20 years in a psychiatric hospital for shooting near the walls of the Kremlin: Why did the attempted Brezhnev escape the death penalty

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

At the end of January 1969, the junior lieutenant decided the Soviet army to fight the system. Impressed by the impoverished life of Soviet people in the outback, he considered that the main source of all troubles was Brezhnev, and therefore it was enough to eliminate him for life in the country to sparkle with new red.

Romantic geologist against Soviet power

Leningrader Viktor Ivanovich Ilyin was not lucky, he was born into a family of drunken alcoholics at the end of 1947. Post-war Leningrad, although slowly, nevertheless revived, people returned to their usual life. This saved Victor from starvation in his home. The parents did not pay attention to the crying of the child, leaving him alone for a long time. In the end, little and thin Vitya was placed in the baby's house. And his biological mother and father were deprived of parental rights. But the child did not stay in the state house for a long time. An event happened in his life that all orphanage children dreamed of - the boy was adopted by a childless couple.

The new parents did not tell Vitya that he was adopted. And since they adopted him at the age of two, images of either his biological parents or the baby's house have not been preserved in Ilyin's memory. But as a teenager, Victor still found out the truth. The caring neighbors tried, who told him about it.

Victor experienced the news very painfully, never being able to recover from the psychological trauma. He became withdrawn and unsociable. There were no friends at school. His only outlet was his passion for geology. In the sixties of the last century, this profession in the USSR was very romanticized. Young people were attracted by distant lands and discoveries. Victor succumbed to this. But, unlike many of his peers, after graduating from school, he decided not to change his dream and entered a topographic technical school. But frequent trips to practice inflicted another psychological trauma on the guy. As a geologist, he had a chance to visit the most remote province. And what he saw stunned Ilyin. He was sure that in the whole Union people live with dignity. But that was not the case. The poverty of the villages and specific locals broke Victor's rose-colored glasses. He suddenly realized that the party is lying when it talks about the happy life of its citizens. And then a plan ripened in his head. Ilyin sincerely believed that the culprit of all troubles was Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev. And so he decided to kill the leader of the country.

Since there was a military department at the technical school, Victor received the rank of junior lieutenant in the army. The service was in Ilyin's hands, since now he had access to firearms. But first, Victor decided to act peacefully. He made a list of reforms that, in his opinion, could improve the life of ordinary citizens of the USSR and sent them by letter to the Kremlin addressed to the secretary general.

The reforms were naive and amateurish, since Ilyin did not understand anything about economics. He was guided by a spiritual impulse, not a sober mind. Naturally, no one from the Kremlin answered him. And then Victor decided that he would have to eliminate Brezhnev. Ilyin understood that he would definitely be arrested and sent to trial. This was what he needed, because there the guy was going to publicly voice the plan for restructuring the state.

It took Ilyin about a year to prepare the assassination attempt. While on duty, he read every newspaper he could find every day. Thanks to the publications, the guy was aware of the events taking place in the life of Brezhnev. Ilyin learned from the newspapers that on January 22, 1969, the secretary general was supposed to meet the cosmonauts from the Soyuz-4 and Soyuz-5 spacecraft, who had returned to earth and brought them to the Kremlin. Victor decided to use this event to implement his plan.

Macedonian shooting

Ilyin began to operate on the morning of January 21st. He stole two pistols and cartridges from the armory. Then he escaped from the unit, taking advantage of the fact that the duty officer fell asleep safely. Victor made it to the railway station unnoticed and boarded a commuter train that took him to Pulkovo airport.

It would seem that everything, a guy dressed in a military uniform and even with a weapon, would be detained by the guards. But that did not happen. Ilyin boarded the plane without hindrance and soon found himself in Moscow.

The next step in his "chess game" was a visit to his uncle, who lived in the capital. A relative is one of the points of the plan, since he was a policeman. Uncle Ilyin said that he had come to visit him, since he was now on vacation. He believed and accepted the guy.

On the morning of the twenty-second, Ilyin left, taking with him a police overcoat. And now, the deserter is already near the Kremlin. He assessed the situation in seconds, making sure everything was going according to plan. He threw on his overcoat and joined the stream of law enforcement officers who filled the entire space near the Kremlin. Since there were a lot of policemen, no one paid attention to him.

It is surprising how accurately Ilya calculated everything. He was in the cordon just a few minutes before the motorcade appeared on the road. Had he been at least a little late, the plan would have failed.

A cordon of policemen fenced off the government motorcade from the numerous onlookers who had gathered around the Kremlin. People wanted to see with their own eyes both the secretary general and the heroes-cosmonauts.

Cars appeared, accompanied by law enforcement officers on motorcycles. When the cortege approached the place where Ilyin stood, he jumped out of the cordon, grabbed pistols from his pockets and opened fire. He shot like a real killer - in Macedonian, that is, with two hands. The main blow was taken by the second car, since Victor learned that Brezhnev always drives in it. But the culprit was wrong. It was on that day that Leonid Ilyich changed his habit. In the second vehicle were cosmonauts: Alexei Leonov, Valentina Tereshkova, Andriyan Nikolaev and Georgy Beregovoy. Eleven roads were riddled with a car, but only the driver was killed. Nikolaev and Beregovoy received minor injuries.

Suddenly, a policeman Vasily Zatsepilov on a motorcycle appeared between the car and Ilyin. The seniority of the order stood on the firing line, covering the cosmonauts. At the same moment Viktor was neutralized by other militiamen. Zatsepilov survived, fortunately, the bullet only wounded him.

Ilyin surrendered without resistance. He was sure that he was done with Brezhnev. And in my mind I was already on trial, setting out to people the plan of my reforms.

At the very first interrogation, Ilyin learned that he had killed the driver, wounded the cosmonauts and a policeman, while Brezhnev was in another car. When Victor heard this, he did not believe it, and then fell into hysterics. It took the help of doctors to bring him to his senses.

Lonely pensioner on the outskirts of Leningrad

For the attempt on the life of General Secretary Ilyina, the death penalty was undoubtedly threatened. At the trial, he was accused of terrorism, murder, desertion and theft of weapons. But … contrary to the expectations of the criminal himself, the matter did not come to the death penalty. He was recognized as mentally ill and sent for treatment. At the same time, the same Yuri Andropov (head of the KGB) was sure that Ilyin's head was in complete order. And the reason for this is the well-thought-out plan of the assassination attempt.

A little later, Victor found out why they began to shoot him. One of the policemen explained this to him. It turned out that the death penalty of a criminal could have a bad effect on the reputation of the USSR. Since a mentally healthy person wants to kill the secretary general, then there are serious problems in the country. Therefore, it was easier to write off the act of mental illness.

At first, the authorities, of course, generally wanted to hide the incident. But it didn't work out. The fact is that not only Soviet journalists, but also foreign ones came to meet the cosmonauts. And when Ilyin made an attempt on his life, they immediately reported it. The whole world learned about the criminal. And it was clear to everyone that the deserter wanted to kill Brezhnev, and not the cosmonauts. True, the Soviet side made some attempts to make the version with the attempt on Leonov, Tereshkova, Nikolaev and Beregovoy official. But in the West it was brushed aside.

The interesting thing is this: in the Soviet Union itself, the news did not cause any shock or even surprise. The people reacted to the attempt to assassinate Brezhnev quite calmly. And soon anecdotes began to appear on this topic. For example, like this: “They told Budyonny about the attempt on Brezhnev. He asks: - Well, how, did you get there? - No, Semyon Mikhailovich. - I always said: we need a saber!"

As for Ilyin, he was under compulsory treatment in various clinics for about twenty years. They let him go in ninety. Moreover, the criminal was given a small apartment from the state on the outskirts of Leningrad and was given a pension. HE is still alive. Lives alone, practically does not communicate with anyone. And he prefers not to talk about his deed. Now Viktor Ilyin is seventy-two years old. And looking at him, you will not believe that many years ago this man tried to change the fate of an entire state by killing Brezhnev.

Continuing the story about the Brezhnev era 23 black and white photographs about life in the USSR in the 1970s.