Red Square's 1987 Invader Back on Radar

Mathias Rust, who stunned the world as a teenager when he landed his Cessna plane in Moscow's Red Square, has re-emerged 20 years later to reveal his regrets about his peace mission.

Mr Rust, now 39, penetrated the Soviet Union's air defenses on May 27 1987, to deliver a message of peace to Moscow. "I was naive, I really should not have done it," he said in an interview. "It caused me so much hardship."

The West German's journey had started in Helsinki. He turned off his communications equipment and headed east. "The whole flight I was in a trance," he told the Washington Post. "It was like an out-of-body experience ... I remember flying over a beach in Estonia, and I said to myself, "'I'm in the Soviet Union now.'"

After circling Red Square three times, and having been mistaken for a flock of geese by the national air defense system, the amateur pilot circled the walls of the Kremlin and landed in front of St Basil's Cathedral. "It was like being reborn," he recalled. "It was unreal. I just cannot find words to explain."

He spent an hour chatting to people before the KGB came to arrest him. He was sentenced to four years in a labour camp, but was released after 14 months.

Mr Rust, who has just divorced his second wife, has led a chequered life. In 1989 he stabbed a nurse who rejected his advances and was sentenced to two and a half years in prison. Six years ago he was fined for stealing a jumper from a Hamburg department store and he has since been found guilty on fraud charges and for refusing to pay a furniture bill. Mr Rust said he put his difficult life down to psychological problems caused by his imprisonment.

When his attempts to establish himself as a freelance negotiator in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict came to nothing, he decided to become a poker player and investor, based mainly in Estonia.

"I wanted to do something substantial that secured me financially," he told the Moscow Times. He said he once walked away from one sitting with $1m in winnings - "but I have also lost a lot".

Mr Rust now divides his time between Hamburg and Tallinn.

"When I look back, I am of two minds about what I did," he said of his Red Square adventure.

"I caused myself a lot of problems, but it was my destiny, and you have to live your destiny."