Petr Kirillovich Koshevoi

Born Dec. 8 (21), 1904, in the city of Aleksandriia, now in Kirovograd Oblast. Soviet military commander; marshal of the Soviet Union (Apr. 15, 1968); twice Hero of the Soviet Union (May 16, 1944, and Apr. 19, 1945). Member of the CPSU since 1925.

Koshevoi has been in the Soviet Army since February 1920. In 1920-22 he participated in the war between the Soviet Union and Poland of 1920 and in fighting to liquidate banditism in the Ukraine. He graduated from a cavalry school (1927), the M. V. Frunze Military Academy (1939), and the Higher Academic Training Courses of the Military Academy of the General Staff (1948). He was appointed commander of a rifle division in February 1940. In the Great Patriotic War (1941-45), Koshevoi fought in combat on the Volkhov, Stalingrad, Southern, Fourth Ukrainian, and Third Byelorussian fronts as commander of a rifle division (from November 1941 to September 1943) and commander of a rifle corps (from September 1943 to August 1945). He was first deputy commander in chief of the Soviet Group of Forces in Germany from 1955 to 1957. Koshevoi commanded the troops of the Siberian and Kiev military districts from 1957 and was commander in chief of the Soviet Group of Forces in Germany from 1965 to 1969.

Koshevoi has held executive posts in the Ministry of Defense of the USSR since October 1969. He was a candidate member of the Central Committee of the CPSU from 1961 to 1971 and deputy to the sixth and seventh convocations of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. Koshevoi has been awarded five Orders of Lenin, three Orders of the Red Banner, the Order of Suvorov Second Class, two Orders of Kutuzov Second Class, the Order of Bogdan Khmel’nitskii First Class, two foreign orders, and various medals.