In spite of the uproar he created by landing his Cessna Skyhawk 172 on the edge of Moscow's Red Square two weeks ago, there were signs that the Soviets might deal leniently with Mathias Rust, 19, the newly famous West German aviator. No less an insider than Valentin Falin, head of the official Novosti press agency, initially predicted that the "young man will soon see his parents and friends." But as the week wore on, the Soviets seemed to grow less and less inclined to let Rust off the hook, or for that matter to dismiss his unprecedented feat as an innocent, if dangerous, stunt. In any case, said Yegor Yakovlev, editor in chief of the foreign-language weekly Moscow News, Rust "will have to answer according to the law."
Moscow's reluctance to let Rust off with a wrist slapping, and thus deflect attention from its embarrassment, only underscored the extreme seriousness with which the Soviets viewed Rust's romp through more than 400 miles of well- guarded airspace. Soviet and Western military experts were still digesting the news of the abrupt departure of Defense Minister Sergei Sokolov, the first official of that rank to be ousted since Nikita Khrushchev's celebrated firing of Georgi Zhukov for meddling in party affairs in 1957. Marshal of Aviation Alexander Koldunov was also dismissed. Further casualties were expected in the course of a top-level investigation ordered by the ruling Politburo into why Rust's aircraft had not been forced out of the skies before it buzzed the Kremlin, the country's political and military nerve center. Meanwhile, speculation mounted that Soviet Leader Mikhail Gorbachev had shrewdly seized on the unexpected incident to consolidate further his power inside the Politburo.
General of the Army Dmitri Yazov, 63, who leapfrogged over twelve more senior members of the Soviet high command to become the new Defense Minister, made his debut at a two-day conference in Moscow of high-ranking Warsaw Pact officers. A career soldier with combat experience in World War II, Yazov is believed to have made a favorable impression on Gorbachev during the Soviet leader's visit last summer to Vladivostok, where the general was based as commander of the U.S.S.R.'s far eastern military district. Yazov was summoned to Moscow last February and given the Defense Ministry's top personnel job. That is not a traditional launching pad to the top, but its occupant has a major role in high-level promotions and transfers, and thus plays a critical part in Gorbachev's campaign of perestroika, or economic restructuring, which has become the Soviet leader's rallying cry for all sectors of society.