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Alexander Lebed had come to Russian national attention after the Soviet Coup of 1991, in which a conspiracy of old-guard Communist hard-liners sought to overthrow Mikhail Gorbachev's government and reverse his reforms. At the height of the crisis, the Red Army had been ordered by the Communist hard-liners to surround the White House, the seat of the Russian parliament. The conflict essentially ended when General Lebed refused to order his tanks to fire upon the building and Boris Yeltsin, the president of Russian SFSR at that time, was able to exit the building and read a speech against the conspiracy on top of one of Lebed's tanks.
After seeing action violently quelling dissent in the Caucasus during the 1980s, Alexander Lebed was the commander of the 14th Russian Army, based in Moldova, from June 1992. The presence of his troops is generally accounted resposible for preseventing a large-scale expulsion of Russian natives, though Lebed publicly expressed his disgust with the corruption and cronyism of Igor Smirnov the president of the pro-Russian Dniester Moldovan RepublicThis article refers to the Republic of Moldova. For information about the adjacent Romanian region, see Moldavia . For other meanings see Moldova (disambiguation The Republic of Moldova is a landlocked country in eastern Europe, located between Romania to currently being called TransnistriaTransnistria/Transdniester (In Detail) (In Detail) Administrative map of Moldova with Transnistria highlighted in yellow Official languages Moldavian, Russian and Ukrainian Political statusAutonomous region Capital Tiraspol President Igor Smirnov Independ. On May 30, 1995 he resigned his commission to enter the political arena of post-Soviet Russia. Lebed ran as a candidate in the 1996 Russian presidential electionPresidential elections were held in the Russian Federation in 1996. Incumbent Russian President Boris Yeltsin was seeking a four-year term. The first round was held on Sunday, June 16, 1996. Boris Yeltsin and Communist challenger Gennady Zyuganov met in t and finished third with 14.5% of vote in the first round of voting. Two days after the first round, the incumbent president Boris Yeltsin appointed Lebed to the post of the chairman of Security Council of the Russian Federation. Lebed in turn endorsed Yeltsin in the runoff election two weeks later and Yeltsin won the runoff.
Lebed's politics were distinctly military. He endorsed Augusto PinochetGeneral Augusto Jose Ramon Pinochet Ugarte (pronounced, SAMPA: /aw"gusto pino"tSEt/; IPA: /aw'gusto/ or /a'gusto/, /pino'εt/ or /pino'ε/) (born November 25, 1915) was head of the military government that ruled Chile from 1973 to 1990.'s success in Chile, saying in an article "preserving the army is the basis for preserving the government."
As a chairman of Security Council, Lebed led negotiations with Chechen president Aslan MaskhadovAslan Alivitch Maskhadov (born September 21, 1951) is a Chechen general and chief of staff during the 1994- 1996 war against Russia. Maskhadov is a silent, organized military leader whom many credit with the Chechen victory in the mid- 1990s. In January 1 and signed the Khasavyurt Agreements which ended the First Chechen WarThe First Chechen War occurred when Russian forces attempted to recapture the breakaway southern republic of Chechnya in a two year period lasting from 1994 to 1996. Despite overwhelming manpower, weaponry, and air support, the Russian forces were unable in August 1996. He was sacked from the Security Council by president Yeltsin in October 1996, after a conflict between Lebed and Anatoly Kulikov , the minister of interior affairs.
In September 7, 1997, an alarming story broke in which Lebed alleged that the former USSR had lost track of some "suitcase-sized" nuclear weapons.
In May 19981998 was a common year starting on Thursday (see link for calendar), and was designated the International Year of the Ocean''. Events January January 1998 A massive ice storm, caused by El Nino, strikes New England, southern Ontario and Quebec, resulting, Lebed won the election for the governor of Krasnoyarsk Krai. He served in this position until his death in a helicopter crash in bad weather 2002, popular with the military to the last.