Aleksandr Ryabenko

Aleksandr Yakovlevich Ryabenko (Russian: Александр Яковлевич Рябенко, 25 August 1915[1] – March 1993[2]) was a Soviet KGB general who was responsible for personal security of Leonid Brezhnev.

They split up during World War II, in which Ryabenko fought as paratrooper while Brezhnev served as political commissar.

[4][5] In 1956, when Brezhnev decided to examine a uranium mine shaft, the visitors had a shortage of protective suits.

On 24 October 1960 he got exposed to the toxic chemical unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine, shortly after the Nedelin catastrophe, in which a ballistic rocket exploded on the launch pad.

On 9 February 1961 he was with Brezhnev when their plane was attacked by hijacked French jet fighters above the Mediterranean Sea.