Did General Lebed say: “Let me get an elite’s company from the children, and the war will end every other day”?

On the Internet you can often find a statement, the authorship of which is attributed to the famous Russian general. We checked how believable such an attribution is.

The phrase, which is claimed, the famous military and politician said during the conflict in Chechnya, sounds like this: “Let me recruit an elite’s company, and the war will end every other day.” The quote has gained special popularity in social networks, collecting, for example, in a public in VKontakte ""Moments of the past»About 804,000 views. It is very popular in Telegram - in particular, on channels Scott Ritter (301,000 views), Vardana Gukasyan (177 000), "True Gerashchenko"(183 000),"The first folk"(250,000) and"Tatpolit"(102 000). The statement has been dispersed on sites ("Picabu","Charter'97" World Inform).

Former commander of the 14th Army, presidential candidate, Secretary of the Security Council, as well as the Governor of the Krasnoyarsk Territory Alexander Lebed is known for his colorful statements, the most famous of which is the following (here its authorship is not disputed): "The head is a bone, it cannot hurt." Countsthat he became the prototype of the bass general Ivolgin in the popular comedy “Features of the National Hunting”. And the quote we consider as a whole fits into the rhetoric characteristic of swan. But let's take a look at the history of its spread.

Telegram social network has been operating since 2013, but the first phrase option appeared In it only on September 26, 2022 (in the channel “Open Policy”, and already immediately with the mention of a swan). The very next day, this phrase was literally everywhere - in Telegram, on YouTube, V Livejournal, "VKontakte"And on the mass of other sites and portals. At the same time, on other resources until late in the evening of that day, it cannot be met at all - with one exception. September 21, on the day of the beginning of partial mobilization in Russia, on the Picabu appeared fast The fact that "it would be nice to create a battalion of the elite and golden youth." The publication has gained great popularity (435,000 views for today) and collected almost 1000 comments. One of them, placed at 14:12 User Sergesande, I read it: "During the Chechen war, General Lebed said:" Let me get an elite’s company from the children, and the war will end every other day. "

This comment clearly did not go unnoticed (more than 1,200 pluses and 100 response comments) and, apparently, served as a source of the spread of aphorism, which is not in any available written document of past years. In a commentary under another posture post She said Regarding the inaccessibility of the quote: “This was said when there was practically no Internet in Russia. And in the newspaper this, of course, did not write. ”

If we assume that this is true and quotes can not be on the Internet or in the media, then is it possible to confirm or refute the authorship of the swan at all? Surprisingly, according to book A.V. Kozlova "Unordered Transnistria. The history of the military conflict ”(2015), in January 1995, Lebed really“ proposed to personally head the regiment from the children of government members, deputies of the State Duma and restore order in Grozny. ” And journalist Sergei Beimukhametov on the pages "New newspaper"And in his book In 2005, the publication even quotes, which sounded, as indicated, in the program of the RTR channel “Top Secret” (leading - A. Borovik, M. Markelov). According to him, the swan said that one regiment can be completed by one regiment in a month in the Caucasus: “The question is only in formation - the regiment should be formed from children of people's deputies, from children of government members, from the children of all those politicians who are now talking about the need for war in Chechnya.” We could not find a video recording of this program, but everything suggests that at least in a similar form a quote sounded. And, despite the distortion, its meaning is transmitted correctly.

Photo on the cover: Wikipedia.

Distorted quote

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