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The unsinkable General Alexander Lapin was fired from the army and sent to work in Tatarstan. How did the military leader be remembered (except for the scandal with Kadyrov)?

On Monday, media reports or that Colonel General Alexander Lapin, who previously headed the Leningrad Military District, was dismissed from the army of the Russian Federation.

According to Tatar-Inform, Alexander Lapin plans to work as an assistant to the head of Tatarstan Rustam Minnikhanov. The publication notes that “General Lapin is closely connected with Tatarstan - he was born in Kazan in 1964. Its expected role in the Kazan Kremlin is to oversee directions related to a recruitment to contract service, accompanying their participants and their families, social and medical rehabilitation of veterans, the integration of returning fighters into peaceful life. ”

As Novyevropin already wrote , Alexander Lapin was born in Kazan on January 1, 1964, in 1988 he graduated from the Kazan Higher Tank Command School, in 1997-the Military Academy of Armored Troops named after Marshal Malinovsky in Moscow, in 2009 - the Military Academy of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Russia.

Since 2009, Lapin served as deputy commander of the 58th Army. In April 2012, he was appointed commander of the 20th Guards Combined Arms of the Western Military District. In 2017, he served as chief of staff of the troops in Syria. In September 2017, he was appointed head of the combined -arms Academy of the Armed Forces of Russia. Then he headed the Central Military District. In 2018-2019, he was the head of the group of troops in Syria. With the beginning of a full -scale invasion of Ukraine, he began to command the military units of the Center forces groups.

“For the first time, I drew attention to Colonel General Alexander Lapin in the spring of 2022, when he awarded Zhukov’s medal of his son, Lieutenant Colonel Denis Aleksandrovich Lapin, who commanded the failed attack of the Ukrainian cities of Sumy and Chernihiv,” the new BB-SII, Ilya Barabanov, says New-Evrope. - On the day of exit on the Zvezda TV channel, the Russian army retreated from the Chernihiv and Kyiv directions about this award. On July 4, 2022, it became known about the decision of Vladimir Putin to assign Lapin the title of Hero of Russia for the assault on Lisichansk. ”

“At the beginning of the war, Lapin was commanded by the Center group,” military expert David Gandelman recalls in a conversation with Novo-Europe.

- He got a hero. Then he repulsed the Ukrainian counterattack in the northeast. Against this background, he entered a sharp conflict with Kadyrov and Prigozhin, who accused him of failure. ”

“Kadyrov accused Lapin of the fact that the general subordinates were left in positions without supply and communications and eventually retreated,” says Ilya Barabanov. “It was Lapin who missed the beginning of the Ukrainian counterattack, during which the Armed Forces of Ukraine brought down the Russian front and freed 10 thousand square kilometers.”

On October 1, 2022, the head of Chechnya Ramzan Kadyrov wrote in his telegram channel that he could not be silent about the Red Liman that happened in the city. “The defense of this site was led by the commander of the Central Military District, Colonel General Alexander Lapin,” Kadyrov said. -The same Lapin who received the star of the Hero of Russia for the capture of Lisichansk, although he was not there de facto there. The troops of the Western Military District were also subordinated to Lapin. Colonel General put up on all lines of the Liman direction of mobilized fighters from the LPR and other units, but did not provide them with the necessary connection, interaction and transportation of ammunition. Two weeks ago, that our fighters could become a light target, Major General, Akhmat special forces, my dear brother Alaudinov, personally reported me personally. In turn, I informed about the danger of the head of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation Valery Gerasimov. But the general assured me that Lapin did not doubt the general talent and does not believe that a retreat is possible in the Red Liman and his environs. ”

According to Ramzan Kadyrov, a week later, Lapin transferred his headquarters to the city of Starobelsk, a hundred kilometers from his subordinates, and he served in Lugansk. The head of Chechnya wondered: how can the units can quickly manage, being 150 km from them?

Due to the lack of elementary military logistics, the Russian army then left several settlements and a large section of the territory.

Under the roof of the General Staff

“It's a shame that Lapin is a mediocrity,” Kadyrov continued. - And the fact that he is covered at the top of the leaders in the General Staff. If my will, I would have unclenched Lapin to the ordinary, would deprive the awards and with a machine gun in my hands would send my shame on the front line with blood. ”

In the further public correspondence, Ramzan Kadyrov with the creator of the Wagner PMC Evgeny Prigozhin, the head of Chechnya speaks of the general: “As for Colonel General Lapin, I have been trying to establish a connection with him through my commanders of special units. But my guys cannot find him. Shouldn't the commander be in his place and in touch with colleagues? .. For the whole day, the forces thrown there could not find Lapin’s fighters ... As a result, the demoralized fighters abandoned without communication, nutrition and ammunition were in the city. The milestone, flint, from where they are caught so far and returned to the advanced, but already failed almost to the second line. ”

“Lapina was removed from the command of the Center group and transferred with a promotion to a headquarters,” says Ilya Barabanov. - It is known that he is patronized by the chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov, who subsequently lifted the appointment of Lapin to the post of commander of the North group. There is nothing to praise Lapina for recently. No victories in the north of his leadership occurred. Only linden reports on the advance points taken by "advance".

“After the conflict with Kadyrov and Prigozhin, Lapin sat on the post of deputy commander of the ground forces, and then was appointed commander of the North group,

- adds David Handelman. - He commanded an offensive in the Kharkov region, defense in the Kursk region, an offensive in the Sumy region. And in August 2025 he was removed from the post of commander of the group and in September was dismissed from the army. In total, we can say that, despite the failures, in general, he for a long time held afloat in terms of personnel intrigues against other strong figures. But in the end he was still fired. And the current place in Tatarstan is no longer army, but civilian layouts and intrigues. In principle, the very fact that he was not just fired to retire, but discusses the place of the assistant to the head of the region, may mean that he is still “in the clip”, so perhaps we will still see him at other posts. ”

Wow veterans

“Will work in the province for Lapin with an honorary pension-sinekura or can he, for example, take part in the State Duma elections next year from Tatarstan?” - Asks a question of drums.

“Now there are three generals in the State Duma - Sobolev, Kartapolov and Gurulev,” the journalist notes. -All of them once commanded 58 army. And Lapin was there as a deputy commander. Such a forge of personnel. ”

According to the writer and political scientist Stanislav Belkovsky, Alexander Lapin is a man of the chief of the General Staff, Valery Gerasimov. “They are both from Kazan, graduated from one school, went through the 58th Army, the North Caucasus, etc.,” says Stanislav Belkovsky, New-Europe. - Both are connected with Tatarstan very tightly. But the post of assistant to the head of Tatarstan for a relatively young Colonel General is a formal decline. Apparently, so they decided to stop numerous scandals, connected with Lapin. But his return to a high federal level is quite possible - if corruption affairs are not caught up, from which even the chief of the General Staff will not be able to cover. ”

Stanislav Belkovsky does not exclude that in the future Duma, Colonel General Lapin will lead the interfraction group “Swell Veterans”. “Of course, these veterans will not receive any power,” says our interlocutor. - Their Kremlin is rather afraid as a potential destructive force. And I would like to partially neutralize, partially - to keep under dense control of personnel officials and officers. So that the veterans do not self-organize and do not put forward from their midst any leaders with poorly controlled socio-political ambitions. Here are figures such as General Lapin, who in general and “veterans” in particular does not put in a penny, can be quite useful. ”