Pavel Batitskii

Born June 14 (27), 1910, in Kharkov. Marshal of the Soviet Union (1968). Hero of the Soviet Union (May 7, 1965). Member of the CPSU since 1938. Born into the family of a Ukrainian worker.

Batitskii graduated from cavalry school (1929), the Frunze Military Academy (1938), and the Military Academy of the General Staff (1948). Before the Great Patriotic War, Batitskii commanded a squadron, worked in the General Staff, and was chief of staff of a brigade and a division. During the Great Patriotic War he was chief of staff and commander of a rifle division on the Northwest Front (June 1941–July 1943), after which he commanded the 73rd Rifle Corps and 128th Rifle Corps on the Voronezh Front, the First Ukrainian and Second Ukrainian fronts, and the First Byelorussian Front. Batitskii took part in the liberation of the Ukraine, Byelorussia, and Moldavia, the destruction of the fascist German forces in Eastern Prussia, the taking of Berlin, and the liberation of Prague. From 1948 to 1950 he was chief of staff of regional antiaircraft defense, then chief of the main staff of the air force and the first deputy commander in chief of the air force (1950–53). He was the first deputy commander of the Moscow Military District (1953–54), and from 1954 he commanded the troops of the Moscow Antiaircraft Defense District. Since 1965 he has been the first deputy chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the USSR, and since June 1966, Batitskii has been commander in chief of the country’s antiaircraft defense forces and a deputy minister of defense of the USSR. He became a candidate member of the Central Committee of the CPSU in 1961, and a member in 1966. He was a deputy to the sixth and seventh convocations of the Supreme Soviet. He has been awarded four Orders of Lenin, the Order of the October Revolution, five Orders of the Red Banner, Orders of Suvorov Second Class, Orders of Kutuzov First Class and Second Class, and various medals.