19 Facts About Movlid Visaitov

Movlid Visaitov was a Chechen Red Army colonel and a Hero of the Soviet Union.

Movlid Visaitov was the first Soviet officer to radio-contact, meet, and shake hands with American forces under the command of General Bolling on the Elbe River, which Visaitov later joked about as "we came from Terek river to Elbe river".

In 1946 Movlid Visaitov refused to participate in the plot to execute the Chechen dissident Abdurakhman Avtorkhanov who lived in Europe.

Movlid Visaitov was deported to a prison settlement in the Kyrgyz SSR where many other deported Chechens and Ingush were located since 1944.

Movlid Visaitov was born on 13 May 1914 in the village of Lakha-Nevre in the Terek Oblast.

Movlid Visaitov graduated from seven classes in 1931 at the village school.

Movlid Visaitov graduated from the Grozny Co-Operative College in 1932, and worked as a store manager.

Movlid Visaitov served in a cavalry regiment in the North Caucasus Military District until February 1933, after which he graduated from the North Caucus Mountain Cavalry School of Krasnodar in January 1935 before graduating from the Ordzhonikidzevskaya Infantry School in November that same year.

Movlid Visaitov was then assigned to the Kiev military District where he started as a platoon commander and left with the position of squadron commander.

Movlid Visaitov remained a squadron commander in Kiev until the end of 1940, and in May 1941 he completed further training in Rostov.

Not long after the launch of Operation Barbarossa Movlid Visaitov first saw combat against German forces in June 1941 as a squadron commander in the 34th Cavalry Regiment on the Southwestern Front.

On 19 September 1941 while the division was encircled near the city of Boryspil, Movlid Visaitov took command of over 200 men and managed to reunite them with troops in Donbas.

Movlid Visaitov went on to take part in the defense of Rostov-on-Don before he sustained frostbite in his hand and severely injured his right leg in November 1941.

Movlid Visaitov was sent to a hospital in Pyatigorsk where he remained recovering until the beginning of 1942, after which he was appointed as the chief of staff of the newly formed 255th Separate Chechen-Ingush Cavalry Regiment, which was initially placed under the command of Yaponts Abadiyev; later Abadiyev was appointed to a different position and Visaitov was made the commander of the regiment on 13 May 1942.

Movlid Visaitov himself had expressed his disagreement with orders to send horsemen to fight against heavily armored German tanks, and he was punished for expressing such concerns; but members of his regiment appreciated that he did not want to lead them to a certain death.

Movlid Visaitov was nearly executed at the warfront after he physically attacked General Oslikovsky who publicly shamed him front of his colleagues because of his ethnicity.

In September 1944 after protests from several Chechen servicemen of the Red Army in Moscow, Chechens including Movlid Visaitov were permitted to return to service in the Red Army.

Movlid Visaitov participated in the offensives of Mlavsko-Elbingskoy, East Pomeranian, and Berlin.

Movlid Visaitov later lived in Grozny and passed away on 23 May 1986 at the age of 72.