MOSCOW: A German aviator who stunned the Kremlin in May 1987 by landing near Red Square said he helped bring about change in the Soviet Union, in an interview published on Monday on the 25th anniversary of his flight.

Mathias Rust, 43, told Russian mass-circulation newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda he flew to Moscow across the Iron Curtain because he wanted the Cold War to be over.

“I wanted to leave a message for humankind which I did,” he said.

Keen to meet Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, the then teenaged pilot from West Germany landed his rented Cessna nearSt. Basil's Cathedral on May 28, 1987.

He was sentenced to four years in prison but was released after serving a little over a year.

“I wanted to take an active part in perestroika and was hoping Gorbachev would make me part of this movement,” Rust said, referring to the reform process launched by the last Soviet leader.

“And I believe I speeded up perestroika a little bit.”

“For me the most important thing was to fly to Moscow and give the world my message. Looking back I still think I wonbecause I did what no-one expected,” he said, adding that he was lucky the Soviet forces did not shoot him down.

At a time when the Soviet Union's ascendancy was already slipping away, Rust's landing in broad daylight in the most iconic place in the entire country was a massive embarrassment for the political and military leadership.

However many in Russia are still unconvinced that an amateur pilot could have pulled off such a daring stunt, with some officials openly claiming that Rust's landing was the work of the Western special services.

“It was a winning, 100 per cent pre-planned provocation,” said Vladimir Tsarkov, commander of air defence forces for the Moscow region in 1987-89, as he explained the choice he faced in 1987.

“We have S-300, you know that,” he said, referring to missile shield systems.

“And if I launch three rockets at this shabby little plane and they explode somewhere at the height of 50-100 metres andthere is a kindergarten below what will I do then?” Tsarkov told Russian state-controlled Channel One which also aired an interview with Rust.

The German has denied the claims he was a spy, saying he was a beginner pilot.

“When I landed in Moscow, I had a total of 100 hours” of flying time, he told Komsomolskaya Pravda.

He added that landing near Red Square and walking out of the Soviet prison were the most memorable moments of his life.

He added that he often looked back on his flight, asking himself whether he would do it all over again.

“I've grown much older, my perceptions about life have changed, and now my attitude to everything is different,” he said.

“Today I think I would not dare do it. To do something similar you have to be younger than 20 and should not know what fear is.”

Rust said he now makes a living as an analyst for a Swiss financial company and at one time made money playing poker. Now divorced, he was married twice, first to a Polish woman, and then to an Indian.

Upon his return to Germany his pilot's licence was never renewed, and he had a new licence issued to him in South America in 2000. Twice a year he travels to the Caribbean to indulge his love of flying, he said.

He told the Russian television he still sees his flight across Russia in his dreams.

“Sometimes I dream of that flight, usually during the day when I nap after lunch.”

Twenty five years on, the Rust case is still classified in Russia, said Channel One.—AFP