Russian General Who Secured Nuclear Arsenal – The New York Times

The American newspaper The New York Times published an obituary dedicated to a member of PIR Center Executive Board, colonel general Evgeny Petrovich Maslin:

“General Maslin was different. An engineer who had taken over as head of Russia’s nuclear arsenal just months after the Soviet Union collapsed, he was among the few who embraced the American offer — and he then lobbied his colleagues to go along.

“He was not like others who were saying, ‘Why should we cooperate with Americans?’” said Vladimir Orlov, the director of the PIR Center, a Moscow think tank where General Maslin went to work after retiring in 1997. “He said, ‘We need it for our own security, not to please Americans but to guarantee the security of the nuclear arsenal around the country.’”

General Maslin was, to look at him, every bit the Russian general, as if pulled from central casting. Broad-shouldered, barrel-chested and bushy-browed, his uniform bedecked with rows of shiny medals, he loved nothing more than belting out patriotic songs at the end of a long meal” (Clay Risen).