Dmitry Yazov

He was born in the village of Yazovo, Krestinsky volost, Kalachinsky district, Omsk province. He was the son of Timofey Yakovlevich Yazov (died in 1933) and Maria Fedoseevna Yazova, who were both peasants. The family had four children.[2]

Yazov in 1941.

Yazov joined the Red Army voluntarily in November 1941, a seventeen-year-old young man, not having time to finish high school. When he joined the army, he said he was a year older than he was, saying that he was born in 1923.[3] He was enrolled in training at the Moscow Higher Military Command School (Evacuated due to the Battle of Moscow to Novosibirsk from November 2, 1941 to January 28, 1942) and graduated from it in June 1942.[4][5] He received a school graduation certificate only in 1953, already being a major.[2]

Minister of Defense Dmitry Yazov during a visit to the United States in 1989

From August 1942 he fought on the Volkhov and Leningrad fronts as commander of a rifle platoon and commander of a rifle company, platoon commander of front-line courses of junior lieutenants of the 483rd Rifle Regiment of the 177th Rifle Division of the Leningrad Front. He participated in the battles of the Siege of Leningrad, in the offensive operations of Soviet troops in the Baltic states, in the blockade of the Courland Pocket. In 1944 he joined the CPSU.[2]

In 1971–1973, he commanded the 32nd Army Corps in the Crimean region of the Odessa Military District. In 1979–1980, Yazov was commander of the Central Group of Forces in Czechoslovakia. He was commanding the Far East Military District in the northern summer of 1986, when, according to Time magazine, he made a favourable impression on General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev, which led to later promotions. He was appointed Soviet Defence Minister on 30 May 1987, after Marshal Sergei Sokolov was sacked as a result of the Mathias Rust incident two days earlier. From June 1987 to July 1990, Yazov was a candidate member of the Politburo.[6] He was a key part of Black January. Yazov was responsible for deployment of Russian OMON commando units to Latvia and Lithuania in early 1991. During the August Coup of 1991, Yazov was a member of the State Emergency Committee, for which he was removed from his post by Gorbachev. During the Yeltsin period, Yazov was prosecuted and acquitted in 1994.

Yazov spent 18 months in Matrosskaya Tishina. According to the magazine Vlast' No. 41(85) of 14 October 1991 "...from the prison contacted the President with a recorded video message, where repented and called himself "an old fool"". Yazov denied ever doing so. He did accept the amnesty offered by Yeltsin, stating that he was not guilty. He was dismissed from the military service by Presidential Order and awarded a ceremonial weapon. He was awarded an order of Honor by the President of Russian Federation. Yazov later worked as a military adviser at the General Staff Academy.[7]

Despite his selection by Gorbachev for the Defence Minister's position, William Odom, in his book The Collapse of the Soviet Military, repeats Alexander Yakovlev's description of Yazov as a "mediocre officer", "fit to command a division but nothing higher".[8] Odom suggests Gorbachev was only looking for "careerists who would follow orders, any orders".

In March 2019, Yazov was tried in absentia and convicted of war crimes by a Lithuanian court for his role in the military crackdown in Lithuania in January 1991, and sentenced to 10 years in prison. Russia denounced the trial as politically motivated and refused to extradite Yazov.[9]

Yazov died in Moscow on 25 February 2020 following what the Defence Ministry of Russia called "a serious and prolonged illness".[10] He is buried at the Federal Military Memorial Cemetery outside Moscow.

• Order of Lenin, twice[2]
• Order of the October Revolution
• Order of the Red Banner
• Order of the Patriotic War, 1st class
• Order of the Red Star
• Order for Service to the Homeland in the Armed Forces of the USSR, 3rd class
• Medal "For Military Merit"
• Medal "For Impeccable Service", 1st and 2nd classes
• Medal "For Distinction in Guarding the State Border of the USSR"
• Medal "Veteran of the Armed Forces of the USSR"
• Medal "For Strengthening Military Cooperation"
• Medal "For Development of the Virgin Lands"
• Medal "For the Defence of Leningrad"
• Jubilee medals

• Order of Merit for the Fatherland, 3rd and 4th class[13][14]
• Order of Honour[2][15]
• Order of Alexander Nevsky
• Jubilee medals

• Order of Red Banner (Afghanistan)
• Order of "Friendship of Peoples" (Afghanistan)
• Medal "For the strengthening of friendship in Arms" (Bulgaria)
• Order of Che Guevara (Cuba)
• Order of Red Banner (Czechoslovakia)
• Scharnhorst Order (East Germany)
• Medal "20 years of independence of the Republic of Kazakhstan"
• Medal "30 years of Victory over Japan" (Mongolia)
• Medal "40 years of Khalkhin Gol Victory" (Mongolia)
• Medal "50 Years of the Mongolian People's Revolution" (Mongolia)
• Order of Civil Merit, 1st class (Syria)

• Order of St. Grand Prince Dmitry Donskoy (Russian Orthodox Church)