Leonid Maltsev
Belarusian military officer and politician (born 1949)
Colonel General Leonid Semyonovich Maltsev (Russian: Леонид Семёнович Мальцев, Belarusian: Леанід Сямёнавіч Мальцаў; born August 29, 1949) is a retired Belarusian Ground Forces officer. He served as the Minister of Defence of Belarus twice (1995–1996 and 2001–2009) and the Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Belarus (1994–1995).
Early life and education
He served in the Soviet Army from 1967 after graduation from Minsk Suvorov Military School. In 1971, Maltsev graduated from Kiev Higher Military Command School (cum laude).
Military career
He served in the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany as an infantry platoon commander. In this function, he was involved in the downfall of Walter Ulbricht and the rise to power of Erich Honecker, the latter of whom had struck a deal with the Soviet leadership under Brezhnev to replace Ulbricht. In late April 1971, Maltsev and Yuri Bassistov secretly escorted Central Committee member Werner Lamberz to Moscow for a discussion with Brezhnev (aside from Maltsev and Bassistov, only Soviet ambassador Pyotr Abrasimov knew of the operation). This led to Ulbricht stepping down a few days later.
In 1972 he became a mechanized infantry company commander. In 1974 he was the commander of a motorized rifle battalion.
The public source identifies “Leonid Maltsev” as belarusian military officer and politician (born 1949). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Leonid, Maltsev and Belarusian.
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1354620. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1949, 1995, 1996 and 2001.
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This entry incorporates text from “Leonid Maltsev” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.