Vladimir Semyonov (general)

Vladimir Magomedovich Semyonov (Владимир Магомедович Семёнов; Семенланы Магометни джашы Владимир) (b. 1940) is a Russian General of the army and the first president of the Karachay–Cherkess Republic (1999–2003).

Biography
Semyonov was born on 8 June 1940 in the village of Khuzruk, Karachayevsky District, and has an ethnic Karachay father and an ethnic Russian mother. He is a Sunni Muslim. When he was just four, his family was expelled from their native land and they moved to the Uzbek SSR due to the deportation of the Karachays. He was raised in Bukhara, where Semyonov spent most of his childhood. His family returned home in 1957, following the rehabilitation of the Karachays. One year later in 1958, he joined the Soviet Army. He completed the Baku military college in 1962, the M. V. Frunze Military Academy in 1970 and the General Staff Academy in 1979.

Career
He is a professional military commander. In 1988, Vladimir Semyonov was appointed as the head of the Transbaikal Military District. In 1991, he became a commander-in-chief of Soviet Land Forces and deputy minister of the Ministry of Defence. From 1992 to 1996 Vladimir Semyonov headed the Russian Ground Forces. He was dismissed from his post by the Russian Defence Minister Igor Rodionov in 1996 but returned to duty in 1998 as Chief Military Adviser to the Minister of Defense of Russia.

In May 1999 he won the presidential elections in Karachay–Cherkessia which caused ethnic tension between Karachays and Cherkesses. The tension was pacified without bloodshed. Vladimir Semyonov tried to solve socio-economic problems of the Republic but in vain. On August 31, 2003, he lost in the general election and left his post to Mustafa Batdyyev.

Semyonov is married with one daughter.