Aleksandr Cherepanov

Aleksandr Ivanovich Cherepanov
Born(1895-11-21)21 November 1895
Kislyanskoye, Russian Empire
Died6 July 1984(1984-07-06) (aged 88)
Moscow, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
AllegianceRussian Empire Russian Empire (1915–1917)
Soviet Russia (1918–1922)
Soviet Union Soviet Union (1922–1955)
Service / branchRussian Empire Imperial Russian Army
Red Army / Soviet Army
Years of service1915–1917
1918–1955
RankLieutenant-general
Commands39th Rifle Division (1929–1930)
23rd Army (1941–1944)
Battles / wars
AwardsOrder of Lenin
Order of the Red Banner (5x)
Order of Kutuzov, 2nd class
Other decorations

Aleksandr Ivanovich Cherepanov (Russian: Александр Иванович Черепанов; 21 November 1895 [O.S. 9 November] – 6 July 1984) was a Soviet military leader and lieutenant general of the Red Army.

A peasant's son, Cherepanov served as a junior officer in the Russian Army in World War I and took part in the Russian Civil War and Polish-Soviet War with the Red Army.

A 1923 graduate of the Red Army Military Academy, Cherepanov first came to China as a military adviser to Sun Yat-sen's National Revolutionary Army in 1923–1927. He returned as chief military adviser to Chiang Kai-shek's Kuomintang China during the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1938–1939.

Appointed a senior instructor at the General Staff Academy after returning from China, he was named commander of the 23rd Army in 1941 and promoted to lieutenant-general in 1943. A member of the Allied Control Commission in Bulgaria in 1944–1947 and the commission's chairman in 1947, he returned to the Soviet Union to become deputy chief in the Department of Military Colleges of the USSR Ministry of Defense in 1948–1955.