Soviet Air Force colonel turned ROA Air Force commander, builder of the Vlasov movement's air arm
In November 1941, wearing his Red Air Force colonel's uniform, he appeared at the German command post in occupied Yalta and declared his desire to fight the Bolsheviks.
A Soviet Air Force colonel who defected to the German side in Yalta in November 1941 and became a leading figure in the collaborationist movement. As commander of the KONR Air Force under General Andrei Vlasov, he built and led an aviation force of some 5,000 men and 40–45 aircraft, though it saw no combat before the war ended. His 1938 arrest by the NKVD, torture, and eventual release without confession proved a decisive turning point; he later published Conveyor of the GPU, an account of his imprisonment widely used in German propaganda. Handed over to the Soviet authorities by the Americans after the war, he was convicted of treason and hanged in 1946.
Career Timeline
- 1918Red Army volunteer; graduated Yegoryevsk flight school (1919)
- 1925–1927Chief, Central Aerodrome near Moscow
- 1927–1931Assistant chief, then chief, Siberian Military District Air Force
- 1936Promoted to colonel
- 1937Chief, Turkmenistan Civil Air Fleet Directorate
- 1938–1939Arrested by NKVD, tortured; released without conviction
- 1939–1941Chief, Aeroflot sanatorium, Yalta
- 1941Defected to Germans in Yalta; burgomaster of Yalta (1942)
- 1943–1944Recruited Soviet POW pilots for Eastern aviation groups
- 1945.2Major general & commander, KONR Air Force (~5,000 men, 40–45 aircraft)
- 1945.4–8Surrendered to US forces; handed over to USSR
- 1946.8.1Convicted of treason, hanged at Butyrka Prison