Hero of the Russian Federation

Hero of the Russian Federation ({{lang-ru|????? ?????????? ?????????}}) is the highest title that can be bestowed by the Russian Federation on a citizen of Russia. The President of the Russian Federation is the main authority in conferring the title. The criteria for the title is committing actions or deeds that involve conspicuous bravery while in the service of the state. The title was created in by a decree from Boris Yeltsin on March 20 1992, whcih replaced the Soviet titles Hero of the Soviet Union and Hero of Socialist Labor. The title was presented about 750 times since its creation, most of the awardings were for military actions that took place in the region of Chechnya or to cosmonauts who have performed flights into space. Several artists, politicians, econimists and atheletes have been awarded with the title.

Controversial awardings

Some of the awardings of the title have went to people who either committed dishonorable acts after they have been presented the title or their actions to earn the title were questionable. In the first category, there was a military officer by the name of Yuri Budanov, who was awarded the title for his actions in Chechnya. In 2000, he went into the home of Elza Kungaeva, whom Budanov alleged was a sniper that killed some of his officers. The Russian government said that Budanov took Kungaeva from her home and brought her to a regimental base. Then, Budanov was accused of interogatting her and possibly raping her. After the event, he ordered three of his soldiers to place her in a shallow grave. {{ref|budanov}} Though the charges were dismissed before in 2002 due to Budanov being "insane" during the incident,{{ref|insanity}} he was convicted of the charges and sent to prison for 10 years, though was later pardoned by Vladimir Putin in 2003. {{ref|pardon}} Another Chechen veteran, Vladimir Glebov, was arrested for similar charges involving an incident with the Chechen civilian population. The prosecutors stated that Glebov shot unarmed Chechen men and planted weapons on the bodies, which Glebov used to claim that he "wiped out" a small unit of Chechen forces, which might have earned him the title. Dispite this, the government did not act further on the case and allowed Glebov to retire without this situation on his record. {{ref|Glebov}} There has been some accusations that the title was "bought" by some individuals used from ransom money. This included Rasman Kadyrov, who got his medal that was formerly held by a Chechen governor who sided with the resistance forcers. It also details that the bribe to be awarded a hero title is about $ 15,000. http://2005.novayagazeta.ru/nomer/2005/01n/n01n-s08.shtml

Related Topics:
Yuri Budanov - Elza Kungaeva - Sniper - Vladimir Putin - 2003 - Vladimir Glebov - $

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