We are in room 20, on the 2nd floor of the Central Museum of the Armed Forces in Moscow. Pictured are the remains of the CIA's U2 spy plane, shot down on May 1, 1960 over Sverdlovsk (Yekaterinenburg) by S-75 Dvina surface-to-air missiles. Its pilot, Francis Gary Powers, far from swallowing the cyanide capsule that had been provided to him and not destroying the plane, preferred to parachute.
by Fausto Guidice
The missiles also shot down a Mig-19 which had chased the U2, Powers was first mistaken for a Soviet pilot, then the misunderstanding cleared up. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison and then traded in 1962 for William Fischer, a KGB spy who had remained silent as a grave under interrogation.