Evgeniya Maksimovna Rudneva (Russian: Евгения Максимовна Руднева) (Berdyansk, December 24, 1920 – April 9, 1944 near Kerch) was a Soviet military navigator, Hero of the Soviet Union, a member of Moscow branch of the Astronomical-Geodesical Society of the USSR, head of the Solar Department.Ukrainian, she was born in the family of office worker. She has completed three years as a student in the Faculty of mechanics and mathematics of Moscow State University prior to October 1941, when she volunteered for Soviet Army. Graduated from Navigator School. After that since May 1942 she fought at the front of the Great Patriotic War. There she served in the rank of Guards Senior Lieutenant as a navigator in the 46th Taman' Guards Night Bomber Regiment (325th Night Bomber Aviation Division, 6th Air Army, 2nd Byelorussian Front). Member of CPSU since 1943.

She flew 645 night combat missions destroying river crossings, troop trains, troops and military equipment of the enemy. Perished valiantly while flying her 645th combat mission near village Bulganak, to the north of Kerch.

In her letter to the professor Sergei N. Blazhko , head of Astrometry Department of the Moscow State University, October 19 1942 she wrote, that her first bomb she promised Nazis for the building of the Faculty of mechanics and mathematics, which was bombed by them in winter; she wrote, that she defends the honor of the university.

Awards and honors

• Title of the Hero of the Soviet Union(October 26 1944, posthumously)
• Order of Lenin
• Order of the Red Banner
• Order of Red Star
• Order of The Great Patriotic War,1st Class

Her monuments were built in Moscow, Kerch and Saltykovka settlement (in Moscow Oblast). Asteroid 1907 Rudneva , school in Kerch, streets in Berdyansk, Kerch, Moscow and Saltykovka were named after her.

External links

• Rudneva monument in Kerch (in Russian)
• Article and photo, on the website of the Moscow State University, in Russian.