Constantine Kromiadi

Constantine Gregorievich Kromiadi (Константин Григориевич Кромиади) (1893 - 1990) was a Caucasus Greek-born military officer and anti-communist who served in the Imperial Russian Army, the White Army, and the Russian Liberation Army.

Born in Kars Oblast in 1893, he entered service in the Imperial Russian Army as a volunteer and fought during World War I in Persia and also on the Caucasus Front, where many Armenians, Caucasus Greeks, Georgians, and Russians fought against the forces of the Ottoman Empire. During the Russian Civil War Kromiadi joined the White movement, achieving the rank of colonel. After the war he emigrated to Europe.

During World War II, Kromiadi was a supporter of the Russian Liberation Movement. In 1942, he headed the Russian National People's Army, an armed unit of Russians, under the pseudonym of Sanin, together with engineer S. Ivanov. He was relieved by the Germans along with other Russian émigrés, at which point he tried unsuccessfully to take command of another Russian unit, the Druzhina Brigade.

Kromiadi became close with captured Soviet general Andrey Vlasov, thus becoming Vlasov's first white émigré ally. In 1943, Vlasov gave Kromiadi command of his headquarters. Kromiadi made several attempts to attract white émigrés to General Vlasov, and was finally successful by the time of the Prague Manifesto, having secured the support of two branches of the Russian Orthodox Church.

After the war's end, Kromiadi continued being active against communism, living in West Germany and working for Radio Free Europe. In 1980, he wrote a book on his experience in the Russian Liberation Movement called For Land, for freedom... which was published in San Francisco. He died in 1990 in Munich.