Rust, Mathias (1968– )

German aviator who, in May 1987, piloted a light plane from Finland to Moscow, landing in Red Square. Found guilty of ‘malicious hooliganism’, he was imprisoned until 1988.

His exploit, carefully timed to take place on the USSR's ‘national border-guards' day’, highlighted serious deficiencies in the Soviet air-defence system and led to the dismissal of the defence minister.

Rust, despite pleading that his actions had been designed to promote world peace, was sentenced to four years' imprisonment by the Soviet authorities. After serving 14 months in a KGB prison in Lefortovo, he was released and sent home as a humanitarian gesture by the Gorbachev administration. In April 1991, he was sentenced to two and a half years' imprisonment for attempted manslaughter in 1989, when he stabbed a student nurse who spurned his advances.