Vladimir Bogdashin

Vladimir Ivanovich Bogdashin (; 14 March 1952 – 22 July 2021) was an officer of the Soviet and Russian navies. He reached the rank of rear admiral.

Bogdashin began his naval career with studies at the P. S. Nakhimov Black Sea Higher Naval School, graduating in 1974 and beginning a career-long association with the Black Sea and the Black Sea Fleet. Rising through the ranks with service on the cruiser Nikolayev, frigate Bezzavetnyy and destroyer Reshitelnyy, he took command of the Bezzavetnyy in 1983. He would win particular fame as commander of the Bezzavetnyy during the 1988 Black Sea bumping incident, when he used his ship to bump against United States Navy vessels which had entered Soviet territorial waters. Though his ship was smaller than the US vessel he collided with, he was able to inflict damage, and the US warships subsequently left Soviet waters. The incident was divisive at a time of détente under Mikhail Gorbachev, but Bogdashin's actions were approved of by the Soviet leadership, and he continued to receive awards and postings.

After studying at the Grechko Naval Academy, Bogdashin went on to command the helicopter carrier Moskva and the missile cruiser Moskva. He then became deputy head of the navy's Central Command Post for Combat Control, prior to his retirement in 2007 with the rank of rear admiral. In civilian life he was deputy director general of the managing company "GazPromService", and worked in the administration of the Chertanovo Tsentralnoye District in Moscow's Southern Administrative Okrug. Between 2011 and his retirement in 2017 he headed the Training and Research Centre of the Moscow Federation of Trade Unions.

Early life and career The Kara-class cruiser Nikolayev, Bogdashin's ship after his graduation from the P. S. Nakhimov Black Sea Higher Naval School Bogdashin was born on 14 March 1952 into a Russian family in the town of Pugachyov, Saratov Oblast, in the Russian Soviet Federal Socialist Republic, in the Soviet Union. He worked for part of his youth on a collective farm, spending holidays visiting his mother's family who lived in Sevastopol, and here acquired a love for the sea and an interest in a naval career. In 1969 he entered the P. S. Nakhimov Black Sea Higher Naval School, graduating in 1974. He was assigned to serve on warships of the Black Sea Fleet, starting as the commander of an anti-aircraft missile battery on the Kara-class cruiser Nikolayev. After five years' service he became an assistant to the ship's commander, and a year later took the command officers' courses, in preparation for an appointment as second in command of a warship. He was however considered too young for the role and was instead appointed to the Krivak-class frigate Bezzavetnyy as commander of a weapons position consisting of two 9K33 Osa anti-aircraft missile systems and two AK-726 guns. Bogdashin accordingly took his ship to sea, leaving behind those crew members who were unable to rejoin in time, and received his orders at sea. The Bezzavetnyy sailed to the Turkish coast, rendezvousing with the Mirka-class frigate which had sailed from Bulgaria. Attempts to locate the US vessels were initially hampered by heavy traffic, thick fog, and the fact the US ships were observing radio silence. Their location was observed and passed on to the Soviet forces by Soviet merchant sailors aboard the ferry Geroi Shipka, which was transiting the Bosphorus at the time.

Bogdashin died from COVID-19 in Moscow on 22 July 2021. He was married to Olga Leonidovna, and had two children; a son Dmitry who graduated from the S. M. Kirov Military Medical Academy and served as chief medical officer on a submarine, before returning to the Medical Academy as head of the resuscitation and anesthesiology department at the Department of Traumatology and Orthopedics; and a daughter, Dasha, a graduate of the University of Finance and Economics.