Anatoly Kornukov

Against the terrorist threat from the air, he believed Russia is unprepared considering the Russian air defense commanders often absentee, "passing the buck", and lacking coordination. The following is an example of his firm stance as reported in Pravda of March 31, 2004:

In January 2002, Kornukov resigned as Commander of the Russian Air Force and advised the Russian Federation in matters of missile defense and defense against aerial hijacker terrorist attacks against Russian cities.

On January 22, 1998, Boris Yeltsin appointed Kornukov as Commander of the Russian Air Force. This appointment by Yeltsin came on the heels of Yeltsin's dismissal of General Pyotr Deynekin, who had headed the air force since 1992. Deinekin was pressed to resign after a Russian Air Force Antonov An-124 cargo plane crashed after takeoff at Irkutsk Airport and landed on a nearby apartment complex, killing over 60 people.

In August 1991, he was appointed as commander of the Moscow Air Defense District, which covered military and civilian facilities on the territory of 29 constituent entities of the Soviet Union and later of the Russian Federation.

On 1988, Kornukov was appointed as first deputy chief of aviation of the Soviet Air Defense Forces. From 1989, he was assigned as first deputy commander and on 1990 he was commander of the 11th Separate Air Defense Army based in Khabarovsk. The unit was the largest air defense army in the USSR, covering a huge territory and included four air defense corps, two separate air defense division and large number of separate units.

From 1985, he was assigned as the commander of the 71st Fighter Aviation Corps, stationed with the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany. The corps consisted of two divisions and six separate air defense regiments. In 1988, he graduated from the Military Academy of the General Staff of the Armed Forces named after K. E. Voroshilov.

On 1 September 1983, while en route from New York City to Seoul, South Korea with stopover in Anchorage, Alaska, Korean Air Lines Flight 007, a Boeing 747-230B carrying 246 passengers and 23 crew, went astray and entered Soviet airspace, first over Kamchatka.

From 1976, he was appointed as deputy commander of the Air Defense Corps in the Far East. On 1978, he was appointed as deputy chief of aviation of the 11th Air Defense Army in the Far East. In 1980, he graduated in absentia from the Military Academy of Air Defense named after Marshal of the Soviet Union G.K. Zhukov. On 1980, Kornukov was appointed as commander of the 40th Fighter Division in Air Defense Forces in the Far East. The regiments of the division were stationed in Sovetskaya Gavan, Sakhalin and Kuril Islands.

Kornukov, who had retained his position even when, in 1976, a pilot under his command, Victor Belenko, had defected to Japan with his MiG-25—the most advanced Soviet fighter of the time—also survived the KAL 007 incident, eventually attaining the highest appointment possible in his field of service. Kornukov was neither awarded nor punished for the KAL 007 shootdown.

In 1970, he was transferred to the 47th Fighter Aviation Regiment in the Soviet Far East as deputy commander of an aviation squadron for political affairs. From 1971, he commanded a fighter aviation squadron. On 1972, he was appointed as deputy commander and from 1974 to 1976, he served as commander of the 777th Fighter Aviation Regiment in Sakhalin Island. During his period of service with the Soviet Air Defense Forces, Kornukov made over 150 missions which included reconnaissance, interception of air targets, prevention and suppression of violations of the Soviet airspace.

He joined the Soviet Armed Forces in 1959, and sent to study at the Kremenchug Military Aviation School for the initial pilot training. However, in 1960 it was disbanded, and some of the cadets, including Kornukov, were transferred to the Chernigov Military Aviation School of Pilots named after the Lenin Komsomol, which he graduated with honors in 1964. After college, he was assigned to the 54th Guards Kerch Red Banner Fighter Aviation Regiment of the Soviet Air Defence Forces, where he served as a pilot and deputy commander of a fighter squadron.

General Anatoly Mikhailovich Kornukov (Russian: Анатолий Михайлович Корнуков; 10 January 1942 – 1 July 2014) was a general in the Russian Air Force and the former fighter pilot in the Soviet Air Defence Forces. From 1998 until 2002, he served as the Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Air Force.

Kornukov was born in the city of Kadievka in Ukrainian SSR in 1942. His father was a miner from Donetsk, who took part in the Great Patriotic War.