In 1988, Lebed became the commander of the 106th Guards Airborne Division. He and his troops took part in the suppression of uprisings throughout the Soviet Caucasus, in Georgia (1989) and Azerbaijan (1990), in which he refused to use brutality to put down the protestors. By 1991, Lebed held the rank of major general and became second in command of the Airborne Troops. During the 1991 coup d'état attempt by Soviet hardliners against the new Russian government, he gained fame by refusing to follow orders to lead his forces against Boris Yeltsin at the Russian White House, contributing to the coup's collapse. It was also during that time that Lebed became a rival of General Pavel Grachev, Airborne Troops commander and future Russian Minister of Defense, due to what Lebed viewed to be his misguided military reforms. Grachev would thus become his main rival. It was reportedly because of Grachev that Lebed found himself deployed to Moldova in 1992, as commander of the 14th Guards Army. There, in the conflict between Russian and Romanian factions, he intervened and used his position to broker a peace agreement, also providing protection to ethnic Russians. Despite this, Lebed remained hostile to the separatist leadership, which he perceived as corrupt and stated that he was "sick and tired of guarding the sleep and safety of crooks." Nonetheless, he remained against President Boris Yeltsin's decision to withdraw most of the 14th Army from Moldova, as he feared it would bring back chaos to the region.