alexander Rutskoy was born in Proskuriv, Ukraine. Rutskoy graduated from High Air Force School in Barnaul (1971) and Gagarin Air Force Academy in Moscow (1980). He had reached rank of Colonel when he was sent to the Soviet war in Afghanistan. He was in command of an air assault regiment and was shot down twice, in 1986 and the second time in 1988 by an F-16 flown by Sqn. Ldr. Athar Bukhari of the Pakistan Air Force. Rutskoy was then flying a Su-25 aircraft and strayed into Pakistani airspace by mistake. He managed to eject but was captured by mujahideen, interrogated by the Inter-Services Intelligence, given an offer to defect by the Central Intelligence Agency, and subsequently released. For his bravery in 1988 he was awarded Hero of the Soviet Union. As a soldier and a populist, he was chosen by Boris Yeltsin to be his vice presidential running mate in the 1991 Russian presidential election.