Colonel Yuri Budanov - a serviceman of the Russian army, a participant in two Chechen wars. In 2003, he was convicted of the murder of a young Chechen girl. Colonel Budanov was sentenced to ten years in prison. In 2009, he was released on parole. In 2011, he was shot dead by unknown persons.
Career
Colonel Budanov was born in 1963 in the Donetsk region. He studied at the Kharkov Tank School, after which he was sent to serve in Hungary. Colonel Budanov, whose biography is quite rich in moving, after the collapse of the USSR continued to serve in the Russian troops.
He participated in the First Chechen campaign. In 1995, he was wounded in the head. In the second Chechen war, he commanded the 160th Tank Regiment. He was shell-shocked twice in the fall of 1999. In January 2000, Budanov became a colonel, and already in March he was arrested, accusing him of rape and murder of a Chechen girl.
The feat of Colonel Budanov: how it was
At the end of December 1999, in the vicinity of the village of Dubai-Yurt, 160 soldiers of the 84th reconnaissance battalion were ambushed in Wahhabi. Scouts asked the headquarters for help, but this was refused. A thousand Arab mercenaries of Khattab literally destroyed Russian soldiers with their fire.
Nearby was the tank regiment of Budanov. He was ordered to stand still and not get involved in battle. The village was considered peaceful, and the authorities forbade the introduction of tanks there. Budanov heard reconnaissance talks with the command. He decided to break the order and help the dying guys.
Budanov gathered a regiment and called volunteers from among the officers. Having equipped them with tanks, he personally led their battle. The enemy was sure that help to the scouts would not come, so a sudden attack by tankers demoralized him. Khattab retreated, and the scouts were rescued. The next morning, all of Chechnya was already talking about this feat. Colonel Budanov for his arbitrariness received a severe reprimand from the headquarters.
Court
In February 2001, hearings began on the Budanov case, which had a great public outcry. The accused claimed that the girl he killed was a sniper and destroyed several dozen of his soldiers in the Argun gorge.
A year later, the court ordered a medical examination. In total, four psychiatric examinations were conducted. One of them showed that the colonel was in a state of insanity during the murder. For this reason, the court sent him for compulsory treatment to a psychiatric clinic. But already in 2003, the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation overturned this decision and convicted Budanov.
Sentence
The soldier was found guilty and sentenced to nine years in prison for murder by negligence, the article about the rape was removed from him. He was also added six years for kidnapping and another five for abuse of power. In total, the court decided to deprive Budanov of liberty for 10 years. In addition, the colonel lost his officer rank and the Order of Courage he had earned earlier .
Liberty
In 2004, Budanov filed a request for early release. It was satisfied by the assembled commission. However, frank threats rained down at Budanov, and he was forced to withdraw his application. When the passions around this matter calmed down a bit, Budanov in 2008 filed a new petition for early release. The application was granted, and in early 2009 he was released from prison.
The assassination of Colonel Budanov: details
On the afternoon of June 10, 2011, he was shot dead. Who killed Colonel Budanov? The case has not yet been resolved. They shot him in Moscow, on Komsomolsky Prospect. The criminals fired six shots, four of which hit exactly the victim’s head. Those who did this were never found. Investigating authorities believe that perhaps this is a blood feud carried out by immigrants from Chechnya. Some friends of Budanov claim that dignitaries are involved. One way or another, but they could not establish the killers.
The funeral
Colonel Yuri Budanov, whose biography was extensive and diverse, was buried in the suburbs. He was buried in the church of the holy bessrebrensky Cosmas and Damian. A closed coffin with his body was taken out of the temple, carried around him, then loaded into a car. The funeral was held at the Novoluzhinsky cemetery in Khimki. Resting Yuri Budanov next to the Soviet pilots who died during the war with the Nazis.
Memory
We do not undertake to assert whether this person was a hero or a monster, time will judge and put everything in its place. However, his comrades comrade honor his exploits and remember him as a hero. In memory of Colonel Budanov, Russia has devoted many poems to the hands of contemporary poets.
External evaluations, track record and characteristics
At first, his track record was not much different from other similar ones. Colonel Budanov gradually climbed the standard officer ladder. A sharp shift in his career occurred on the eve of the Second Chechen campaign. Lieutenant Colonel Budanov then received a tank regiment under command, consisting of almost a hundred combat vehicles.
Literally immediately, his military unit was sent to Chechnya. There he received the extraordinary rank of colonel. One of his main achievements is that Budanov went through half the war with virtually no loss. Lost only one driver. None of the other commanders had such indicators.
But at the same time, Colonel Budanov was a hot-tempered person. He could afford to shout at his subordinates, throw everything at them that would fit his arm. One day he heard a contract soldier point a finger at a friend at Major Arzumanyan who was passing by and asked the officer to “shoot” a cigarette, calling him “chock”. Budanov became furious and beat up the impudent soldier. Then he went to his tent, took a block of cigarettes and gave it to a contract soldier, explaining to him that it was impossible to call a military officer “chock”.
Colonel’s lawyer said that he did not consider him a “scumbag”. In his opinion, Budanov was a patriot, for whom honor was of great importance. He often went against the orders of the command, if he believed that he could help his comrades or civilians with his actions. It was his tricks that made the Colonel many enemies and hidden ill-wishers from the high command.
Budanov’s nerves lost their strength when enemy snipers killed many of his comrades in Argun Gorge . He often sat in front of photographs of deceased friends for a long time, swore to them that he would find these snipers and deal with them. Such a case introduced itself. One of the captured militants pointed to several houses, saying that a sniper girl was hiding in one of them. For her, the colonel took the 18-year-old Chechen woman, whom he killed by negligence during interrogation.
As we wrote above, the examination established that at the time of the murder Budanov was in a state of temporary mental disorder, and recognized him insane. However, this decision was subsequently quashed.
One way or another, Budanov was punished for his crime. Today, some citizens of our country consider him a brutal tyrant and murderer. Others believe that he is a true hero of Russia. We do not undertake to judge him and give some kind of assessment of his actions. Time will pass, everything will fall into place.
The deceased left his wife Svetlana and two children. Son - Valery, reserve lieutenant, lawyer, and schoolgirl daughter named Catherine.