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Kremlin Caper: Mathias Rust's Landing on Red Square

May 25, 2012

On May 28, 1987, Mathias Rust made headlines when he piloted a rented Cessna across the Iron Curtain, landing it in Red Square in front of the Kremlin. The West German teenager regarded his unauthorized landing as a peace mission.

https://p.dw.com/p/1527o

The spectacle of a teenager outwitting the Soviet military provided Mikhail Gorbachev, then head of state of the Soviet Union, with a pretext to remove hardline opponents in the armed forces and advance the cause of reform.