50 years ago, on January 22, 1969, there was an attempt on the life of Leonid Brezhnev, General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee. On this day in Moscow, preparations were made for a solemn meeting of the crews of the Soyuz-4 and Soyuz-5 spacecraft. When the cars entered the Kremlin, they were fired upon by the junior lieutenant of the Soviet army Viktor Ilyin. This was the most famous attempt on the life of USSR Secretary General Brezhnev.
On the night of January 21, 1969, an officer who served in the 61st geodetic detachment in the city of Lomonosov took over duty as an assistant on duty. In the morning, when his boss left for breakfast, he stole two 9-mm Makarov pistols and four magazines for them and left the unit without permission. On a pre-purchased ticket from Leningrad, Ilyin flew to Moscow. He successfully carried the weapon with him. In the capital, he stopped at his uncle, a former policeman, saying that he had come to look at the cosmonauts and crew members of the Soyuz-4 and Soyuz-5 spacecraft. On January 16, 1969, Soyuz were the first in the world to dock two manned spacecraft. For the first time, an experimental space station with four cosmonauts on board (V. Shatalov, B. Volynov, A. Eliseev, E. Khrunov) was created in orbit. Thousands of people took to the streets of Moscow to meet the heroes-cosmonauts.
On the morning of January 22, Ilyin left his uncle's apartment, taking his police uniform. He calmly stood in a police cordon at the Borovitsky Gate and found himself at the junction of two platoons, so the presence of an unfamiliar "policeman" did not arouse suspicions among the guards. He hid the pistols in the sleeves of his greatcoat. At about 2:15 pm, a government motorcade entered the gate. This passage was broadcast live. The show was suddenly interrupted. People heard shots.
The heroes-cosmonauts rode in the first open-top car and greeted the assembled people. Ilyin was not interested in them, he was waiting for the second car, in which, as he believed, Brezhnev was traveling (usually the car of the general secretary was second). This time, according to various sources, Brezhnev's car was in the cortege at the end, or it was not there at all - the car left the escort at the entrance to the Kremlin and entered not through Borovitsky, but through the Spassky Gate.
Ilyin shot the second car 11 times: he shot with two hands. The fire was on the windshield. However, in the ZIL-111G car was not the head of the USSR, but the cosmonauts, participants in the solemn meeting: A. Leonov, A. Nikolaev, V. Tereshkova and G. Beregovoy. At the same time, the latter, he was sitting in front, next to the driver, outwardly resembled Brezhnev, which assured Ilyin that he had chosen the right target. The driver Ilya Zharkov was fatally wounded. The astronauts survived. Beregovoy was injured by glass fragments, Nikolaev was slightly touched by a bullet. At the same time, Beregovoy managed to take control of the car and stopped it. The motorcyclist of security V. Zatsepilov was also wounded. He directed the motorcycle at the killer, blocking his firing sector (according to other sources, he shot down Ilyin). After that, the junior lieutenant was detained.
A day later, Izvestia and Pravda published a short TASS report that during the solemn meeting of the cosmonauts, shots were fired at the car where Leonov, Nikolaev, Tereshkova and Beregovoy were. The driver of the car and the accompanying motorcyclist were injured. None of the space explorers were hurt. The shooter was detained, an investigation is underway. In the West, they immediately announced that it was an attempt on the life of Secretary General Brezhnev.
Ilyin was charged under five articles of the Criminal Code and officially announced that the young man had attempted the life of the cosmonaut pilots. Among the motives for the crime, the investigation revealed a mixture of personal and political prerequisites: from life's troubles to the desire for democratic changes, in particular, the reform of the Constitution (with the right of personal terror in case of violation by the party and governments of the foundations of the Constitution) and a change in the political system. He was found insane and placed in a specialized psychiatric hospital. Ilyin was released in 1990.
There is a version that the intelligence services conducted Ilyin, either in order to distinguish themselves before the authorities, or it was connected with the struggle within the KGB (between the chairman of the Committee Yu. Andropov and his first deputy S. Tsvigun). On January 21, the command of the unit reported the disappearance of an officer with a weapon; it was known that he was flying to Moscow; the next day, Ilyin's uncle reported that his nephew had stolen the uniform and was going to infiltrate the Kremlin. However, despite these data, as well as other factors that facilitated the detention, Ilyin was not stopped. At the same time, Brezhnev was out of danger, he was transplanted into another car, and a car with astronauts took his place.
In addition to Ilyin, in the Soviet Union, Brezhnev was no longer attempted. But there were attempts to eliminate him abroad. Even before he headed the USSR, Leonid Ilyich survived a dangerous incident in the air. In February 1961, Brezhnev went to the Republic of Guinea on an official visit. On the way north of Algeria, military aircraft (possibly French) appeared in the sky, they began to maneuver dangerously and opened fire twice on the Soviet aircraft. France was an old colonial power and was jealous of the activities of the USSR in its former colonies.
In the summer of 1977, Leonid Ilyich was supposed to visit Paris and hold talks with French President Valerie Giscard d'Estaing. The state security authorities of the USSR received information about the impending assassination attempt - the sniper was supposed to kill Brezhnev during the wreath-laying ceremony at the Eternal Flame next to the Arc de Triomphe. The situation was dangerous: by this time, extremists in France had made several attempts on the life of President de Gaulle. The Soviet and French special services took heightened precautions. Only on the streets leading to the Arc de Triomphe, 12 thousand policemen and 6 thousand firefighters were concentrated. As a result, the attempt was averted. Brezhnev calmly laid flowers at the Eternal Flame on June 21, 1977 and, after negotiations, returned to his homeland.
In May 1978, Brezhnev visited the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG). The State Security Committee became aware of the impending assassination attempt, which was supposed to occur after a meeting with Chancellor Helmut Schmidt at the Augsburg castle. The USSR leader was taken out through an emergency entrance, possibly preventing an assassination attempt.
