Andrei Antonovich Grechko (Russian: Андре́й Анто́нович Гре́чко; Ukrainian: Андрій Антонович Гречко; 17 October [O.S. 4 October] 1903 – 26 April 1976) was a Soviet military commander and Marshal of the Soviet Union during the Cold War. He served as the Soviet minister of defence from 1967 to 1976.

Born to a Ukrainian peasant family near Rostov-on-Don, Grechko served in the Red Army cavalry during the Russian Civil War. After graduating from the Frunze Military Academy, he took part in the Soviet invasion of Poland in 1939. Grechko was a fresh graduate of the Voroshilov Military Academy when Axis forces invaded the Soviet Union. He held a succession of cavalry and army commands afterwards and saw action in the Caucasus, Ukraine and Central Europe.

After the war, Grechko commanded the Kiev Military District. In 1953, he was appointed commander-in-chief of Soviet Forces in East Germany, and led the suppression of the East German uprising. In 1955, he was named a Marshal of the Soviet Union. In 1957, he became commander-in-chief of the Soviet Ground Forces, and three years later he also became the commander of the Warsaw Pact forces. In 1967, Grechko was appointed Minister of Defence, and oversaw the subsequent Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia and violent border clashes with China. He helped modernize the Soviet Army and was responsible for continuing the Soviet hegemony over Eastern Europe. An ideological hardliner, he was a defender of the first strike nuclear strategy, and only reluctantly supported Leonid Brezhnev's détente with the United States and the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT). Grechko died in 1976 at the age of 72.

Grechko was the thirteenth child born to a family of Ukrainian peasants on 17 October 1903, at a small town near Rostov-on-Don.

He joined the Red Army in 1919, where he was a part of the 1st Cavalry Army. During the war, he fought in the Caucasian Front and Southern Front, where he fought in battles against the White Army troops of Generals Anton Denikin and Pyotr Wrangel, and detachments of Ataman Nestor Makhno, and the elimination of political and criminal banditry.

From September 1921 to July 1922, he served in a separate battalion of OSNAZ in Taganrog. He studied at the Crimean Cavalry courses Named After the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, in which he graduated in August 1923. After graduation, he was sent to study at the Taganrog Cavalry School of the North Caucasian Military District and in August 1924, he was transferred to the North Caucasian Mountain Nationalities Cavalry School in Krasnodar. During his studies, he was a foreman of a squadron and from 1925 to 1926, he participated in military operations against gang formations in Chechnya and Dagestan. He graduated in 1926 and became a member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

From September 1926 to April 1932, he served in the 61st Cavalry Regiment of the 1st Separate Cavalry Brigade at the Moscow Military District, and platoon and machine-gun squadron commander.

Grechko graduated from the Military Academy of the Red Army named after M. V. Frunze in 1936. After graduation, he served in the Special Red Banner Cavalry Division named after I.V. Stalin of the Moscow Military District and later transferred to the Belarusian Special Military District, where he served as assistant chief and chief of the 1st (operational) part of the division headquarters and commander of the 62nd Cavalry Regiment. From May 1938 to October 1938, he served as assistant chief of staff of the division.