Igor Sakharov

Igor Konstantinovich Sakharov (; 7 August 1912 – 1977) was a Russian émigré and collaborator with Nazi Germany during World War II. A foreign volunteer for the Nationalist faction in the Spanish Civil War, he later became one of the leaders of the collaborationist Russian National People's Army (RNNA) unit. Following the dissolution of the RNNA, he joined the Russian Liberation Army, taking part in the Prague uprising. After the war, he fled to Australia, where he died in a car crash.

Early life and emigration Igor Konstantinovich Sakharov was born on 7 August 1912 in the city of Saratov. His father was , a Tsarist general who went on to command White Army forces on the Eastern Front of the Russian Civil War. In 1920, Konstantin fled Russia, and, along with his wife, Igor, and two other children (a son and a daughter), settled in Berlin in 1923.

In the early 1930s, Igor Sakharov participated in military activities around the world, serving in the armies of Uruguay, Argentina, and China. In Spain, he joined the Falange Española,

World War II

According to the memoirs of Russian Liberation Army (ROA) veteran , in February 1941 Konstantin Sakharov gave his blessings to his son to fight communism, and bestowed upon him his rank of colonel and all of his military honours.

Russian Liberation Army

Sakharov served as deputy commander of the ROA Guards Brigade, with Ivanov being the brigade's commander. He was involved in the training of the brigade's men, Sakharov never returned to the brigade, but after its membership was arrested by German authorities in the autumn of 1943, he personally intervened to get them released.

Following his return to Berlin, Sakharov was appointed as an operational adjutant to Andrey Vlasov, then commander of the Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia (KONR).

Sakharov next took over two battalions of the 714th Eastern Infantry Regiment in Denmark. On 10 March 1945, he formed the 1604th Russian Infantry Regiment from these battalions, subordinating the regiment to the 3rd Panzer Army. The regiment participated in combat in the Harz mountain range. On 9 April 1945, the regiment left the front and became part of the 600th Infantry Division under Sergei Bunyachenko, returning to the front in Frankfurt an der Oder. On 27 April 1945, Sakharov participated in a meeting of the division's commanders in Schneeberg, Saxony, where it was determined to travel south to Linz to link up with the remainder of KONR.

Prague uprising and end of the war

On 5 May 1945, Sakharov, alongside Bunyachenko, had begun making agreements with Czechoslovak forces to support each other in a rebellion against the Germans in Prague. Sakharov's regiment followed the 3rd Regiment and entered Prague before reaching Smíchov and splitting the city along the Vltava. Sakharov then pushed north from the Vltava, coming into contact with German forces around Strahov Monastery. On 7 May 1945, after Sakharov's forces had taken Petřín, a group of American war reporters arrived at the headquarters of his regiment, where they informed him that the United States Third Army of George S. Patton would not be pushing into Prague and that the city would instead be taken by the Soviet forces. Upon hearing this, Sakharov immediately informed Bunyachenko, who ordered him to withdraw his regiment to the village of Suchomasty.

On 9 May 1945, he began moving towards Plzeň with his regiment. Three days later, he was ordered by Bunyachenko to stand down as the division had been disbanded. Sakharov subsequently fled to the American occupation zone in Germany, where he avoided repatriation to the Soviet Union.

Later life and death Following the war's end, Sakharov moved to the French occupation zone in Germany, where he actively participated in hiding escaped war criminals, helped fellow former collaborators escape repatriation, and was a leader among former ROA officers in occupied Germany. In one instance, he barricaded himself in a displaced persons camp where he raised the black flag to indicate the presence of a contagious disease in the camp in a successful effort to ward off Soviet soldiers seeking the repatriation of former collaborators.

In autumn 1946 Sakharov moved to Füssen along with a group of displaced persons. The next year, he moved to the Schleichsheim displaced persons camp, near Munich. He was a leading organiser of early post-war political activity among émigrés, founding the Saint Andrew's Flag Union and serving as a member of its Military-Political Council and Main Directorate. He also founded the Council of United Vlasovites in August 1950.

At some time in the 1950s, Sakharov emigrated to Australia, where he lived until he died in a car crash in 1977.