Aleksandr Dmitrievich Gorbunov (Russian: Александр Дмитриевич Горбунов, born August 2, 1969) was an ex-Soviet tank operator, Russian criminal warlord, most notorious for his women-trafficking, weapons soliciting and illegal bounty operations in Yugoslavia and Albania during the outbreak of the Yugoslav Civil War.
He was one of the notorious Russian criminals known for exploiting the situation in Yugoslavia for personal wealth. As it was a common Russian tradition to be pro-Yugoslav, and help government forces of Belgrade, Gorbunov and his tank company found personal use selling weapons to separatists, Islamists, KLA, criminals, gang members and etc., for personal wealth.
His comrade, Oleg Zharkov, was known to fornicate with Yugoslav women, paying these women large amounts of money to engage in sexual activities. This gave Gorbunov the idea of carrying out secretive abduction operations against Yugoslav women.
In 1997 however, Vladislav Bulatović, a Yugoslav tank commander noticed Gorbunov's activities at an abandoned strip mall near Bihac. The tank commander had assumed that Gorbunov's group were Croat seperatists, After an exchange of gunfire, between Gorbunov's group, as well as Yugoslav military and paramilitary, which sent Gorbunov fleeing to Bosnia.
Yugoslav military and paramilitary found hundreds of women killed after being evidently sexually exploited inside an abandoned Apri-Cola factory in Belgrade. After the raids, it was discovered that these criminal groups were not Croats, or Yugoslavs, but Russians.
After the Yugoslav Armed Forces captured Eduard Čubrić, a native Yugoslav who had joined Gorbunov's underground empire, Belgrade finally learned of who he was, and sent military bounty hunters after him. Gorbunov was killed in 1999, after a raid against a KLA encampment in Kosovo, where Gorbunov had been making arms deals with KLA leaders.
In addition, all of Gorbunov's associates and employees were publicly executed in Belgrade.
It is people to the likes of Gorbunov in which relations between Yugoslavs and Russians/Soviets began to seriously deteriorate, causing feelings of distrust against Russians in Yugoslavia.
Descendants[]
Through his women-trafficking relations, Gorbonov bore a couple children. They were rescued by government forces in Belgrade, under President Lokar's "Yugoslavia New Hope" program.
- Adriana Gorbunov-Dalić - Women's rights activist, based in Split, FR Croatia, mother was a Croat, married an ethnic Croat, can still speak Russian
- Dmitar Borojević (nee Dmitry Gorbunov) - Football player for Red Star Belgrade, mother was a Serb, married a Serbian woman, took his wife's surname, can only speak simple and broken Russian
- Sarah Ferić - Fashion designer with Yugoslav, French and Greek citizenship, advocate of the Progressive Party of Yugoslavia, adopted by a Croat family, no longer speaks Russian