Osman Kasayev

Osman Musayevich Kasayev was a Karachay Major in the Soviet Army during World War II who commanded a partisan detachment after his artillery division was defeated by the Germans during Operation Barbarossa. His detachment eventually became the 121st Partisan Regiment, and under his command the unit was credited with resulting the deaths of over 1,000 German soldiers before he died of injuries from an airstrike in 1944. In 1965, on the 20th anniversary of the end of the war, he was posthumously awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union.²