Andrei Grechko

Andrei Antonovich Grechko (Андре́й Анто́нович Гре́чко, Андрій Антонович Гречко; 17 October 1903 – 26 April 1976) was a Soviet military commander and Marshal of the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

Grechko was the thirteenth child born to a family of Ukrainian peasants on 17 October 1903, at a small town near Rostov-on-Don.

He joined the Red Army in 1919, where he was a part of the "Budyonny Cavalry".

During the war, he fought in the Caucasian Front and Southern Front, where fought in battles against the White Army troops of Generals

Anton Denikin and Pyotr Wrangel, and detachments of Ataman Nestor Makhno, and the elimination of political and criminal banditry.

From September 1921 to July 1922, he served in a separate battalion of OSNAZ in Taganrog.

He studied at the Crimean Cavalry courses Named After the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, in which he graduated in August 1923.

After graduation, he was sent to study at the Taganrog Cavalry School of the North Caucasian Military District and in August 1924, he was transferred to the North Caucasian Mountain Nationalities Cavalry School in Krasnodar.

During his studies, he was a foreman of a squadron and from 1925 to 1926, he participated in military operations against gang formations in Chechnya and Dagestan.

He graduated in 1926 and became a member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

From September 1926 to April 1932, he served in the 61st Cavalry Regiment of the 1st Separate Cavalry Brigade at the Moscow Military District, and platoon and machine-gun squadron commander.

The division was assigned to the 26th, 38th and 6th Armies on the Southwestern Front.

Grechko's first command during World War II was of the 34th Cavalry Division, which put up a valiant fight around Kremenchug (near Kyiv) in Ukraine during the First Battle of Kiev.

Grechko graduated from the Military Academy of the Red Army named after M. V. Frunze in 1936.

From May 1938 to October 1938, he served as assistant chief of staff of the division.

In October 1938, he was appointed as chief of staff of the 62nd Cavalry Regiment.

While serving in this position, he participated in the Soviet invasion of Poland.

In the early days of the German invasion of the Soviet Union, Grechko served in the Operational Directorate of the General Staff of the Red Army.

After graduating from the Frunze Military Academy, he took part in the Soviet invasion of Poland in 1939.

Grechko was a fresh graduate of the Voroshilov Military Academy when Axis forces invaded the Soviet Union.

He held a succession of cavalry and army commands afterwards and saw action in the Caucasus, Ukraine and Central Europe.

After the war, Grechko commanded the Kiev Military District.

He graduated from the academy of the General Staff of the Red Army named after K. E. Voroshilov in June 1941.

On 15 January 1942, Grechko was put in command of the 5th Cavalry Corps and took part in the Barvenkovo–Lozovaya offensive.

From March 1942, he was appointed as commander of the operational group of troops in the Southern Front, which operated in the Donbas.

Starting 15 April 1942, Grechko was placed in command of 12th Army and took part in the defense of Voroshilovgrad and from July, took part in the Battle of the Caucasus.

In September 1942, Grechko commanded the 47th Army and at the same time acting as commander of the Novorossiysk Defensive Region.

He commanded the 47th Army in the Transcaucasian Front from 19 October 1942 and took part in the Tuapse Operation.

From 5 January 1943, Grechko was commander of the 56th Army in the Transcaucasian Front, during which he took part in the North Caucasian Strategic Offensive Operation.

After fierce battles in January, his unit broke through the heavily fortified enemy defenses and reached the approaches to Krasnodar.

In 1953, he was appointed commander-in-chief of Soviet Forces in East Germany, and led the suppression of the East German uprising.

In 1955, he was named a Marshal of the Soviet Union.

In 1957, he became commander-in-chief of the Soviet Ground Forces, and three years later he also became the commander of the Warsaw Pact forces.

After graduation, he served in the Special Red Banner Cavalry Division named after I.V. Stalin of the Moscow Military District and later transferred to the Belarusian Special Military District, where he served as assistant chief and chief of the 1st (operational) part of the division headquarters and commander of the 62nd Cavalry Regiment.

He served as the Soviet Minister of Defence from 1967 to 1976.

Born to a Ukrainian peasant family near Rostov-on-Don, Grechko served in the Red Army cavalry during the Russian Civil War.

In 1967, Grechko was appointed Minister of Defence, and oversaw the subsequent Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia and violent border clashes with China.

He helped modernize the Soviet Army and was responsible for continuing the Soviet hegemony over Eastern Europe.

An ideological hardliner, he was a defender of the first strike nuclear strategy, and only reluctantly supported Leonid Brezhnev's détente with the United States and the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT).

Grechko died in 1976 at the age of 72.