Alexander Lebed Quotes

Russian general (1950-2002)

Alexander Ivanovich Lebed (Russian: Алекса́ндр Ива́нович Ле́бедь; 20 April 1950 – 28 April 2002) was a Soviet and Russian military officer and politician who held senior positions in the Russian Airborne Troops before running for president in the 1996 Russian presidential election. He did not win, but placed third behind incumbent Boris Yeltsin and the Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov, with roughly 14% of the vote nation-wide. Lebed later served as the Secretary of the Security Council in the Yeltsin administration, and eventually became the governor of Krasnoyarsk Krai, the second largest Russian region. He served four years in the latter position, until his death in a helicopter crash in 2002.

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Alternative Names: Aleksandr Ivanovich Lebed

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They charged like a bull at the Chechen fence and got their horns stuck. Now they are going crazy out of their own incompetence.

Let us have troops that would scare any aggressor off. These troops should be backed by the nuclear shield.

Russia must be loved, not because you want to. Russia is like gangrene on the leg. If you don't take measures against it, it will infect the whole leg.

We have received reliable information from the ground in Chechnya that people there are planning the physical annihilation of Gen. Aleksandr Lebed. These are people who do not want the negotiating process in Chechnya to proceed. We do not believe that it is necessarily the Chechens who plan this action. It is not the first time there have been threats like this. It will have no effect on the work before us.

"We are still a great power. We have rockets. They are rusty, but we still have them. It won't make anyone's life easier if a missile is launched, even if it's a rusty one.