The highest-ranking general who sided with Yeltsin during the August coup, commanding the White House defense
"The army will not go against the people" (at a press conference during the August 1991 coup)
As chief of the Soviet Signal Troops and Deputy Chief of the General Staff, he also took part in the Chernobyl disaster response. During the August 1991 coup, he was the highest-ranking active-duty general to break with the State Committee for the State of Emergency (GKChP) and side with Boris Yeltsin, organizing the White House defense headquarters in Moscow; he was appointed RSFSR Defence Minister on 20 August and promoted to Army General on 24 August. In an ironic turn, he helped storm the same White House he had defended during the October 1993 constitutional crisis, and in 1997 was arrested and convicted on corruption charges.
Activities and affiliations
- 1987–1991 Military command · Soviet Union · Military and defence
Career Timeline
- 1986Participates in Chernobyl disaster response
- 1987–1991Chief of Signal Troops, USSR Ministry of Defence / Deputy Chief of General Staff
- 1990Elected RSFSR People's Deputy
- 1991.01Chairman, RSFSR State Committee for Defense and Security
- 1991.08.20Appointed RSFSR Defence Minister; promoted to Army General on 24 August
- 1993–1997Deputy Minister of Defence, Russian Federation
- 1997Arrested and convicted on corruption charges
Related historical events
- 1986The Chernobyl DisasterChernobyl response participantHe took part in the response to the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.
- 1991The August Coup and the Collapse of the USSRWhite House defense commanderHe headed the White House defense headquarters during the coup, organizing unarmed volunteer units and coordinating with defecting military personnel.
The 1997–2000 corruption case and amnesty
On 18 May 1997 Kobets was removed from his post as Deputy Defence Minister and State Secretary of the Defence Ministry, dismissed from the Armed Forces and arrested on charges of accepting a bribe and illegal possession of weapons. Until shortly before his arrest he had often been named as one of the most likely candidates for Russian Minister of Defence; at the same time his name was constantly at the centre of various corruption scandals. The Communist Party of the Russian Federation and ultra-nationalist forces strongly opposed him for his adherence to Yeltsin's course: he had commanded the defence of the White House in August 1991 and then gathered tank crews to storm that same building in October 1993.
In 1998 he admitted his guilt and was released from custody on his own recognizance, and in 2000 the case was closed by amnesty, after which he declared that his earlier admission of guilt was invalid. The affair marked the end of the political decline that followed his interventions as a military strongman in the two Moscow political crises of 1991 and 1993.