Lapin Aleksandr Pavlovich

Chief of the General Staff of the Ground Forces

Born on January 1 1964 in Kazan into a poor working-class family, having lost his father early. In 1981 Lapin entered the Kazan Institute of Chemical Technology, but a year later he began serving in the air defense forces of the Central Asian Military District in Kazakhstan as a gunner. In 1988 he graduated from the Kazan Tank Command School, after which he served in units of the 26th Army Corps, was the commander of a tank platoon, tank company, and battalion. Later he held posts in the Leningrad Military District and the Northern Fleet. In 1997 Lapin graduated from the Military Academy of Armored Forces named after. Marshal of the Soviet Union R. Ya. Malinovsky in Moscow. After this Alexander was sent to the 58th Combined Arms Army of the North Caucasus Military District, where Lapin served as commander of a separate tank battalion. Since 1999, he served as chief of staff and then commander of the separate 429th motorized rifle regiment of the 19th motorized rifle division in Mozdok, North Ossetia. From 2001 to 2003, he served as chief of staff of the 20th Guards Motorized Rifle Division of the Carpathian-Berlin Division, then until 2006 he commanded the 205th Separate Motorized Rifle Brigade, and after that he returned for a year as commander of the 20th Guards Motorized Rifle Division.

In 2009 Lapin graduated from the Military Academy of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, and immediately after that he was appointed deputy commander of the 58th Army. In 2012 he became commander of the 20th Guards Combined Arms Army of the Western Military District. In 2014 he was appointed chief of staff to the first deputy commander of the Eastern Military District, Colonel General Sergei Surovikin, who would later be responsible for the terror of civilians and the destruction of critical civilian infrastructure in the war in Ukraine. In the same year, Lapin received the rank of Lieutenant General. Three years later, under the command of Surovikin, Lapin participated in the war in Syria as chief of staff of a group of Russian troops. The Telegram channel “Rybar”, created by a former employee of the press service of the Russian Ministry of Defense, wrote about Lapin: “I had a chance to personally encounter Lapin back in Syria, during the first capture of Palmyra. Before our eyes, a Russian general dragged caricatured Syrian military leaders by the collar to the front line, smashing radios over their heads when they could not report where their escaped troops were.” In the same year, with the help of the recommendations of Surovikin, Alexander Lapin was appointed commander of the troops of the Central Military District by presidential decree. From 2018 to 2019 he continued his career in Syria as commander of a group of Russian troops. In 2019 Lapin was awarded the rank of Colonel General. In 2020 he graduated from the faculty of retraining and advanced training of senior command personnel of the Military Academy of the General Staff.

Waging an aggressive war unleashed by Vladimir Putin against Ukraine. Committing war crimes.

According to the international investigation, at the time when Lapin was the commander of the 20th Guards Combined Arms Army, it was from the base of the 53rd Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade, which was part of it, that the Buk air defense system was delivered to the militia of the so-called “DPR”, from which on July 17 2014 a Malaysian Boeing 777 was shot down. 298 people died. The Bellingcat investigative project also mentioned Lapin in a report on the Russian military who may be responsible for the Boeing disaster.

In June 2022, during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Ministry of Defense announced that Alexander Lapin commanded the “Center” group of troops. This group of troops first approached the outskirts of Kyiv, and after the Russian retreat captured Liman in the Donetsk region, and Severodonetsk and Lisichansk in the Lugansk region. For establishing control over the Lugansk region in July 2022 Lapin was awarded the title of Hero of Russia by the president. However, on the day of the retreat from the north of Ukraine, more precisely from the Chernigov region, Lapin awarded the military “who showed courage and heroism during the liberation of settlements in the Chernigov region.” Among the recipients was his son, Denis Lapin.

Lapin and the troops under his control are responsible for many war crimes. One of the units that approached the suburbs of Kyiv as part of the center group was the 90th Tank Division. Ukrainian authorities have accused Mikhail Romanov, a member of this unit, of murder and rape. In the village of Peremoga near Kiev there was another unit controlled by Lapin - the 15th “peacekeeping” brigade. As it turned out later, the Russian military killed and tortured civilians in this village. Lapin himself threatened to shoot the commander of the mobilized company after their retreat, putting a gun to his head. In an interview in 2013 Lapin admitted that he thought: “I’ll become an officer and spend my whole life so that there is no arbitrariness in the army.”

Already in October 2022 Lapin was criticized by Kadyrov and Prigozhin. Thus, Kadyrov accused him of the retreat of the Russian army from Liman, while the “talentless hack” Lapin himself “holed out” in Lugansk. In the same month Lapin led the defense of Svatovo. Later Kadyrov again criticized Alexander after the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ breakthrough in the north of the Donetsk region. As a result, Lapin was removed from his post as commander of Army Group “Center”. In January 2023 he was appointed chief of the General Staff of the Ground Forces. In April 2023 he was responsible for one of the directions as part of the headquarters of the National Guard “East” in the “LPR”. In May 2023, during a raid of the Russian Volunteer Corps on the territory of the Belgorod region, it was Lapin who was responsible for fighting it. He then recorded on camera how he was walking around the attacked village and shouting “For the Motherland.”

In March 2024, Lapin was appointed commander of the Leningrad Military District. The Moscow and Leningrad military districts reappeared in Russia on March 1 2024, which was explained by “the buildup of NATO military potential near the Russian borders.”

For his services in 2021 Alexander Lapin received from the state an apartment worth 120 million rubles free of charge.

Lapin is under sanctions from the UK, the European Union, Australia, New Zealand, Ukraine and Japan.