Lev Rokhlin
Lev Yakovlevich Rokhlin (Russian: Лев Яковлевич Рохлин; 1947-1998) was a Lieutenant-General in the Soviet and Russian armies.
Rokhlin have reached the top of the Russian military, quickly rose through the ranks during and after the Soviet war in Afghanistan. In 1993, he became the head of Russia's 8th Guard Corps from Volgograd.
During the First Chechen War, Rokhlin was credited with reorganizing the Russian forces in Chechnya and finally taking the Chechen capital of Grozny in 1995. Frustrated with the bloodshed, he left the army a few weeks later. He then refused to accept the Hero of the Russian Federation medal for leading the Grozny offensive,[1] saying he saw "nothing glorious" in the war against the citizens of Russia.
Following his retirement, Rokhlin was elected to Duma (as a member of a pro-Boris Yeltsin party Our Home – Russia, which he later quit), where he chaired the Defense Committee. He also formed his own movement called In Defense of the Army, which consistently criticized Yeltsin for the war in Chechnya and for low morale in the military.
On July 4, 1998, few months after he tried to stage a mass protest of army servicemen, Lev Rokhlin was shot dead in his bed. Rokhlin's wife Tamara was convicted by the Russian court for her husband's murder in 2005, but she continued to insist he was killed by a group of masked men who broke into their home.[2] According to Alexander Litvinenko, the murder was actually organized by Russian secret services.[3]
[edit] References
- ^ Russian Military Seeks Louder Voice By Putting Officers Up for Parliament The New York Times, November 24, 1995
- ^ Russian Court Says General Rokhlin's Widow Guilty Of Murder Radio Free Europe, November 29, 2005
- ^ According to the book, the FSB General Anatoly Trofimov told Litvinenko: "Don't you see? They killed Rokhlin; surely that was a Kontora job. Now the guy who came in [Putin] will have to cover that up. He cannot afford to solve the case. It is like an insurance policy", Alex Goldfarb and Marina Litvinenko. Death of a Dissident: The Poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko and the Return of the KGB, The Free Press (2007) ISBN 1-416-55165-4, page 137.
[edit] External links
- Rokhlin's last interview, BBC News, July 3, 1998
- Lev Rokhlin, a Foe of Yeltsin, Is Slain at 51; Wife Is Accused, The New York Times, July 4, 1998
- Lev Rokhlin, Jewish general and critic of Yeltsin, 51. Jewish Telegraphic Agency, July 24, 1998
- 1947 births
- 1998 deaths
- Burials in Troyekurovskoye Cemetery
- Heroes of the Russian Federation
- Unsolved murders in Russia
- Members of the State Duma of the Russian Federation
- People murdered in Russia
- People of the Chechen wars
- Russian generals
- Russian murder victims
- Soviet generals
- Soviet war in Afghanistan veterans
