The 40th Army commander who halved Afghan losses, then Russia's first Chief of General Staff
Defence Minister Pavel Grachev came to his hospital ward in person to pin the General of the Army shoulder boards on him. Dubynin, already terminal with cancer, could not rise from the bed.
Soviet and Russian military commander. As commander of the 40th Army in Afghanistan (1986–87), he introduced large-scale helicopter assaults and computer-aided command, halving irrecoverable losses and becoming the first commander to challenge the concealment of casualty figures. As Northern Group of Forces commander (1989–92), he executed the orderly withdrawal of Soviet troops from Poland. Appointed first Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces in June 1992, he restrained President Yeltsin's ill-considered nuclear-force reforms and secured approval for the Topol-M, Borei-submarine, and Iskander programs that became the technical foundation of post-Soviet Russian defence. He received his General of the Army shoulder boards on his hospital deathbed and was posthumously named Hero of the Russian Federation.
Activities and affiliations
- 1961–1964 Military command · Soviet Union · Military and defence
Career Timeline
- 1961–1964Graduates Far Eastern Tank School (Blagoveshchensk); enters Soviet Army
- 1964–1978Tank platoon, company, battalion commander; regimental chief of staff/deputy commander; regiment commander. Vystrel course (1973), Armoured Academy (1978)
- 1979–1984Commander 8th Guards Tank Division (Belorussia). General Staff Academy (1984); First Deputy Commander 32nd Army (Central Asia)
- 1984–1986First Deputy Commander, 40th Army (Afghanistan)
- 1986–1987Commander 40th Army. Tactical reforms halve irrecoverable losses. Soviet partial withdrawal begins
- 1987–1989Commander 7th Tank Army (Belorussia); Chief of Staff/First Deputy Commander, Kiev Military District
- 1989–1992Commander Northern Group of Forces (Poland). Completes organized withdrawal of Soviet forces
- 1992First Chief of General Staff of Russian Armed Forces, First Deputy Defence Minister. Promoted General of the Army (5 Oct). Dies of cancer (22 Nov)
Related historical events
Command of the 40th Army in Afghanistan
Dubynin became deputy commander of the 40th Army in September 1984 and commanded it from April 1986 to June 1987. The army formed the main body of the Soviet troop contingent in Afghanistan. He shifted away from continuous operations across the country toward a sequence of carefully prepared campaigns against key mujahideen strongholds. These operations halted or substantially weakened guerrilla activity in affected regions for months, while remaining Soviet military operations that inflicted harm. The account records that the army's irrecoverable losses during his year in command fell by half compared with 1984–85. It also describes him as the first of the army's commanders to oppose concealment of actual casualty figures, and credits him with early, wide use of large helicopter assaults and the introduction of computers into troop command.