Viktor Leonidovich Pokrovsky, commander of the Russian Caucasus Army, was born on September 14, 1889 in Nizhny Novgorod Province.
In 1906 Pokrovsky graduated from the Odessa Military Academy Cadet Corps and the Pavlovsk Military School and joined the 10th Small Russian Grenadier Regiment as a second lieutenant.
On December 15, 1912, Pokrovsky was promoted to lieutenant, and two years later graduated from the 1914 Sevastopol Aviation Officer School, after which he was assigned to the 21st Army Aviation Detachment and participated in the First World War as part of the detachment, serving as a detachment commander.
In 1915, Pokrovsky worked as an observer pilot in the aviation detachment of the Second Siberian Army. Some time later, during the mission, he managed to shoot down an Austrian plane and capture two Austrian soldiers, as well as some completely new aviation equipment.
On December 26, 1915, Pokrovsky was appointed commander of the 12th Air Detachment of the Army, a position he held until March 1917. During this period, he was promoted to captain because of the length of service.
From April to June 1918, Pokrovsky served as commander of the troops in the Kuban region.
From June to August 1918, he served as commander of the 1st brigade in the Kuban.
From August 1918 to January 1919, Pokrovsky served as commander of the 1st Kuban Cavalry Division.
From January 3, 1919, Pokrovsky served as the commander of the 1st Kuban Division.
From July 1919, as commander of a unit of the Caucasian Army near Tsaritsyn, Pokrovsky successfully captured Kamyshin on the Volga River, and was later appointed Chief of Logistics of the Caucasian Army.
From November 26, 1919 to January 21, 1920, Pokrovsky was appointed commander of the Caucasian Army.
From January to March 1918, he formed a volunteer detachment of 3,000 soldiers (Kuban Army) on behalf of the Kuban Rada.
However, a little later, Pokrovsky's first detachment (about 300 Cossack soldiers) suffered losses in battles with the Soviet Red Army. On February 3, 1918, Pokrovsky returned to Ekaterinadhar.
On March 14, 1918, the Kuban Rada appointed Pokrovsky as commander of the Kuban Army and promoted to colonel, and on March 27, Pokrovsky was further promoted to major general.
General Denikin, one of the important leaders of the White Army, once made this assessment of Pokrovsky:
Pokrovsky was young, of low rank, of great military experience, unknown to anyone. But he showed exuberant energy, brave, brutal, power-hungry, and didn't really take into account moral biases. ......Nevertheless, he did what the more respectable bureaucrats failed to do: he formed a separate detachment that represented a real force capable of fighting and defeating the Bolsheviks. ”
On March 27, 1918, after Pokrovsky met with the Volunteer Army of General Kornilov in the area of the village of Ryazanskaya, the Kuban Army became an integral part of the Volunteer Army (2700 people) (3000 fighters). By mutual agreement, the general command of these units was entrusted to General Kornilov.
After the unification of the Volunteer Army and the Kuban Army, Pokrovsky took part in the offensive on Yekaterinodar in April 1918, and after the defeat he led the Kuban troops to the Don River.
After that, Pokrovsky led the Kuban regional troops together with the Volunteer Army to launch the Second Kuban Campaign, which ended on August 16 with the capture of Yekaterinodar.
In the summer of 1918, Pokrovsky took part in the pursuit of the Kontukh group, which was retreating from the Taman Peninsula to join Sorokin's army.
He was defeated while defending the village of Beloretska. Then he took part in the battles near Stavropol and in the area of the city of Minerals.
In January 1919, during the offensive of the Volunteer Army to the north, Pokrovsky led the 1st Kuban Corps. In the Caucasus, it managed to inflict a series of crushing defeats on the Soviet Red 11th Army and captured the cities of Narchik, Vladikavkaz, Grozny and Kizlyar.
In the spring and summer, Pokrov's corps took part in the operation to defeat the Red 10th Army and capture Tsaritsyn.
Despite the numerical superiority of the Red Army, Pokrovsky's troops advanced north along the Volga, successfully capturing the city of Kamyshin and reaching Saratov. But due to insufficient forces and means, further offensives were prevented.
On September 9, 1919, Pokrov was forced to hand over the 1st Kuban Corps to General Pisarev due to illness.
* Later, Pokrov was appointed head of logistics of the Caucasian Army.
In the autumn of the same year, the Kuban Rada began an active campaign among the Cossacks against the Volunteer Army and for the independence of the Kuban. In order to prevent the beginning of the disintegration of the Kuban army, the leadership of the Volunteer Army decided to disband the Rada and send its leadership to a military tribunal.
General Pokrovsky, by order of General Wrangel, directly supervised the dispersal of the Kuban Cossack Rada, which was accused of **ism, and one of its leaders, Father Alexei Kurabkhov, was sent to a military tribunal to be hanged for "treason".
Since then, Pokrovsky and Wrangel have openly become hostile to the Kuban Cossacks, leading to mutual accusations and claims in newspapers, news and memoirs.
After some time, Pokrovsky was dismissed from his post by General Denikin.
Pokrovsky moved to Bulgaria from the Crimea in April 1920. Since 1921, he lived in Varna and planned to organize the landing of politically trained armed men of white officers in the Kuban on the Black Sea coast, organizing anti-Bolshevik propaganda, sabotage and terrorist attacks.
However, because the Bulgarian prime minister at the time was a left-wing politician Alexander Stambolsky, he had a negative attitude towards the white movement.
Soon, Pokrovsky's information about the creation of a white military organization fell into the hands of the Bulgarian police. , they carried out searches and arrests, hindering the landing plan. Pokrovsky was forced to flee Varna and go underground.
On November 3, 1922, members of the Pokrovsky organization killed the Bolshevik leader Agiyev, a Bolshevik leader who worked for the Soviet authorities and encouraged the Cossacks to return to their homeland.
As part of the investigation into this case, the Bulgarian police, together with the Soviets, arrived in the city of Chustendil, where Pokrovsky was located.
During this arrest, Pokrovsky put up a violent resistance and was eventually mortally wounded with a bayonet by a Bulgarian policeman, who soon died.