1978 in the Soviet Union

The following lists events that happened during 1978 in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

Incumbents

14 April – 1978 Georgian demonstrations
20 April – The Soviet Air Force shoots down Korean Air Lines Flight 902, a civilian airliner That flew into Soviet airspace.
25 April – 18th Komsomol Congress
May

21 June – 1978 Iranian Chinook shootdown: 2 Boeing CH-47 Chinook belonging to the Imperial Iranian Armed Forces strayed into Soviet airspace over the Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic during a training mission, resulting in the Shootdown of both aircraft by the Soviet Air Forces.
July

28 September – one of the last Forest Brother guerilla movement fighter August Sabbe was discovered and killed in Estonia.
October

25 January – Volodymyr Zelenskyy, President of Ukraine since 2019
Deaths
January 2 — Boris Chernousov, 10th Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Russian SFSR
January 18 — Ivan Dzerzhinsky, composer
February 17 — Artemiy Artsikhovsky, archaeologist and historian
February 19 — Mikhail Zakharov, navy officer
April 4 — Semyon Kirlian, Russian inventor
April 28 — Roman Karmen, film director, war cinematographer, documentary filmmaker, journalist, screenwriter, pedagogue and publicist
May 1 — Aram Khachaturian, composer and conductor
May 25 — Artur Vader, 8th Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Estonian SSR
May 26 — Tamara Karsavina, ballerina
June 24 — Mstislav Keldysh, mathematician
July 17 — Fyodor Kulakov, statesman
July 22 — Mikhail Pervukhin, statesman
July 31 — Prince Rostislav Alexandrovich of Russia
September 5 — Nikodim Rotov, Metropolitan of Leningrad and Novgorod
September 27 — Sergei Aslamazyan, composer
September 28 – August Sabbe, Estonian anti-communist of the Forest Brother
October 18 — Ramón Mercader, Spanish communist and NKVD agent
October 21 — Anastas Mikoyan, statesman
October 23 — Prince Roman Petrovich of Russia
December 18 — Lev Uspensky, writer and philologist
December 30 — Mark Naimark, mathematician