1978 in the Soviet Union

The following lists events that happened during 1978 in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

Incumbents

 * General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union: Leonid Brezhnev
 * Premier of the Soviet Union: Alexei Kosygin
 * Chairman of the Russian SFSR: Mikhail Solomentsev

January

 * 24 January – The Kosmos 954 ends its mission

April

 * 14 April – 1978 Georgian demonstrations
 * 20 April – The Soviet Air Force shoots down Korean Air Lines Flight 902, a civilian airliner That flew into Soviet airspace.
 * 25 April – 18th Komsomol Congress

June

 * 21 June – 1978 Iranian Chinook shootdown: 2 Boeing CH-47 Chinook belonging to the Imperial Iranian Armed Forces strayed into Soviet airspace over the Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic during a training mission, resulting in the Shootdown of both aircraft by the Soviet Air Forces.

Births

 * 25 January – Volodymyr Zelenskyy, President of Ukraine since 2019

Deaths

 * 17 February – Artemiy Artsikhovsky, Soviet archaeologist and historian (born 1902)
 * 4 April – Semyon Kirlian, Russian inventor (born 1898)
 * 1 May – Aram Khachaturian, Soviet-Armenian composer and conductor (born 1903)
 * 26 May – Tamara Karsavina, Soviet ballerina (born 1885)
 * 24 June – Mstislav Keldysh, Soviet mathematician (born 1911)
 * 17 July – Fyodor Kulakov, Soviet statesman (born 1918)
 * 22 July – Mikhail Pervukhin, Soviet official during Stalin and Khrushchev era (born 1904)
 * 31 July – Prince Rostislav Alexandrovich of Russia (b. 1902)
 * 27 September – Sergei Aslamazyan, Soviet composer (born 1897)
 * 21 October – Anastas Mikoyan, Russian revolutionary and Soviet statesman (born 1895)
 * 23 October – Prince Roman Petrovich of Russia (born 1896)