Mikhail Soldatov

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Soldatov (right) guarding Saddam Hussein in Saint Petersburg in 1973 Hussein and Soldatov 1973.jpg
Soldatov (right) guarding Saddam Hussein in Saint Petersburg in 1973

Mikhail Petrovich Soldatov (Russian : Михаил Петрович Солдатов, 16 October 1926 – 20 October 1997) [1] was a Soviet KGB officer who served as a bodyguard of Soviet and foreign leaders including Nikita Khrushchev and Leonid Brezhnev.

Russian language East Slavic language

Russian is an East Slavic language, which is official in the Russian Federation, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, as well as being widely used throughout Eastern Europe, the Baltic states, the Caucasus and Central Asia. It was the de facto language of the Soviet Union until its dissolution on 25 December 1991. Although nearly three decades have passed since the breakup of the Soviet Union, Russian is used in official capacity or in public life in all the post-Soviet nation-states, as well as in Israel and Mongolia.

KGB Main security agency for the Soviet Union

The KGB, translated in English as Committee for State Security, was the main security agency for the Soviet Union from 1954 until its break-up in 1991. As a direct successor of preceding agencies such as Cheka, NKGB, NKVD and MGB, the committee was attached to the Council of Ministers. It was the chief government agency of "union-republican jurisdiction", acting as internal security, intelligence and secret police. Similar agencies were constituted in each of the republics of the Soviet Union aside from Russia, and consisted of many ministries, state committees and state commissions.

Nikita Khrushchev First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev was a Soviet statesman who led the Soviet Union during part of the Cold War as the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964, and as Chairman of the Council of Ministers, or Premier, from 1958 to 1964. Khrushchev was responsible for the de-Stalinization of the Soviet Union, for backing the progress of the early Soviet space program, and for several relatively liberal reforms in areas of domestic policy. Khrushchev's party colleagues removed him from power in 1964, replacing him with Leonid Brezhnev as First Secretary and Alexei Kosygin as Premier.

Biography

During World War II Soldatov worked at the Moscow vacuum tube factory and after that enlisted to the KGB. He was assigned to the personal guard of Semyon Budyonny and soon married his secretary, Lida; they had a daughter Lena (born 1959) and son Aleksandr, who also became a high-profile bodyguard. [2]

Semyon Budyonny Soviet military commander

Semyon Mikhailovich Budyonny was a Russian cavalryman, a military commander during the Russian Civil War and World War II, and a close political ally of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin.

In 1956 Soldatov became a personal bodyguard of Nikita Khrushchev. In 1961, when Khrushchev arrived at the Vienna train station, someone threw a metallic cylinder resembling a grenade at Khrushchev's feet. Soldatov jumped and covered the object with his body, ready for explosion, but it was just a capsule with a personal letter to Khrushchev. [2]

Wien Westbahnhof railway station

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After Khrushchev was removed from power in 1964, Soldatov was assigned to guard Leonid Brezhnev, as well as other Soviet and foreign leaders, including Erich Honecker, Dmitry Polyansky, Saddam Hussein [3] and one of the princes of Laos. He retired in 1980, aged 54. [2]

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Dmitry Polyansky Russian politician

Dmitry Stepanovich Polyansky was a Soviet-Russian statesman who was First Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union from 1965 to 1973. From 1958 to 1962 he was Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Russian SFSR, equivalent to a Governor or Premier of one of the 15 soviet socialist republics that comprised the Soviet Union.

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References

  1. ↑ Телохранители, личная охрана. Страница Памяти. nastrussia.ru
  2. 1 2 3 Vladimir Pozharskii and Dmitri Lifantsev (1 July 2005) Как Солдатов вождей охранял. Express Gazeta
  3. ↑ Телохранители в США и СССР. bezpekavip.com
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