The death of defector pilot Belenko in the USA may turn out to be a lie: sensational evidence has been found

It would be more correct, perhaps, to reformulate the news disseminated by the Western media: “once again there has been a message about the death of the defector pilot known as Viktor Belenko.” This is exactly what the situation looks like for the author of these lines, taking into account the information that he had the opportunity to receive at one time from the Soviet ace, former chief pilot of the MiG Design Bureau, Hero of the Soviet Union Valery Menitsky.

But before sorting out the mysteries and inconsistencies in Belenko’s history, we should at least briefly recall what happened then, more than 47 years ago, in the Far East.

On the morning of September 6, 1976, a pair of the latest Soviet MiG-25P fighter-interceptors from the 530th Aviation Regiment of the 11th Separate Air Defense Army took off from the Chuguevka airfield in Primorye to carry out the assigned mission. And already 10 minutes after takeoff, the plane of the wingman, Senior Lieutenant Belenko, disappeared from the control service screens, and the officer himself stopped responding to requests. It later turned out that the pilot deliberately fell behind the lead fighter and, flying his fighter a few tens of meters above the water to hide from the radar, headed for the Japanese Islands. Less than an hour later, the MiG with tail number “31” landed at the airfield on the island of Hokkaido, where the starley announced that he was asking for political asylum.

The Japanese handed over the defector and his MiG to the Americans, who over the next few weeks “gutted” the Soviet aircraft they had inherited, and also interrogated the pilot himself, trying to get as many Russian military secrets as possible. This operation was recognized in the States as one of the most successful in the history of the CIA. And although the fighter was eventually returned to its rightful owners, the damage that was caused to the Union and its armed forces was enormous: in order to compensate and neutralize the military secrets that were at the disposal of the Americans, our specialists had to hastily redo many systems and instruments for the “twenty-fifth”, introduce a new, more advanced recognition system “friend or foe”… All this, according to some estimates, cost over 2.5 billion dollars.

The “Belenko case” was handled by a special commission, which included not only representatives of the Air Force, but also employees of the MiG company. It was from them that Honored Test Pilot of the USSR Valery Menitsky learned many of the then “closed” details. Many years later, he shared some information with a MK correspondent.

Briefly summarizing what we heard from Valery Evgenievich, we can only say: a riddle within a riddle.

“This was the first time in post-war history that we flew to foreigners on a combat aircraft… During the period when I worked at the Mikoyan Design Bureau, I had to meet with people who were directly related to the investigation of the circumstances of the Belenkovo ​​incident. In conversations with them, I heard amazing things that force us to interpret this man’s act completely differently and take a critical look at the official version that in this case we are dealing with a defector officer who was alien to Soviet ideology and way of life, who was offended by that that his superiors are “squeezing” him, thereby limiting his material opportunities…”

According to the “leading authorities”, it is generally accepted that Belenko escaped, guided largely by mercantile considerations. He hoped that in gratitude for the secret Soviet fighter given to him, the Americans would provide him with a prosperous life overseas.

However, there are a number of “little things” that make such an interpretation of the reasons for what happened questionable. Moreover, Valery Menitsky, having analyzed all the information he had heard, generally doubted whether Viktor Belenko was real and drove the Soviet MiG to Japan.

The version with a “fake” senior lieutenant is supported by some oddities discovered (albeit after the fact) in the behavior of this military pilot, in his relationships with relatives and service colleagues.

Strangeness #1. After the 17-year-old boy Vitya Belenko left his father’s house to study (first he entered a technical school in Omsk, then an aviation school), his family never saw him again. Moreover, the family does not have a single photograph of Victor from his time at school. Therefore, during the investigative actions, it turned out to be impossible to identify the identity of the defector – whether he was actually the person he pretended to be. In the photo of Senior Lieutenant Belenko shown to them, close relatives identified the person depicted not too confidently: “He seems to look like our Vitya…” And they also learned that in all the years after Victor’s departure, they communicated with him only in absentia: they received very rare and very laconic letters. But the parents regularly received money transfers from their son. And this…

…Strangeness #2. “It is almost impossible to carve out free funds from the income of a flight school cadet,” Menitsky emphasized. “In such an educational institution, the guys are on full government pay, and the amounts they receive for personal needs are very small. I remember that in our time, a first-year cadet received 8 rubles a month, a second-year student – 10 rubles… Meanwhile, Belenko managed to find money to send to his relatives. The question is, did he have any additional illegal income?.. There is one more fact on the topic. Some of the defector’s former classmates at the Armavir School later said: they noticed that the financial situation of cadet Belenko was quite prosperous. He himself said in this regard that he allegedly receives money transfers from home. That is, everything is exactly the opposite.”

Oddity #3 arises from the stories of the same college classmates.

“Those who studied with Belenko remembered that every year, when he went on vacation, he performed the same incomprehensible procedure. He arrived at the point that was indicated by him in the vacation order as the place of stay on vacation, made a note of arrival there, and after that secretly went north – to the town of Naryan-Mar. His classmates found out about this by chance: Belenko let it slip to one of them. Usually he avoided participating in cadet discussions about who was vacationing where. And then suddenly he mentioned Naryan-Mar. A friend asked: “Why did you go there?” “I have a girlfriend there…” came the answer. However, subsequently he never spoke about this chosen one. So was there a sweetheart or did Belenko go to the northern city for some other purpose?”

During our meeting with him, Valery Menitsky expressed his opinion about all these mysteries and inconsistencies.

“The mentioned facts form a single logical chain, if we assume that Belenko was “under the hood” of Western intelligence services from a young age. Perhaps he was processed just after moving from his parents’ home to Omsk, where he began studying at a technical school. But even more logical, in my opinion, is the version not about recruitment, but about substitution.

Instead of the real Viktor, Belenko entered the flight school, and then served in our military aviation as a dummy character – a foreign intelligence agent. That is, Western intelligence services in this case developed and successfully carried out a “long-lasting” spy game. As for the real Viktor Belenko, his fate in this case turns out to be completely unknown.

This assumption is supported by information received after the incident with the flight to Japan from officers who served with the fugitive Belenko: many of these pilots suddenly realized in retrospect that he looked clearly older than the age indicated in his personal data.”

Valery Menitsky mentioned some points related to the aviation incident itself, which occurred in September 1976.

“Before his aerial escape, Belenko independently piloted the MiG-25P interceptor only five times. And his sixth flight, which took place on September 6, caused a stir – in every sense.

Our “ace” did not land very carefully among the Japanese. Perhaps, according to the plans of the foreign intelligence services that were developing this operation to hijack the MiG, it was supposed to land somewhere else, but due to a lack of fuel it had to land at the Hakodate airfield. The runway there turned out to be too short for such a fighter. Belenko had to apply emergency braking, but did not do it very carefully, as a result of which one of the landing gear wheels of his plane exploded.

When the MiG stopped, the pilot climbed out of the cockpit and, defiantly pulling out his service pistol, in English (as the investigation found out, the starley was actively studying the language in his free time) warned the airport employees who had come running to not approach the plane, since it was the property of the United States. The Americans, indeed, appeared there very soon and took the fighter and the defector under their wing. The Japanese didn’t mind. It looks like everything was agreed upon in advance…”

In the USSR they tried to present this story publicly in a different light. Allegedly, our pilot lost his course and made an emergency landing on Japanese territory, and there he was illegally detained, preventing him from returning to his homeland. After some time, Soviet diplomats managed to achieve a meeting with Belenko. In official reports about her, the diplomatic mission employees said that Belenko came out to them accompanied by some two people who were holding him by the arms, while the “lost” Soviet Air Force officer was in an inadequate state, as if under the influence of narcotic drugs.

This information was denied by V. Menitsky: “I happened to communicate with Air Marshal Evgeny Yakovlevich Savitsky, who headed the commission to investigate this incident. So he said that the defector behaved at that meeting with Soviet diplomats like a person completely “in his right mind.” He stated from the very beginning: “I am a US citizen, and I do not need any help from representatives of the USSR. Everything I did was done completely consciously…”

Valery Evgenievich mentioned some no less mysterious events related to the “foreign” life of Belenko (or false Belenko).

“The former Soviet officer received $500,000 from his new owners. In addition, they took care of the safety of the defector. And these measures were not in vain. As far as I know, soon after the incident an attempt was made to eliminate Belenko. Some specialists organized an assassination attempt disguised as a car accident: the car in which the traitor was traveling was “accidentally” rammed by a truck. Newspapers in their crime sections immediately reported the death of “a Soviet officer who preferred life in a free country.” However, it later turned out that it was not possible to kill Belenko. A double disguised as him died in a fake car accident.”

“According to my information, they found a very good job for this man. He became an employee of a department of one of the large American companies,” said Valery Menitsky at the end of our conversation. — Once, when I was in America on a business trip, some people approached me with a proposal to organize a meeting with Belenko. But I refused: I didn’t see the point in talking about something with a traitor.”

In the Soviet Union, Belenko was convicted in absentia under the article “Treason” and sentenced to capital punishment. However, this sentence could not be implemented for obvious reasons.

Some time after that sensational flight to Japan by the Soviet fighter Belenko (once overseas, he took a new name – Schmidt) wrote a book of memoirs. In addition, the “hero” appeared on TV screens several times. He was especially active in giving interviews to American television crews in the year that marked the 25th anniversary of his betrayal. However, the further fate of this odious man is also replete with mysteries. At least once during this time, the defector had already “left”: in 2006, information appeared about his death from a heart attack.

But, if current reports are to be believed, that information from 17 years ago turned out to be false. However, today’s publications about the death of Belenko, who allegedly died in one of the nursing homes, perhaps cannot be considered absolutely reliable. After all, for some unknown reason, their surge occurred in the second half of November, and death occurred, as it is written, almost two months ago, in September.

It seems that another mystery has been added to the story of the escape on the MiG-25. This means that the true story of the traitor Belenko is still not known.