Colonel Antonin Schavelev (b. 2455) is a high-ranking officer in the Spartan People's Army notorious among Core Systems military personnel as the mastermind of the ground defense scheme that stymied the Republic Marines at the Battle of Kal'Dassa in June of 2490. The scheme relied heavily on activating 'civil defense' units among the citizenry of the moon of Kal'Dassa in Brahmaputra System, Manticore Sector, allowing his regular troopers to use the civilian buildings as fortifications without breaking the letter of the rules-of-engagement inherited from the Terran Stellar League.
Despite this technically legal use of civilian structures as firebases in the heavy urban terrain of Kal'Dassa, Schavelev was reviled by Core Systems media and nongovernmental agencies for the impossibility of fighting Spartan soldiers without harming Spartan civilians - a distinction that the Spartan Brigade did not themselves make for their citizens. The hatred for Schavelev, though, was less than that saved for the Republic armed forces for their seemingly indiscriminate use of force in the city. The Navy was especially held responsible for its heavy reliance on Hotspur squadron bombing runs to take out hard targets in the city, a decision which resulted in multiple arrests, prison terms and discharge papers for fighter pilots involved in the operation.
Schavelev himself was nearly captured in the operation, but in the midst of the CSRMC Force Recon's operation to capture them, they were set upon by a wave of Spartan civil defense troopers - who, while blocking the battle-armored troopers' progress, were promptly fired at and through by indiscriminate plasma cannon fire from Schavelev's guard troopers. A failure in coordinating ground-to-space defense allowed him to slip through the containment zone laid by the Republic Navy and aboard a Spartan Attican-class frigate that then left the battle zone.
