Mironov Andrey Anatolyevich, born in 1975, a native of the city of Opochka. Russian. Before the army, he worked in a limited liability partnership "1000 little things" in Opochka as a handyman. Drafted into the army on December 14, 1993 by the Opochetsky United District Military Commissariat. He took part in the hostilities in Chechnya, being the deputy platoon commander in military unit 67636 129 mr. Lance Sergeant. He died on January 3, 1995. He was buried in the town of Opochka at the Maslovsky cemetery. An obelisk is installed on the grave. In the meantime, there is no need to worry about it. ”
Everyone with whom I managed to meet and talk about Andrei, involuntarily stumbled over the word "was". And Olga Nikolaeva, his classmate, was able to express in one phrase the thoughts of all of Andrey's relatives, friends and acquaintances: "Such people should not die!"
In the photo of the 1992 graduates of school number 4, Andrei immediately attracts attention - a very nice guy. He was laconic and very restrained, but somehow attracted people to him. He knew how to be friends and appreciated true friendship. He drew well. He knew how to cook and, not expecting a holiday, he could please the parents who came from work with delicious pastries. By nature, clean, neat, always smart, helpful, respectful, cheerful - this is how the teachers, classmates, everyone who knew him remembered Andrey.
There were fewer boys in the class than girls, so with a guy like Andrei Mironov, the girls considered it an honor to sit at the same desk. In the 8th and 9th grades, Olga Nikolaeva was awarded this honor.
I'm really lucky, she says. - Many were not indifferent to Andrey. I was not in love with him, but I liked him very much. Sometimes he simply amazed with his accuracy. The suit and shirt were perfectly ironed, but like everyone else, he didn’t keep pace, and was just as naughty. In life, he would never throw a textbook on the desk, or throw a notebook. And my mother always set him up for me. On the other hand, he is an athlete, very well-read, and that also attracted me. And in class we used to be in "tic-tac-toe"
were playing. Although he is the only son of his parents, he is a mama's
i was not a son. Once on the cover of my diary Andrey carved my name with a razor blade. I felt sorry for the cover, I had to throw it away. And I saved the letters and pasted them into the album. Classmates often compared Andrey with the actor A. Mironov, and, probably, not only because of the name, but because there was a certain artistry in him ...
Valentina Vasilievna Markova, class teacher of Andrey:
You feel a terrible injustice when your yesterday's disciples pass away ... How do you remember Andrew? Always collected and extremely tidy. He was very respectful of his parents, especially his mother. In relation to girls, he was always on top. He did not allow himself to be vulgar. It was natural for him to let the girl through the door first. He was not a leader, but he enjoyed the well-deserved respect of his classmates. I always had my own opinion. Sometimes little things remain in the memory. I remember how the guys in the 7th grade were preparing a play for the New Year. Andrey played Vodyanoy. He did great. As now before my eyes ...
Victor Valentinovich Aleksandrov, Andrey's coach at the sports school:
In terms of sports, Andrei grew up before my eyes. And as a person I got to know him pretty well in four years. Respectful, helpful, fair. He was distinguished by the ability to work independently, enviable perseverance. He was engaged in athletics in the training group. He had the third adult category. We traveled a lot in those years. More than fifty starts a year took place. It was necessary to combine training, study, competition. Only concentration, endurance and a clear daily routine allowed me to achieve good results. There was no time to relax. In the morning, training began early. After school hours, two more hours of training. Such loads strengthened not only physically, but also morally.
The group was very strong: multiple champions of the region, prize-winners of various competitions. There was someone to look up to and someone to reach for. Andrey also became a prize-winner of regional competitions and match meetings of cities several times Soviet Union... I often compare today's boys with those, and the comparison, believe me, is not in favor of the current ones. Times are changing, people are changing, but it is a pity that due to money problems traditions are lost, ideals are erased, and there is no longer the former enthusiasm when really "one for all and all for one" ...
Boys grow up, choose their own life path... And this choice is sometimes given, oh, how difficult it is. Few could have imagined that Andrei Mironov would enter the pedagogical institute, and even physics and mathematics. According to the class teacher, in high school he gave preference to the humanities. Friends gathered in all directions: military schools, polytechnic and pedagogical institutes... Andrei, it would seem, was determined, but soon realized that pedagogy is not his vocation. I returned home, worked ... And then the army ...
What is left for a mother when she loses her only son? As it is precisely stated in the verses of Alexandra Frolova:
What is left of the mother from her son?
On the table is a boyish portrait
Physics lectures, bus,
A cheap moped bought.
A strict tie, a fashionable shirt.
Since childhood, he was a tasteful guy.
Yes, there is a line of government paper.
Which he presented.
It seems that this is said about Andrei. But the last lines do not correspond to the truth, because the parents did not receive a funeral for their son. The result of a long and painful search for the truth was a short letter from the unit commander, consisting of routine phrases appropriate to the situation, a more detailed letter from the political officer and explanatory notes from Andrey's colleagues who participated in the identification. Several versions of the death were put forward, and parents still do not know what to believe. Not a single personal thing of Andrey was brought to his grief-stricken parents. Andrey was awarded the medal "For Distinction", as is known from the above sources. A. Mironov was awarded the Order of Courage posthumously.
From the description of the battle: "At 20:45, the corps combat control center received information about the actions of the Eastern group:<...> rested against the rubble of reinforced concrete blocks and, having met strong resistance from the enemy, went over to a perimeter defense in the area of \u200b\u200bthe cinema "Rodina" ["Russia"]. Engineering equipment for parsing the rubble never came. The units of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, which were supposed to ensure the installation of checkpoints in the rear of the group, were also lost somewhere. And the units of the 104th Airborne Division, which were supposed to support the offensive of the 129th Regiment, if its actions were successful, remained in the same area. In the 129th regiment, 15 were killed and 55 wounded. 18 pieces of equipment were burned. "2
From the description of the battle: "The defensive battle lasted up to 2-3 hours [until 22: 00-23: 00]. From a nearby building, with an RPG shot, the militants hit the transmission of the tank of the 1st tank company in the RSA (adjustable nozzle apparatus), the tank did not could move and was shot from another tank during the retreat, in the morning of January 1. Subdivisions of the 129th Guards Motorized Rifle Regiment and the 133rd Guards Separate Tank Battalion repelled the attacks with fire from the spot. The enemy was firing sniper fire. "
According to official data (perhaps we are talking about Khankala): "During the hostilities on the outskirts of the city of Grozny, personnel of 129 infantry divisions picked up wounded Russian men and women. According to them, they, along with other civilians, were They were placed in front of the Chechen militants and ordered to run towards the positions of the Russian troops. The militants walked behind them. Those who refused to obey were shot in soft tissues so that they could slowly but move forward. Those who could not walk - they shot. In those cases when it was necessary to hold the line, the militants interrupted the tendons of the civilians' legs, so that people could not budge. The wounded were sent to the hospital. "
At the scene
Senior lieutenant of one of the reconnaissance units of the 98th Airborne Division (or 45th Special Forces of the Airborne Forces): "Along the front [near the Rossiya cinema], to the right of a hundred meters, there was a Chechen pillbox - like a brick house [transformer booth?], From which continuous fire from a large-caliber machine gun was conducted It was impossible to raise our head. Our column entered chaotically. Therefore, even in our own household it was extremely difficult to immediately find an unused grenade launcher or flamethrower. I set this task. Found it. And periodically fired from grenade launchers at this Chechen bunker. Kneel or aim lying down it was very dangerous. After all, fire was fired at us not only from the pillbox, but also from those burnt-out armored personnel carriers and infantry fighting vehicles. We were deprived of the opportunity to conduct aimed fire. We had to get out of hiding places, crawl to small hills, so that, fleeing after them, at least somehow: lying down or firing from the side, destroy the Chechen machine gunner, who was entrenched in the pillbox, or rather in the dugout - very, very small, to get into which was extremely difficult. "5
Senior lieutenant of one of the reconnaissance units of the 98th Airborne Division (or 45th Special Forces of the Airborne Forces): "My sergeant - a scout crawled up. He asked me for permission to fire a grenade launcher, knelt down, under the fire of the Chechens, he aimed a grenade launcher at the target and, handsome, hit exactly the embrasure of the bunker I smashed it like a house of cards. At that time from the Chechen positions, from the burned-out armored personnel carriers and infantry fighting vehicles, about twenty-twenty-five militants in camouflage white coats were walking towards us. They went, like the Germans, into a psychic attack. They were fifty meters away from us. When the pillbox was destroyed, they found themselves in an open field without cover. We concentrated the fire only on them. Eighty percent of the attacking Chechens were destroyed. Left, who had time ... Bright, red flashes, torn robes, shouts, screams .. ...
Darkness fell. On New Year's Eve, when they remembered about it, tankers crawled up to us, brought alcohol. Spilled. They tell. Chechens got in touch with them. On their tankist wave they said: "Well, Ivan, mark the New Year for ten minutes. And then on a new one ..." Ten minutes to twelve on December 31, 1994, until five minutes on January 1, 1995 there was a respite. They knocked over a little bit of alcohol. After that, a massive mortar shelling began. You can hide from another type of weapon. From falling mines - no. All that remained was to rely on fate.
The shelling lasted two hours [until 02:00]. Completely demoralized, we still held our ground. The Chechens could not get through to us, even showered with mines. We put all the equipment on direct fire. And she shot in directions, no targets. Two hours of such a confrontation! The mortars ceased fire. Shootings started. Apparently, there was a regrouping of the Chechen forces and means. Our and Chechen snipers began to work. So until the morning. "6
Aviation actions
From the description of the battle: "On the morning of January 1, 1995, the" Vostok "group planned to conduct reconnaissance and continue the combat mission to enter the area of \u200b\u200bMinutka Square, but at 08:20 - 08:30 am RPK ZSU-23-4M Shilka spotted flying at low altitude a pair of aircraft (presumably Su-24). The interrogator of the "friend or foe" identification system on the ZSU-25-4M identified two aircraft as his own. It was decided not to open fire to engage air targets. People on the ground heard the sound of jet engines in the sky, the planes themselves were not visible due to cloudy weather and low, continuous clouds. "7
On January 1, "at 8:30 am, the Minister of Defense (according to other sources, General Kvashnin) ordered the commander of this group, General Nikolai Staskov, to withdraw to the starting area. And forty-five minutes later [approximately 09:15], the units of this group were struck by the aviation of the federal forces. Two Su-25 attack aircraft fired their entire stock of unguided rockets as the fighters took their places in the vehicles. About fifty people were killed and wounded. Most of them were officers of the 129th regiment, who were in charge of boarding the vehicles.<...> During the air raid on the Eastern grouping, the head of the group's intelligence, Colonel Vladimir Selivanov, was also killed.
Sergei Tolkonnikov, sergeant 1 rv 129 msp, describes the shelling in the story "New Year": "Unexpectedly (a stupid word, it is always unexpected, even if you wait) several explosions are heard in a row, explosions of such force that a multi-ton armored personnel carrier jumps like a ball. nine
From the description of the battle: “After the aircraft flew along the perimeter of the area where the regiment and the tank battalion were located, fragmentation bombs began to explode (presumably small cargo containers or single-use cluster bombs were used).
According to the recollections of the commander of the 1st tank company, Captain S. Kachkovsky, the personnel rushed to hide under tanks and armored personnel carriers. Commander of the 133rd Guards Separate Tank Battalion, Lieutenant Colonel I. Turchenyuk, Chief of Staff of the Battalion Captain S. Kurnosenko, Commander of the 2nd Tank Company Lieutenant S. Kisel and Deputy Chief of Staff of the 129th Guards Motorized Rifle Regiment Major A. [Alexander Viktorovich10] Semerenko stood opposite cinema "Russia" when bombs went off next to them. The bombs were stuffed with destructive fragmentation elements, reminiscent of 5-7 mm wire, cut into pieces of 5-7 mm long. For Lieutenant Colonel I. Turchenyuk, one splinter hit the PM pistol grip in the breast pocket of the tank overalls opposite the heart, turning it around, entered the chest along the rib, the second splinter hit the shin. Captain S. Kurnosenko was killed by both hips (he died of blood loss in the regiment's first-aid post). Lieutenant S. Kisel received two splinters in the scalp at the top of his head, and another splinter hit the pistol in his breast pocket and remained in the wallet in the adjacent pocket. The deputy chief of staff of the 129th Guards Motorized Rifle Regiment, Major Semerenko, received a penetrating head wound and died on the spot. There, as a result of this raid, he received a shrapnel wound in the head and the commander of a tank platoon of the 1st tank company, Lieutenant D. Goryunov, was killed. In total, about 25-50 people died at that moment and many were injured. After the raid, all onboard vehicles and armored personnel carriers were loaded with dead and wounded. "11
Commander of the Vostok group, Major General Nikolai Viktorovich Staskov: "In the conditions of strong cloudiness, visibility was only 50-70 meters - they bombed on unobserved targets, hit our group as well. In war, of course, everything happens, but when they die from their ... "12
According to the Commander of the Internal Troops, Colonel-General Anatoly Sergeevich Kulikov, “aviation destroyed the vanguard of five vehicles of the 104th Airborne Division.” 13 Unfortunately, there is no other information about this.
Departure from the city
From the description of the battle: “At about 9 o'clock an order was received from the commander of the 129th Guards Motorized Rifle Regiment - in view of the danger of a second massive air raid, to urgently leave Grozny for the Khankala airfield.
The exit from the city was carried out chaotically and looked more like an escape. The last to go and cover the retreat was the 3rd tank company with the 3rd motorized rifle company of the 1st motorized rifle battalion. When leaving the city, the columns were fired upon from RPGs and small arms. The tanks were towing faulty BTR-70s. "14
Participant of the assault Andrei: "The aviation struck at us, that is, there was panic, especially among the infantry there was a strong panic. Only special forces took their dead and wounded ... they only took them - scouts. They took their dead, wounded, the infantry abandoned their guys<...> When we withdrew with the tankers of the 126th regiment, on the road I simply jumped off and collected the dead - soldiers, officers with a broken head. A soldier with such frightened eyes sits straight, as from the movie "Iron Stream": "Where is my company?" They do not know what, where, where. Give him a kick on the tank ... come on, load one, the second, drive on - still lie! They also uploaded it. Those. not a tank, but some kind of corpse carrier. The APC is standing, there is also a whole squad, they do not know what to do. The wheels of the BTR-70 are punctured. Hooked on him. Then we went - still the same APC. Also killed, wounded, also hooked up again. Those. turned out ... The T-80 tank is a powerful thing - like a paravozik it pulled two armored personnel carriers, 15 corpses and 30 wounded people. One tank was dragging. "15
From the description of the battle: "The deputy commander of the 3rd tank company for armaments, who was on the armor of the tank, was mortally wounded in the head by a sniper on the bridge over the railway tracks. T-80BV (board # 542) stalled during the movement of the convoy; succeeded, the crew, being wounded, left the car (the tank was captured by the militants, no information on further destiny there was no car). The commander of tank # 561, Sergeant Vereshchagin, when leaving Grozny, in the morning of January 1, 1995, despite heavy fire, returned and, having hooked it on, dragged the stalled tank of the 1st tank company to Khankala, which ran out of fuel (board # 520 or No. 521). "16
Senior lieutenant of one of the intelligence units of the 98th Airborne Division (or 45th Special Forces of the Airborne Forces): "We left Grozny again in a column. We walked like a snake. I don't know where, what the command was. Nobody set a task. We just circled around Grozny. We delivered strikes - There, there. And they fired at us. The column acted as if by separate flashes. The column could shoot at some passenger car traveling three hundred meters from us. By the way, no one could get into this car - people were so overworked.
And so the column began to roll up, to leave. The infantry came out lumpy, chaotic. On this day, we paratroopers did not receive any task. But I understood that no one but us would cover the motorized riflemen. Everyone else was simply unable to. Some of my people were loading, others were firing in the directions - covering the retreat. We went out last.
When they left the city and again passed this damned bridge, the column stood up. My submachine gun is jammed from the dirt accumulated in the magazines with cartridges. And then the voice: "Take mine." I lowered my eyes into the open hatch of the armored vehicle - there was a seriously wounded warrant officer, my friend. He handed me a machine gun as best he could. I took it and lowered mine inside the hatch. Another shelling of our units began from several directions. We sat, pressed against the armor, shooting back as best we could ...
The bleeding warrant officer loaded empty magazines with cartridges and handed them to me. I gave orders, I shot. The ensign remained in the ranks. He turned white from a great loss of blood, but still equipped the shops and kept whispering: "We will go out, we will go out anyway" ... At that moment, I did not want to die so much. It seemed that a few hundred meters more, and we would break out of this fiery cauldron, but the column stood like a long, large target, which was shredded to pieces by bullets and shells of Chechen guns. "17
In Khankala
From the description of the battle: "The first two BTR-60s left the Khankala airfield at 11:30 (one of them had a wounded Lieutenant Colonel I. Turchenyuk), then the 1st and 2nd tank companies of the 133rd Guards Separate Tank Battalion and Unit 129 of the 1st Guards Motorized Rifle Regiment. The armored personnel carriers and vehicles were overwhelmed by the wounded.About 12:30 the trailing column left. On the armor of one BTR-70, with punctured wheels, towed by the T-80 tank of the 1st tank company, was unconscious, but still living wounded captain S. Kurnosenko. On BMP-1KSH he was immediately transported to the regiment's first-aid post, but he died without regaining consciousness from pain shock and blood loss. "
According to a resident of Grozny from st. Tukhachevsky, the wounded and killed were "along the entire length of Tukhachevsky Street, and especially a lot at the Yubileiny store, at the formerly destroyed cinema" Russia ", and most of all on the field where the Statistical School, Research Institute, Trampark was located."
Senior lieutenant of one of the intelligence units of the 98th Airborne Division (or 45th Special Forces of the Airborne Forces): "We left on January 1st. There was some chaotic gathering of desperate people. There was no such thing for everyone to gather at the gathering place. We walked, wandered. Then all the same We set a task, began to collect the wounded, and quickly set up a field hospital.
Before my eyes, some kind of beteer escaped from the encirclement. He just broke free and rushed towards our column. No identification marks. Without anything. He was shot by our tankers point-blank. Somewhere from a hundred, one hundred and fifty meters. Ours were shot. Apart. Three tanks smashed the armored vehicle.
There were so many corpses and wounded that the doctors of the deployed field hospital [MOSN # 660] had neither the strength nor the time for organ-preserving actions! "
From the description of the battle: “A request for the emergency removal of the wounded by helicopter was refused. Near the regiment's first-aid post, a column with the dead and wounded was hastily formed in Tolstoy-Yurt, where the 660th MOSN (special medical detachment) was deployed. The dead were loaded on stretchers. into the car bodies in stacks of three or four rows. ”After the column left, there were no more stretchers left in the regiment.
After leaving the city, the subdivisions carried out an inspection of the personnel, the resupply of the tank crews with the crews of damaged vehicles, refueling, loading of the BP, evacuation and restoration of tanks blown up by mines (the vehicle of the 2nd company was restored and transferred to the 1st tank company). " 21
From the description of the battle: "On January 2, 1995, the 3rd tank company of the 133rd Guards Separate Tank Battalion in the morning moved to the airfield area in Khankala to accompany a detachment of paratroopers to Grozny to collect the wounded and dead. A reconnaissance was carried out in a battle in the suburb of Grozny, two Individuals, who had lagged behind their columns on January 1. They told that the militants were finishing off the wounded, one paratrooper said that he saw how the wounded were finished off by a woman in a camouflage cloak. The cannonade of the battle in the northern direction was clearly heard in the city. . "22
Losses
From the description of the battle: "During the day of battles in the city, the 133rd Guards Separate Tank Battalion irrevocably lost 3 T-80BBs (1st Tank Company - boards # 515, 516, 3rd Tank Company, board # 551)." 23
From the description of the battle: "The losses of the 133rd Guards Separate Tank Battalion in the New Year assault on Grozny amounted to: five tanks irrevocably (on January 1, 1995, from the 2nd tank company, boards No. 541 and 542 were lost, the numbers and affiliation of three other vehicles are unknown) , five dead (including four officers), 14 wounded (including five officers and three warrant officers).
The losses of the 129th Guards Motorized Rifle Regiment - about 25-35 people killed and 50 wounded. "24
MOSN # 660 out of 129 MSE enrolled 128 people.25
From the description of the battle: "During the battles from December 31 to January 1, the Vostok group lost about 200 people and half of the available armored vehicles. The staffing of the 133rd Guards Separate Tank Battalion as of January 3, 1995 was 85% (including 76% of officers ), 43% serviceable tanks, a similar result was observed in the 129th Guards Motorized Rifle Regiment. The units were recognized as limited combat readiness. "26
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1 Belogrud V. Tanks in the battles for Grozny. Part 1 // Front-line illustration. 2007. No. 9. P. 37.
2 Antipov A. Lev Rokhlin. The life and death of a general. M., 1998.S. 147.
3 Belogrud V. Tanks in the battles for Grozny. Part 1 // Front-line illustration. 2007. No. 9. P. 37.
4 Criminal mode. Chechnya, 1991-95 M., 1995.S. 72.
5 Noskov V. Confession of an officer // Stories about the Chechen war. M., 2004.S. 149-150. (http://www.sibogni.ru/archive/9/150/)
6 Noskov V. Confession of an officer // Stories about the Chechen war. M., 2004.S. 151-152. (http://www.sibogni.ru/archive/9/150/)
7 Belogrud V. Tanks in the battles for Grozny. Part 1 // Front-line illustration. 2007. No. 9. S. 45-46.
8 Antipov A. Lev Rokhlin. The life and death of a general. M., 1998.S. 151-152.
9 Tolkonnikov S. New Year. (http://artofwar.ru/t/tolkonnikow_s_w/text_0080-3.shtml)
10 The site "Heroes of the Country". Semerenko Alexander Viktorovich. (http://www.warheroes.ru/hero/hero.asp?Hero_id\u003d8360)
11 Belogrud V. Tanks in the battles for Grozny. Part 1 // Front-line illustration. 2007. No. 9. S. 46-47.
12 Staskov N. There was a deception // Newspaper. 2004.13 December. (http://www.gzt.ru/world/2004/12/13/112333.html)
13 Kulikov A. Heavy stars. M., 2002.S. 275. (http://1993.sovnarkom.ru/KNIGI/KULIKOV/KASK-7.htm)
14 Belogrud V. Tanks in the battles for Grozny. Part 1 // Front-line illustration. 2007. No. 9. P. 47.
15 Beyond the War. 3 series.
16 Belogrud V. Tanks in the battles for Grozny. Part 1 // Front-line illustration. 2007. No. 9. S. 47-48.
17 Noskov V. Confession of an officer // Stories about the Chechen war. M., 2004.S. 152-154. (http://www.sibogni.ru/archive/9/150/)
18 Belogrud V. Tanks in the battles for Grozny. Part 1 // Front-line illustration. 2007. No. 9. S. 48.
19 Kondratyev Yu. Letter from my mother // Yu.M. Kondratyev. (http://conrad2001.narod.ru/russian/moms_letter.htm)
20 Noskov V. Confession of an officer // Stories about the Chechen war. M., 2004.S. 152-154. (http://www.sibogni.ru/archive/9/150/)
21 Belogrud V. Tanks in the battles for Grozny. Part 1 // Front-line illustration. 2007. No. 9. S. 48.
22 Belogrud V. Tanks in the battles for Grozny. Part 1 // Front-line illustration. 2007. No. 9. S. 48.
23 Belogrud V. Tanks in the battles for Grozny. Part 1 // Front-line illustration. 2007. No. 9. P. 37.
24 Belogrud V. Tanks in the battles for Grozny. Part 1 // Front-line illustration. 2007. No. 9. S. 48.
25 Safonov D. War Tale // Lenizdat.ru. 2005.28 November. (http://www.lenizdat.ru/cgi-bin/redir?l\u003dru&b\u003d1&i\u003d1035741)
26 Belogrud V. Tanks in the battles for Grozny. Part 1 // Front-line illustration. 2007. No. 9. P. 50.
Now it is already quite obvious that the first Chechen war (along with the NATO aggression against Yugoslavia) is one of the largest military-political events late twentieth century. At the turn of the third millennium, this hotbed of separatism and banditry, which had not been completely extinguished, caused the fire of a new, second Chechen war, which is still smoldering. And if in 1994-1996. Russia lost in hostilities more than 5.5 thousand killed, up to 52 thousand wounded and about 3 thousand missing of its best sons from the United Group of Federal Forces, today in five years, starting from August 1999, these losses are practically have caught up and, unfortunately, continue to grow.
And nevertheless, recently, as a result of measures taken by the military-political leadership of Russia, a peaceful life is gradually improving in Chechnya. The republic is slowly but surely emerging from the protracted crisis. This means that the work started by Russian servicemen in the first Chechen war is bearing fruit ...
FOUR STAGES OF THE RUSSIAN "STORM"
Since the summer of 1994, every day more and more supporters of the policy of armed overthrow of the illegitimate regime of Chechen President Dzhokhar Dudayev have been growing in the country's government circles. Becoming the head of the republic, this ambitious former commander of a heavy bomber aviation division, Major General of the Soviet Army reserves, under pressure from local separatist-minded elements in violation of the Russian Constitution, declared the state sovereignty of Chechnya (Ichkeria), in fact implementing the policy of its secession from the Russian Federation.
On November 29, the now historic meeting of the Security Council of the Russian Federation took place, at which the decision was finally made to start military operations.
The very next day after the meeting of the Security Council, the country's military machine began to move. On November 30, 1994, President Boris Yeltsin signed Decree # 2137c "On Measures to Restore Constitutional Legality and Law and Order on the Territory of the Chechen Republic." In accordance with this document, the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, Internal Troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, FGC (from April 3, 1995 - Federal Security Service - FSB. - Auth.) Were assigned tasks - to stabilize the situation, disarm illegal armed groups (IAF) and restore legality and legal order in accordance with the legislative acts of the Russian Federation.
At the same time, the General Staff was developing an action plan for the disarmament of illegal armed groups. The force operation was planned in four stages and was to be completed in three weeks.
The first stage (7 days, from November 29 to December 6) is to create a joint grouping of forces and means of the Ministry of Defense and Internal troops (VV) of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and by December 5 to occupy the initial areas for actions in three directions: Mozdok, Vladikavkaz and Kizlyar. Front-line aviation 4th air army and combat helicopters to relocate to field airfields by December 1. Completely block the airspace over Chechnya. Alert electronic warfare equipment.
The second stage (3 days, from 7 to 9 December) is to advance to Grozny under the cover of front-line and army aviation along six routes and blockade the city. Create two blocking rings:
external - along the administrative border of the republic and internal - around Grozny. Open both rings in the south for the exit of the civilian population. Part of the troops of the united grouping should also block the bases of the militants outside Grozny and disarm them.
The internal troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs were entrusted with the protection of communications and routes for the advancement of military groups. FSK and the special forces of the Ministry of Internal Affairs were entrusted with the search, identification and detention of leading officials Dudayev's regime, capable of leading armed uprisings and sabotage in the rear of active forces.
The border troops were ordered to set up 13 temporary border posts on the borders with Dagestan, Azerbaijan, Georgia, North Ossetia in order to prevent the penetration of illegal armed groups, the supply of weapons and ammunition. To organize border control and cover the Chechen border on the Chechen-Georgian section of the state border, create 5 border commandant's offices (on November 24, to help the border guards, the 429th motorized rifle regiment - MSD of the 19th Motorized Rifle Division - MSD of the 42nd Army Corps - ak).
The third stage (4 days, from 10 to 13 December) is to clear illegal armed groups from the forces of groups of forces operating from the north and south with a dividing line along the river. Sunzhe, the presidential palace, government buildings, television, radio and other important objects. Disarm illegal armed groups and confiscate military equipment.
The fourth stage (5-10 days, from 14 to 21 December) is to stabilize the situation and transfer areas of responsibility of the army to the Internal Troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, which were ordered to identify and seize weapons from illegal armed groups and the population throughout the republic.
The plan for the hostilities was developed mainly to intimidate the Chechens. The operation was supposed to be demonstrative.
On December 5, 1994, in Mozdok, Defense Minister Pavel Grachev approved the decision on the operation of the commander of the North Caucasus Military District, who at that time was in charge of the United Group of Forces. In a hurry, the name of the operation was never given.
The Grachevs were ordered to complete the creation of three groups from army units, Internal Troops and special forces by December 7. The readiness to move the troops was scheduled for 5:00 on December 11, 1994. But everything went smoothly only on paper, but in reality everything turned out differently.
On the eve of the introduction of federal troops into Chechnya on December 10 at 23.30, Colonel-General Mityukhin asked the Minister of Defense to postpone the start of the operation to 8.00 (December 11), arguing that one of the groups was not ready. As a result, the postponement of the advancement of units and subunits of the Russian army resulted in serious problems for them. Having clarified their main routes, the militants managed to block most of the roads from Ingushetia and Dagestan for a period from several hours to several days, gathering crowds of a hostile population in the most vulnerable places. Under the guise of protest pickets, old men, women and children from local villages blocked, surrounded and stopped the columns of the already understaffed, assembled from "pine forest", in some places did not even have a full ammunition load, had served their time of combat vehicles. Men with sharpened metal pins jumped out from behind human shields and pierced the wheels, cut off the pipes of gas lines and brakes with special hooks. Many places along the routes of the troops were mined. The militants, who were often in the crowd of blockers, even disarmed the soldiers and officers who did not have a clear order to use weapons and open fire to kill, and carried them home as hostages. The confused commanders did not have the slightest idea what to do and how to disarm illegal bandit formations.
The columns of federal troops approached Grozny in various directions only two weeks later. On the whole, it took them 16 days to advance and blockade the city (from December 11 to 26) instead of the 10 allotted for this. Already at the distant approaches to the Chechen capital, heavy battles with illegal armed groups began, sometimes turning into positional ones. As they further advanced, their intensity increased, as evidenced, for example, by the battle of the Pskov paratroopers with the militants near the village. October.
On the fourth day, while the formations and units of the United Group of Federal Forces, bypassing the Ingush and Chechen villages, stubbornly made their way to the designated line near Grozny, the government of the Russian Federation issued an appeal, recalling that on December 15, the term of the Decree of the President of Russia on amnesty expires to all members of illegal armed groups who voluntarily surrendered their weapons in the conflict zone. The next day, President Boris Yeltsin once again addressed the population of the republic.
The negotiation process did not work out, especially since the militants continued to carry out numerous attacks on federal troops all this time. In response, Russian ground attack aircraft began to strike at clusters of military equipment of illegal armed groups and military-strategic facilities of militants in the suburbs of the Chechen capital, including bridges across the river. Terek, airfield and settlement Khankala.
The decision to send troops to Grozny was made on December 26, 1994 at a meeting of the Russian Security Council, where Pavel Grachev and Sergei Stepashin reported on the situation in the republic. Prior to this, no specific plans had been developed to take the capital of Chechnya.
On the eve of the Security Council meeting, Grachev came to the conclusion that it was necessary to replace the head of the operation. In the conditions of open confrontation of the enemy, as emphasized in one of the documents of the General Staff, "the headquarters of the North Caucasus Military District and the commander personally were not ready to organize and plan military operations. The commander very poorly led his subordinates, did not hear their proposals, all his" instructions "turned into obscene swearing and swearing at their subordinates┘ Staffs worked in a nervous atmosphere, which was whipped up by the command, personally by Colonel General A. Mityukhin. "
On December 21, the Minister of Defense brought to Mozdok from Moscow the First Deputy Chief of the Main Operations Directorate of the General Staff, Lieutenant General Anatoly Kvashnin (later - Hero of Russia, General of the Army, Chief of the General Staff of the RF Armed Forces. - Auth.). Characteristically, but even on the plane, Grachev did not say a word about his future position as commander of the UGV instead of the dismissed General Mityukhin. The minister announced this only upon arrival at a meeting of the group's leadership.
On December 23, the State Duma adopted a statement demanding the immediate imposition of a moratorium on hostilities in Chechnya and the commencement of negotiations, as well as an appeal expressing condolences to the families and friends of the victims.
In a different capacity, the Chechen opposition became more active, during the hostilities went into the shadows (even on December 6, Grachev held a meeting with its leaders Avturkhanov, the former head of the Nadterechny district, Gantamirov, the former mayor of Grozny, and Khadzhiev, the former director general NPO "Grozneftekhim"). On December 26, 1994, the creation of a government for the national revival of Chechnya, headed by Salambek Khadzhiev, was announced, its readiness to discuss with Russia the issue of creating a confederation without demanding the withdrawal of troops. But, as everyone is well aware, the good intentions of this government, which wanted to restore the republic, unfortunately, were not destined to come true.
On December 27, Pavel Grachev returned from the capital, having the broadest authority to carry out the operation to storm Grozny - on December 31, enter Grozny and report to the president on the completion of the second stage of the operation by 12 o'clock in the morning.
The plan for the capture of the city provided for the actions of federal troops by groups from four directions.
The first - "Sever" under the command of Major General Pulikovsky (a little later - the commander of the 67th ak SKVO, since August 1996 - the commander of the UGV; in April 1996, under Yaryshmardy, Khattab's gang shot a military convoy, where his son died. Auth.). It includes: the combined detachment of the 131st Omsb Brigade, the 81st and 276th Motorized Rifle Regiments (MSR) - a total of 4,100 people, 80 tanks, 210 infantry fighting vehicles and 65 guns and mortars. The second - "North-East" under the command of the commander of the 8th Guards. ak of Lieutenant General Rokhlin, consisting of: 255th SMR, consolidated detachment of 33rd SMR and 68th separate reconnaissance battalion (orb) - only 2 thousand 200 people, 7 tanks, 125 infantry fighting vehicles, armored personnel carriers and 25 guns and mortars. The third group - "West" is commanded by the deputy commander of the 42nd Army Corps Major General Petruk. Subordinate to him: the consolidated detachment of the 693rd SMR, the consolidated PDP of the 76th Guards. Airborne Division, battalion of the 21st and battalion of the 56th Airborne Brigade - a total of 6 thousand people, 63 tanks, 160 BMPs, 50 BMDs and 75 guns and mortars. The fourth group - "East" is commanded by the deputy airborne commander for peacekeeping forces, Major General Staskov. Subordinate to him: the consolidated detachment of the 129th SMR, the consolidated PDP of the 104th Guards. Airborne Division and the combined battalion of the 98th Guards. Airborne Division - only 3 thousand people, 45 tanks, 70 BMDs and 35 guns and mortars. The total number of troops involved is 15,300 people, 195 tanks, over 500 infantry fighting vehicles, BMD and armored personnel carriers, 200 guns and mortars. Of these, more than 500 personnel, 50 tanks and 48 guns and mortars of the 131st Omsb Brigade and the 503rd SMRB were allocated to the reserve (thus, the ratio of the advancing and defending groupings was 1: 1, instead of 5 : 1. - Auth.).
Troops in cooperation with the special forces of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Federal Grid Company, advancing from the northern, western and eastern directions, were to capture the presidential palace, government buildings, and the railway station вок
As a result of blocking the city center, the Katayama area and the actions of troops in three converging directions, Dudaev's main grouping would allow a complete encirclement. The idea of \u200b\u200bthe plan was calculated for surprise. At the same time, troop losses are minimal. In addition, fire was excluded on residential and administrative buildings of the city. "December 31 is December 31," they calculated at the headquarters of the UGA. "In Moscow, in Grozny. Everyone will be preparing to celebrate the New Year." Grachev approved this plan.
But the Dudayevites were also preparing for the decisive battle. In Grozny, the last preparations for the active defense of the city were being completed, the detachments were re-equipped militia and newly arrived mercenaries, additional firing points of strong points on the defensive lines were equipped.
At the same time, Dudaev's regime also actively relied on the support of certain interested circles in Moscow, who supplied the President of Ichkeria with operational data on the intentions and plans of the Center and the command of the federal troops. The illegal armed group's agents worked regularly in Mozdok.
Unlike the militants, the federal troops were much less trained. There was practically no interaction between the hastily assembled units and subunits. This was a direct result of their enormous understaffing in peacetime. A way out was found by creating consolidated detachments and regiments, and subsequently involving the Marine Corps in the operation. One of the generals of the Russian army told the chairman of the State Duma commission Govorukhin about such a vicious principle of the formation of troops: "I do not know such a military unit as a consolidated regiment. I only know a consolidated orchestra. And that takes time for teamwork!"
The coefficient of technical readiness of the materiel was extremely low - in battles, outdated (2-3 overhaul) and depleted military equipment (helicopters, tanks, BMP, BMD, armored personnel carriers, communications equipment, etc.) were used.
As for the topographic maps for the commanding staff of the advancing subunits and units, they have truly become "the talk of the town." In the headquarters of the North Caucasus Military District, there was a minimum number of maps in Grozny. They were drawn up in 1972, and updated 14 years (?!) Before the OGV operation. Their planned renovation in 1991 was not carried out, as a result of which they are seriously outdated. Neither were badly needed plans for the most fortified buildings in the Chechen capital available.
In the days when federal troops in Chechnya, suffering the first losses in clashes with the Dudayevites and drowning in impenetrable mud mixed in wet snow, squeezed the ring around Grozny, the Russian political elite pompously prepared in Moscow for the New Year - 1995.
"DO NOT BELIEVE QUIET, DO NOT BE AFRAID QUICKLY"
Finally, on December 31, 1994, the UGV headquarters issued a combat order to the troops of the North, North-East, West, and Vostok groups to begin the operation to storm Grozny. According to some Russian generals, as Gennady Troshev writes in his memoirs, “the initiative for the“ festive ”New Year's assault belonged to people from the inner circle of the Minister of Defense, who allegedly wished to time the capture of the city on Pavel Sergeevich’s birthday. I don’t know how big is the truth here, but the fact that the operation was really prepared in a hurry, without a real assessment of the enemy's forces and means, is a fact. Even the name of the operation (once again. - Author) did not have time to come up with. "
The last morning of December 94th met Russian soldiers and officers with heavy snow clouds. At dawn, aviation was the first to storm the city from the airfields of Yeisk, Krymsk, Budennovsk, Mozdok and artillery. Following at 6:00, columns of federal troops entered Grozny from four sides. Dudaev's experienced fighters were in no hurry to open fire. “Don't trust the quiet, don't be afraid of the quick,” says a Chechen proverb. The militants, loyal to the tactics of the Afghan dushmans, allowed the "shuravi" (Russian - translation from Afg. - Auth.) To get deeper into the city quarters, which at that moment resembled a cocked trap ready to slam shut at any moment.
The first seemingly rapid "successes" made in the northern direction inspired the feds. While advancing in the zone assigned to them, two assault detachments of the "North" force grouping and one detachment of the "North-East" grouping had the task of blocking the northern part of the city center and the presidential palace from the north. By 1300 hours, the 1st Battalion of the Samara 81st Motorized Rifle Regiment occupied the railway station with practically no serious fire from the Chechens. By 15.00 the 2nd battalion of this regiment and the combined detachment of the 20th motorized rifle division blockaded the presidential palace, taking up positions several hundred meters away.
The motorized riflemen of the 276th regiment were less fortunate. While advancing to the northern outskirts of the city, his 1st battalion ran into the minefield of the Dudayevites. Having lost 7 BMP units, he was forced to retreat to the original area, where he began to restore combat capability. Another battalion of the 276th SME took under protection bridges across the river. An oil company on the eastern outskirts of the Rodina suburban state farm. And only with the onset of darkness, his positions were shelled by bandit formations.
The military columns of the North-East group, acting as they did when the troops entered Chechnya, by a roundabout maneuver and leaving aside the central streets fortified by the enemy, broke the resistance of the militants on their outer and middle defensive lines and by 14.00 reached the bridge across the river. Sunzhu, east of Ordzhonikidze Avenue. Before Dudayev's palace and the Council of Ministers building, there was only one block, where the buildings of the Institute of Oil and Gas were located. According to the commander of the grouping of forces, General Lev Rokhlin, only about 500 soldiers and officers acted in direct fire contact with the enemy.
The Vostok grouping of troops, led by General Staskov, failed to fulfill the assigned task. Its two assault squads had the task of advancing along railroad Gudermes - Grozny to Lenin Avenue and, without setting up checkpoints, go to the r. Sunzhe, capturing the bridges across it. Further, having united with the troops of the "North" and "West" groups, blockade the central region of Grozny in the mouth of the river. Sunzha from the east. But the vanguard of the group - the consolidated detachment of the 129th mechanized infantry division, according to General Anatoly Kvashnin, having entered the city and deeper 3-4 blocks, was stopped by blockages and targeted fire from small arms and grenade launchers. By the decision of the commander of the group, the direction of the further advance of the Leningrad motorized rifle was changed. But in the area of \u200b\u200bthe 2nd microdistrict, their detachment again ran into a well-equipped enemy stronghold and was blocked. During the night from December 31 to January 1, the regiment staunchly repulsed the attacks of the militants, inflicted significant losses on them, and then, by order of the UGV commander, withdrew to the previously occupied area.
The combined battalion of the 98th Ivanovo Guards Svirskaya Red Banner Airborne Division was blocked by militants in the area of \u200b\u200bMinutka Square. A real tragedy befell their "brothers-Tula" from the 104th Guards Red Banner Airborne Division. The five lead vehicles of her convoy at the entrance to the city due to the low training of the flight personnel and the lack of interaction were covered by their own aviation (according to some reports, as a result of an air strike by two Su-25 attack aircraft on January 1 at 9:15 am, about 50 people were killed and wounded. - Auth.).
As a result, practically until January 2, the Vostok force grouping did not support the actions of other groupings, which, according to Kvashnin, "significantly influenced" the unfavorable course of the operation's development.
The troops of the "West" group of General Petruk, which included the Pskovites, also met fierce resistance from the illegal armed groups. The task of its two assault detachments was to seize the railway station and blockade the presidential palace from the south.
At 7.30 the vanguard of the 693rd mechanized infantry division of the 19th mechanized infantry division of Colonel Kandalin entered the city and until 12.00 did not encounter any opposition from the Dudayevites. The entry into battle of motorized riflemen was provided by the paratroopers of the battalion of the 21st Airborne Brigade and the Pskov consolidated PDP of the 76th Guards. airborne
After noon, the militants already clearly knew the location of the Russian troops and began active hostilities. Due to a number of serious mistakes made by the division commander, in the market area, the 693rd North Caucasian regiment was stopped and attacked by superior enemy forces.
By 18:00, during a bloody clash, the 693rd regiment of Vladikavkaz residents was surrounded by Dudayevites in the area of \u200b\u200bthe park named after IN AND. Lenin. Communication with him was lost.
The "winged infantry" fought more successfully in the area of \u200b\u200bthe Andreevskaya valley. Having received from the commander of the 76th Guards. Airborne Division of the Guard of Major General Ivan Babichev, a combat mission to suppress the firing points of militants, the Pskov paratroopers of the battalion of the guard of Colonel Vyacheslav Sivko deployed battle formations and entered the fray. In an effort to take possession of a part of the oil refinery. IN AND. Lenin (and it stretched for 10 square kilometers) and a dairy farm, the "blue berets" hour after hour intensified the onslaught.
The fight with Dudayev's "wolves" was short-lived: it began and ended in the afternoon. But if at the beginning of it the sun was shining, then at the end it was dusk - tanks with oil pierced by bullets and shells were burning, thick smoke was pouring down┘ Pskovichi lost 5 people killed and several wounded. After 13.00, together with the paratroopers of the 21st brigade, the survivors had to gain a foothold in the conquered positions.
Seeing that Major General Petruk's grouping of troops was not fulfilling the assigned task, the UGV command ordered Lieutenant General Todorov, the deputy commander of the North Caucasus Military District for combat training, to personally lead the advance of another regiment of the 19th Mechanized Infantry Division to strengthen the West grouping. However, his march was carried out much more slowly than the situation required.
Failed to achieve success on December 31 and the Internal Troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, allocated to strengthen the group of forces leading the battle. Due to the lack of a clear front line (the militants were beating from the areas where the federals were located), part of the units intended to build up efforts were forced to set up checkpoints, protect corridors from the line of contact with the enemy to the exits from Grozny, etc.
What this led to can be seen from the example of the published testimonies of one of the lieutenants of the Russian army: “On December 30, our unit made a march along the Mozdok-Grozny route and on the night of January 1 went to the outskirts of the city. of which two vehicles burned down in the company. Later it turned out that they were at war with their own. Part of the Internal Troops, which controlled the exits from Grozny, also suffered "tangible" losses: the advancing federal troops destroyed a large number of military equipment and personnel. "
The attacks of the militants on the positions of the units of the "North" force grouping, which had successfully entrenched themselves in the city, began, as already noted, in the afternoon, on a bright and clear time of day. This is how one of the lieutenant colonels of the 81st Samara motorized rifle regiment, whose first battalion was entrenched at the railway station, described it: “At 14 o'clock the first armored personnel carrier was hit by a grenade launcher, and an hour later a battle began, which lasted a whole day. During this time, 15 tanks, and by the evening of January 1, 60 people, plus 45 wounded (30% of the payroll), remained from the reinforced battalion that had entered the city the day before. No orders from the command - whether to continue to defend the station - were received, just as fresh Reinforcements. Almost nobody managed to get out alive. "
The lieutenant colonel's story would have been more realistic if he had all the information available about what the UGV command was doing to change the situation in Grozny in his favor.
So, "to consolidate the success and build up efforts" in order to "cut off the approach of reinforcements of the militants to the city center from the Katayama area" from the reserve, by order of the commander of the Sever grouping, Major General Konstantin Pulikovsky, it was decided to nominate the 131st Maykop separate the motorized rifle brigade of Colonel Ivan Savin, which consisted of 446 soldiers and officers (two motorized rifle, one tank battalion and an anti-aircraft battalion). At that moment, the command of the federal forces did not know that the Dudayevites had already managed to secretly transfer their elite, regular units - the "Abkhaz" and "Muslim" battalions of over 1000 people to the railway station area.
For a long time, what subsequently happened to the Maykopites was considered "a mystery covered in darkness." In the press, there were the most contradictory assessments from those that the brigade was allegedly "destroyed in 4 hours," to the fact that it "was shot by Dudayev's militias within 24 hours, almost all." In fact, it was far from the case. The veil over these tragic events was lifted by the special correspondent of the Krasnaya Zvezda newspaper, Colonel Nikolai Astashkin, in his book "The Leap of a Lone Wolf. The Chronicles of Dzhokhar Dudayev - Notes of a Front Correspondent". The author managed to find operational documents of the grouping of forces and compare them with eyewitness accounts. Among them were the political commander of the brigade, Lieutenant Colonel Valery Konopatsky, shell-shocked in a battle at the station, miraculously survived and escaped with a handful of soldiers from the encirclement, and the head of the communications center of the radio engineering brigade, seconded to the brigade commander I. Savin during the storming of Grozny as an air controller from the combat Aviation Administration "Akula-1", senior warrant officer Vadim Shibkov.
The latter was also lucky - he managed to escape with several fighters from the tight ring of the militants' encirclement.
Here is what Shibkov, a direct participant in the events, recalled: "On December 31, 1994, at 00:00, General Pulikovsky brigade delivered the following combat mission: The 1st battalion under the command of the brigade commander Colonel Savin to reach the line of the railway station and cut off the enemy's withdrawal from the rear of the presidential palace; The 2nd battalion was to capture the Grozny-commodity station and hold it until the main forces arrived. The 1st and 2nd battalions of the 81st motorized rifle regiment were supposed to interact with these units, respectively, blocking the presidential palace from the front, as well as the complex of government buildings in the city center.
We started our advance at 4.00 am from the area of \u200b\u200bthe oil tower, which is on the Kolodezny pass. Soon we went to the area of \u200b\u200bthe Sadovy village. Then we advanced into the city - to the House of the Press, and then to the station we reached almost no loss. But when they turned into the street that leads to the station square, a powerful flurry of fire fell on the convoy - and one after the other three infantry fighting vehicles flared up at once: the battalion commander and 2 command and staff vehicles. The armored personnel carrier I was in also received two holes.
The militants did everything professionally: they immediately disabled communications, and, since the control of the units was lost, panic arose. The combat mission was under threat. "
Here it is appropriate to interrupt the aircraft controller's story in order to provide a competent explanation of General Gennady Troshev: "The combined brigade detachment, not meeting resistance, slipped through the required intersection, lost orientation and went to the railway station, where the battalion of the 81st regiment had already concentrated. And here the colonel made a fatal mistake. Savin, believing that there was no enemy in the station area. The battalions, having stood in columns along the streets, did not take care of organizing the defense, did not set up roadblocks along the route (although this task was assigned to the units of the Interior Ministry of the Russian Federation), did not carry out proper reconnaissance. began in the evening of December 31. The militants attacked from three sides, did not come close, but fired from grenade launchers, mortars and guns┘ "
According to the data cited in his book by the former commander of the UGV in Chechnya (since February 1, 1995 instead of Kvashnin. - Auth.) General of the Army Anatoly Kulikov and former colonel of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation Sergei Lembik "Chechen knot. Chronicle of the armed conflict 1994 -1996 ", the Dudayevites concentrated in this direction not 1 thousand, but up to 3.5 thousand personnel, 50 guns and tanks, over 300 grenade launchers. However, the authors made an inaccuracy here, indicating that the 131st Omsb Brigade went to the station on the evening of December 31. In fact, as Vadim Shibkov testified, the Maykop residents appeared here only on the morning of January 1. By this time, the 1st Battalion of the 81st Samara Regiment was desperately fighting here from 19:00 the previous day and all night long with the superior forces of "spirits". But the building, which had huge windows and many exits, was of little use for defense. The losses of the defenders were enormous (recall the previous story of one of the colonels of this regiment. - Author). Apparently, when the Maikop brigade approached the station, everything was over here. And the 131st became another victim of illegal armed groups.
“At the station we were completely squeezed,” the senior warrant officer Shibkov continued his sad story. “The militants' tactics were well-adjusted. Well-armed, they acted in groups of 10-15 people - and fired, fired, fired, often replacing each other, and we fought back In addition, the armored vehicles in the brigade were old, which served all the deadlines - the tower did not rotate there, the gun jammed there, and the tanks were completely without active protection of the armor, and the personnel, to hide, were not ready to fight in the city.Maybe, in the field, under the cover of aviation, artillery and armor, we are a force, but here, in this stone jungle of an unfamiliar and hostile city, when from every floor, from every window of a house adjacent to the station square a hail of lead is flying at you - you are just cannon fodder. ”I still believe that then, in January 1995, we were simply betrayed (according to some reports, out of 26 tanks of the brigade that entered Grozny, 20 vehicles were destroyed. Of the 120 BMPs, only 18 survived. In addition to them, 6 ZSU "Tunguska" of the anti-aircraft battalion, dispersed among the units moving in marching formations, also burned down. - Auth.) ┘
And then, by the end of the day on January 1, brigade commander Ivan Alekseevich Savin decided to go for a breakthrough. Making our way through the dense wall of fire, we began to retreat along the familiar road - towards the Tersk ridge, to the village of Sadovy. In the area of \u200b\u200bthe station, Ivan Alekseevich received two through bullet wounds, but continued to command the remnants of the brigade. In my heart, he will forever remain a commander with a capital letter. He set specific tasks and demanded specific implementation.
We retreated further and on the way met our burnt-out vehicles, from which the militants were already dragging ammunition and food, the corpses of our fighters were right there. Finally the House of the Press appeared. We look, from nowhere, two "bempashki" of the 81st motorized rifle regiment are approaching us. The brigade brigade commander, the brigade's artillery chief, and the officers of the Akula-1 aviation command and control group sat in them ┘ And immediately both BMPs took off from the quarry, but, not having traveled a hundred meters, they suddenly stopped. And seconds later they flashed. "Spirits" shot them from grenade launchers and machine guns - at close range. The brigade commander was wounded a third time.
At that time, heavy fire was opened in our direction. I do not know what would have happened to us if it were not for the nearby motor depot. She became a saving island in this sea of \u200b\u200bfire. Popping into the cluttered courtyard of the motor depot, we threw grenades at the windows of the premises just in case. We lay down. Then the main group pulled up - with the brigade commander. However, only one name remained from the group: while they were running across the open area, almost all of them perished under the machine-gun fire of the militants.
I went up to the wounded Colonel Savin and said:
Commander, what are we going to do?
Thinking about something of his own, he looked away, then, as if waking up, said:
You need to assess the situation.
By that time, dusk had fallen over the city. We crawled around the corner with him and saw how 5 or 6 militia fighters were secretly approaching us. I tell Ivan Alekseevich:
Commander, a grenade.
With difficulty he took out an RGD-5 grenade from his pouch.
Highlight, - I say, - I will put them "efkoy".
And so they did. The soldiers in the yard of the motor depot - 10-15 people - crawled after us. I will never forget their eyes. For one, such a small and puny boy, horror mixed with despair. Another, tall and slender, clearly had a fear for his own life in his soul. In general, as they say, the complete moral and psychological unpreparedness of people for military operations. And where did it come from, if we were not prepared for war, they did not really explain what and why. Then, during the short breaks between the shelling, the first thing that came to mind: they set us up again. It was all so offensive and unpleasant.
In general, we threw grenades. But it was not possible to go further. The militiamen who had settled in the fire boxes opened fire in unison. I was hooked in the shoulder. One of the privates was shot in the head, and he remained there forever. I had to crawl around the corner again. Well, I guess that's all - you can't get out of here. He sat down on the foundation of the building, leaned against the wall chipped from bullets. The brigade commander sat down next to me, resting his head on my shoulder. He was very weak. Swearing, he said: "If I survive, I will tell these bastards what I think about them." These were his last words. From around the corner came: "Happy New Year! Get a present┘" - and a grenade flew in. Spinning and rustling on the rubble, she rolled up close to us. Explosion! I felt almost nothing - only my neck burned. The brigade commander wheezed and dropped his head. When he raised his head, he saw that instead of his left eye he had a hole. The shard entered the brain.
After a while, the remnants of one of the platoons of the 3rd company, led by the chief of artillery of the brigade, Colonel Savchenko, made their way to us. They brought a Volga with them, into the trunk of which they loaded the body of the dead brigade commander. I stayed with a group of fighters to cover their retreat.
The passengers in the Volga's cabin were like herring in a barrel. She moved slowly towards the Press House. After a hundred meters it stopped - a tire burst. And then the militants did not allow anyone alive to get out of the car (the body of the brigade commander with traces of numerous wounds and a scalp removed by the Chechens was found in the ruins of one of the houses only in mid-January. - Author) ┘
To the Press House, where the 2nd Battalion of the 81st Regiment was holding the defenses, I made my way with several soldiers in the middle of the night. And, finding himself among his own people, he felt such wild fatigue that, finding a secluded place, he immediately fell asleep┘ "
So heroically died 187 soldiers and officers of the 131st maikop brigade led by its commander, Colonel Ivan Alekseevich Savin (as of February 9, 1995, the fate of more than 120 servicemen of the brigade remained unknown, later - 75 people. For almost 3 months, the remnants of the 131st Omsb brigade were still in Chechnya. Its combined battalion participated in protection of the airport "Severny", and then in the capture of Gudermes, and only by the end of April were part of them redeployed to Maikop. - Auth.). Colonel Savin was nominated for the title of Hero of Russia, but the award documents were lost in the Kremlin corridors.
The wounded chief of the Operations Department of the brigade headquarters, Lieutenant Colonel Kloptsov, as mentioned above, was picked up and captured by the militants. It is known that later they used it as a living intimidation of the Russian troops when trying to negotiate with them. For example, according to the testimony of the commander of the 3rd battalion of the 137th infantry regiment of the 106th Guards. Airborne Division of Lieutenant Colonel Svyatoslav Golubyatnikov (the title of Hero of Russia was awarded in April 1995) in early January in his unit that defended the station district (the railway station was taken by the paratroopers again at 22.30 on January 1 and since then has been constantly under their control. - Ed. ), a group of "envoys" arrived from the Chechen side with a white flag. Among them, besides Kloptsov, there were two Russian priests from Moscow, two civilians and a "human rights activist", a deputy State Duma RF Sergey Kovalev. The meaning of the latter's appeal to the "blue berets" boiled down to the following: surrender, and you will help free your comrades from captivity┘ In the event of surrender of weapons, he promised to organize the transfer of two companies to Mozdok, to protect officers from the persecution of the command, while retaining their positions, military ranks and the ability to continue the service.
During the negotiations, a shot was fired from the enemy's side and the sergeant major Mordvintsev was mortally wounded in the head. After that, the "peacekeeping" mission abruptly withdrew.
In another case, Kovalev tried to convince another unit of the "winged infantry" to lay down their arms and stop the bloodshed, which fell into the circle of the Dudayevites' encirclement. However, the paratroopers responded with heavy fire and held out until their main forces approached.
Nonsense, but it was precisely this figure who had been silent for four long years - during the period of Dudayev's outrageous power, when a real genocide was taking place against the Russian people in Chechnya, was soon nominated in Europe for award Nobel Prize the world.
Having learned about the difficult situation in which the 81st regiment and the 131st brigade fell, the UGV command made a number of attempts to unblock them and send reinforcements. One of the tank battalions tried to break through to the dying motorized riflemen, but only reached the freight yard of the railway station, where all its combat vehicles were burned by a sea of \u200b\u200b"spirits" fire. He wanted to break through to the station with a column of cars loaded with shells and cartridges, and the former head of the missile and artillery armament service of the 8th Guards. AK Major General Alexander Volkov. But all his attempts were in vain: "The fire of the militants was so dense that, having lost several vehicles with ammunition, we returned back."
Already at the final stage on January 1, the withdrawal of the remnants of the 131st Omsb Brigade was covered by a reconnaissance group of one of the Siberian GRU special forces brigades that approached them. For almost two hours the Siberian special forces held back the onslaught superior forces Dudaevtsev. But their powers were unequal. Almost the entire group, led by the commander, died. As a result of the two-day battle at the station, the militants also suffered significant losses: over 300 killed.
The surprise effect of the strike by federal troops was lost. Disaster was approaching. In fact, only units of the North and North-East groupings were able to break through to the city. But they also fought against numerous groups of illegal armed groups, almost all of them surrounded.
“Twice the command of the UGV,” recalls Gennady Troshev, “tried to force the commander of the 19th motorized rifle division, Colonel G. Kandalin, to advance, but neither requests nor orders acted. The motorized riflemen continued to stand, while at the railway station completely surrounded, choking in blood, units of the 131st brigade and the 81st motorized rifle regiment fought deadly. The lack of close cooperation with motorized riflemen and the indecision of Major General V. Petruk seemed to paralyze the activity of the paratroopers.
In the morning of January 1, P. Grachev's order was received by the commander of the groupings of troops of the western and eastern directions to break through to the blocked units in the areas of the railway station and the presidential palace and try to save our guys┘ "
To strengthen the lost grouping "North-East" Lieutenant General Rokhlin, who competently organized the defense in the area of \u200b\u200bthe city hospital and cannery, in Grozny on the morning of January 1, a combined battalion of special forces of the Airborne Forces was successfully introduced.
And the Pskov paratroopers of the guard of Major General Babichev and the battalion of the guard of Colonel Sivko (in the spring of 1995 became the Hero of Russia - Author) were put forward at the forefront of the grouping of troops "West".
The country peacefully celebrated the New Year, and soldiers and officers of the Russian army died on the streets of the burning Grozny. One and a half thousand souls met with eternity.
STARS LIGHT ON THE EARTH
But on January 1, the tormented vanguard of the combined regiment of the 76th Pskov Guards Airborne Division, ambushed by the militants and the battalion of Tula paratroopers following it, despite the heroic efforts of the personnel, its task is to break through to those who perished in an unequal battle with illegal armed groups, in full surrounded by motorized riflemen of the 81st Samara regiment and the 131st Maykop brigade did not fulfill. Both those and others drank the cups of their destinies in full.
Meanwhile, the drunken Russian Defense Minister Pavel Grachev was celebrating his birthday in his headquarters car at the railway control center in Mozdok. When the UGV command realized that the units and units of General Rokhlin's grouping were practically one-on-one with the main forces of the Dudayev mini-army, personnel reshuffles followed.
Probably, for the sake of justice, one cannot say that the exploits of Russian servicemen in the first "Chechen" months were massive. Because in the media of that time there were descriptions of cases and stunning meanness, and frank examples of cowardice and betrayal. It is a known fact when one artillery captain, for "Dudayev's" money, directed militants' fire on federal troops from his positions. There were also those who threw their wounded comrades onto the battlefield and deserted. According to Pavel Grachev, 500-600 conscripts gave in to the persuasion of representatives of the Committee of Soldiers' Mothers and left the front line, of which about 400 were declared wanted by the federal command.
And nevertheless, suffering heavy losses, the Russian troops in the first days of the new 1995 in Grozny were not "defeated", as the same "human rights activist" MP Kovalev loudly declared. This became possible, in addition to the Pskov paratrooper guards, and thanks to such soldiers as, for example, tanker Lieutenant Grigorashchenko - the prototype of the hero of the film by Alexander Nevzorov "Purgatory". Crucified on the cross by enemies, he will forever remain a model of a real officer for the current and future defenders of the Motherland. “Then in Grozny,” Gennady Troshev recalls, “the Dudayevites sincerely admired the officers from the SKVO special forces brigade, who single-handedly held back the enemy's onslaught (according to some reports, this was a lieutenant who took a dominant point. For him to leave his positions,“ spirits "They offered him 100 thousand dollars in vain. - Author)." That's it! Enough! Well done! - shouted to the surrounded and wounded Russian soldier. - Go away! We will not touch you! We will bring you to yours! "- promised the Chechens." Good, - he said. - I agree. Come here! "When they approached, the officer blew up both himself and the militants with a grenade. No, those who claim that as a result of the New Year's assault the federal troops were defeated are mistaken. Yes, we washed ourselves with blood, but showed that this time is the time of vague ideals, the heroic spirit of our ancestors is alive in us. "
In addition to Pskov, the guard of Captain Sergei Vlasov, who became the Hero of Russia, there are several more cases of Russian servicemen calling "fire on themselves" when artillery spotters called fire from their units and units on nearby houses or positions of Dudayevites (although, according to instructions, the safe zone should not be less 400 m - Auth.). Are these not examples of the manifestation of boundless courage and the highest strength of the military spirit!
More than 120 servicemen of the Ministry of Defense were awarded the title of Hero of the Russian Federation for their feats during the liquidation of illegal armed groups during the first military campaign in Chechnya in 1994-1996. Among those who became the first Heroes of Russia for the battles on the outskirts and in Grozny itself, in addition to the soldiers already mentioned, were senior ensign Viktor Ponomarev, senior lieutenants Andrei Pribytkov and Andrei Shevelev, captains Oleg Zobov, Alexander Kiryanov, Sergei Kurnosenko and others.
The assault on the "Dudaev's lair" on December 31, 1994 and January 1, 1995 was paid at a high price. During the first days of the operation, entire subdivisions, companies and battalions of federal troops were completely destroyed. In total, during these two days on the streets of Grozny, according to published data, more than 1.5 thousand soldiers and officers were killed and missing (including more than 300 missing people; these figures are approximately equivalent to the annual irrecoverable losses 40th Army in Afghanistan in 1979-1989. - Auth.). The number of the wounded was approaching 2,500. Nobody knows how many of them later died, like Oleg Zobov. Unfortunately, such sad statistics do not exist in the country.
It is known that only in the consolidated regiment of the 76th Pskov Guards. airborne divisions on January 1, 1995 in Grozny killed 10 soldiers and sergeants and 1 went missing (in total, in the first Chechen military campaign, the Pskovites lost 121 servicemen and 135 in the second).
As a result of the measures taken, and according to Grachev, uttered by him on February 28, 1995 at a meeting of the leadership of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, the grouping of federal forces in the operation to capture the Chechen capital was increased to 38 thousand people (on February 20 of the same year for scientific At a practical conference at the Moscow Region training ground in Kubinka, the Minister of Defense initially announced the figure that only about 6 thousand servicemen were involved in the capture of Grozny. - Author), up to 230 tanks, 454 infantry fighting vehicles and 388 guns and mortars, already on January 19 Russian troops hoisted state flag over the presidential palace. By February 21, they finally blocked Grozny from all directions, and after another five days they broke the resistance of the illegal armed groups in it. In general, it took them 38 days to master the "wolf's den".
According to official statistics, the worst of them were December 31 and January 1. According to the General Staff, from December 31 to April 1, 1995, 1,426 people were killed in the UGV, 4,630 servicemen were wounded, 96 soldiers and officers were captured by illegal armed groups, and more than 500 were missing.
Illegal armed groups from December 11, 1994 to April 8, lost 6 thousand 690 people killed, 471 militants captured. They destroyed 64 tanks (another 14 were seized), 71 infantry fighting vehicles (another 61 infantry fighting vehicles, armored personnel carriers - seized), 108 guns (and 145 seized), 16 Grad installations, 11 ammunition depots were seized.
The wounded Russian soldiers themselves, and even more so the killed, did not give a damn about this disastrous statistics, interrupted two years later by the vindictive Khasavyurt agreements. Some of them, having fulfilled their military duty, some to the end, some in part, and some, not having had time to fire a single shot at the enemy, have already gone into eternity. Another - moans and screams, gnashing of teeth, lying in bloody bandages on hospital beds, continued to cling to life in every possible way ...
November 1994
The troops are openly expressing dissatisfaction with the policies of Boris Yeltsin. Uniforms, foodstuffs, fuel and ammunition are stolen from army warehouses. Cases of attacks on sentries with the aim of taking possession of weapons have become more frequent. In many units and formations, officers stopped going into service, preferring to make a living from merchants. The armored vehicles remained motionless, the planes rose into the sky only for combat duty.
Under these conditions, in the 45th Guards Motorized Rifle Division, which was located in the village of Kamenka near St. Petersburg, on the basis of the 129th Motorized Rifle Regiment, a unit began to be formed to be sent to a future war in Chechnya. There is not enough human resources, the platoon-company link is being replenished from other parts of the Leningrad Military District. Only one trained full-time motorized rifle battalion is being recruited with difficulty. We need snipers, machine gunners, grenade launchers, drivers, but they are not.
Finally, the 129th rifle regiment with a separate tank battalion and artillery battalion attached to it was formed. A combat review of a unit ready to be sent to war is personally conducted by the commander of the Leningrad Military District, Colonel-General S.P. Seleznev, an experienced and talented military leader. He knows well what lies ahead for these soldiers and officers, does not utter loud words, only asks if they received everything according to the wartime norm. Two days later, the regiment leaves for Chechnya. There is no more time for combat coordination. They went to Afghanistan after training, and even in the Great Patriotic War, formed units were given a month to prepare for hostilities before being sent to the front line. And here ... yesterday the cook - today the grenade launcher. There is an order from the Supreme Commander. It's disgusting at heart ...
KamAZ of the district song and dance ensemble of Leningrad Military District, by order of the educational work department, travels around small businessmen, collecting donations to collect parcels to the Caucasus.
December 1994
An operational group of the center of combat control of the Leningrad Military District units located in the combat zone in Chechnya has been created at the headquarters. Composition of the group
12 people, divided into three shifts, per day. The command center is located next to the commander's office. Documents (with the exception of the working map of the conduct of hostilities) are kept one day and are destroyed when handing over from one shift to another immediately after the report to Colonel-General S.P. Seleznev.
Dudayev's army, without offering significant resistance, withdraws
to Grozny. A set of LenVO parts is approaching New Year's Eve 1995.
Then the few surviving officers of the 129th mechanized infantry regiment will tell that the regiment swiftly entered the Chechen defense line on the outskirts of Grozny. The enemy offered no resistance and retreated to the city. Ours did not have ground spotters for communication with aviation, and the pilots were not able to report that the 129th infantry regiment reached the Chechen line ahead of the set time ... As a result, the aviation worked out its combat mission partially for its troops, which, having withstood an air strike, in armored combat formations entered Grozny. Our armored personnel carriers and tanks instantly burst into flames.
January 1995
All New Year's Eve 129 MSP spent in street battles. At dawn, the commander (Colonel Borisov) decided to gather the remaining forces into a single fist and stop the offensive. On January 1, the Central Bank of the Leningrad Military District was frantically looking for a connection with parts of the district in Chechnya. The map showed the situation unchanged when the regiment was stationed at the walls of Grozny.
He was no longer standing - he was crawling along the streets, covering them with the bodies of the dead and wounded. It was possible to get in touch with the regiment only in the middle of the next day. The captain responded in a hoarse voice. I introduced myself and asked to report on the situation. In response, a three-story mat was heard, the captain began to shout that he had not seen this in Afghanistan ... I abruptly cut him off, saying that it was not time to find out who and where fought.
An hour later, the regiment commander got in touch and reported that for a day he was gathering those who remained alive, and the 129th mechanized infantry regiment was incapable of combat due to the complete absence of command personnel in the platoon-company link and the mass death of soldiers. Losses in killed and wounded amounted to more than 50 percent, those who remained in the ranks took up defensive positions and are conducting street battles.
After the commander's report to Moscow on the losses incurred, an order came from there no later than January 7th to replenish the regiment with wartime staff and bring them into battle. To the objections of Colonel General Seleznev that there are no trained specialists in the district, Moscow replied: find. And again there was a set of cooks and plumbers, retraining them for machine gunners and snipers in a day ... They took everyone ...
Episodes
At the end of January 2005, the deputy commander of the Leningrad Military District summoned one of the staff colonels. “I can’t give orders,” the general began, “so you need to go on a business trip to Chechnya as a volunteer… Or find someone else from your colleagues…” There were four colleagues, all in the same rank. Everyone, like the colonel himself, had a background either in the war, or liquidated the accident at Chernobyl. Except for one officer, who never went beyond the outskirts of St. Petersburg and shone except on the staff floor.
It all seemed that he should go to Chechnya. But the "parquet" colonel balked, demanding that everyone draw lots. The one who was talking to the general took five pieces of paper, drew a cross on one and put it in the earflaps (the hats were canceled at that time). Each of the colleagues pulled their own destiny. The cross went to the "parquet" one, his face changed and forced everyone to show his piece of paper: what if there was a Chechen mark somewhere else ... Before going to the deputy commander, they advised him to ask for a "warm" position upon returning from a business trip.
"Parquet" flew to Mozdok, and there he sat for three months, not leaving for Chechnya itself, and summoned his subordinates to report even a hundred kilometers away. And everything worked out for him in a wonderful way. And he received the order for his courage, and entered the post of deputy in one of the military schools. And when the time came to say goodbye to the army, the necessary page in the biography allowed the hero to take the high position of a civil servant. True, for some reason he avoids his former colleagues ...
***
Major Yuri Saulyak was killed by a mine. It would seem that with his considerable combat experience, any stretch is visible from afar. But I did not notice this one, I was very tired - from battle to battle. Only Grozny was taken ... And the mine tore off the Major's leg or arm, not ripped open his stomach - hit right in the head. Therefore, when they brought his headless body to Rostov, they identified the major from the documents that were in his pocket. But this was not enough to be sent home. They contacted the commander of Saulyak, they say, the wife needed to arrive: what if someone else with the major's documents stepped on the mine ...
Friends decided otherwise. Saulyak's relatives were carefully asked if there was a scar on his body or a tattoo. It turned out that the major's appendicitis was excised, long before he was sent to Chechnya. “Come on,” they answered by phone from Rostov, “even if it’s not a wife, but someone who knew the deceased well will fly in for identification, then we’ll issue the cargo-200”. One of the officers from St. Petersburg had to go to document the scar from appendicitis ... Only after that Major Saulyak returned to his homeland in closed zinc. But it could not be known how long to lie in the morgue ...
***
In January 1995, a teacher from the Omsk Tank School called the Central Bank of Ukraine. It happened a few days after the New Year's storming of Grozny. So, they say, and so. My son, a tanker, serves in Chechnya ... And opposite the son's surname in the headquarters it says "Missing" ... The duty officer in distant Omsk answered that there was no exact information about the fate of the tanker. It is only known that he did not come out of the battle. Maybe the wounded man is lying somewhere. Or he makes his way to his own. If only he didn't get captured ...
And a week and a half later the call rang again at the headquarters. “Thank you,” the teacher from Omsk said to the same officer, “I found my son. You already there ferry that died ... "
After the first conversation, the teacher took a leave of absence for family reasons and went to Grozny. In the midst of the street fighting, he managed to get to his son's comrades, who reported that the tanker burned down along with the tank. But my father had crawled before that tank. In the house next to him, an old Chechen woman told that she had pulled out the burnt-out guy and buried him in her garden ... The father of the tankman dug out and went home to Omsk with him, literally dragging him. There for the second time he lowered his son into the ground. And in the headquarters reports there was "Missing".
***
On the second day after the storming of Grozny, January 2, 1995, the commander of the Leningrad Military District received an order from the Minister of Defense: together with the commander of the division stationed in Kamenka, personally appear in each family of an officer and warrant officer who had just died, and give the children a New Year's gift - tangerines and candy on behalf of the defense department ...
Colonel-General Sergei Seleznev, who was the deputy commander of the 40th Army in Afghanistan, was already distorted from such blasphemy. He imagined how he would walk around the Kamenka completely dressed in mourning and hand out tangerines “for the deceased daddy” ... And for the first time the general did not comply with the order. And instead of dozens of congratulatory packages, he ordered to organize a memorial ceremony in the village. With all the necessary honors.
Soon a commission was sent from the ministry to St. Petersburg, which confirmed not only the failure to comply with the order, but also the fact of inappropriate spending of money at the headquarters of the Leningrad Military District, where tangerines were replaced with a farewell ceremony dead officers and ensigns.
They did not have time to impose a penalty on Colonel-General Sergei Seleznev; in December 1996, together with his wife, he died in a plane crash.
***
A month after the start of the first Chechen campaign, St. Petersburg journalists found out that a combat command center had been created at the headquarters of the Leningrad Military District, where all information about the course of hostilities was promptly collected. And, accordingly, about what losses the army bears. After difficult approvals, the representatives of the press were allowed into the office, where the journalists were shown a list of dead and wounded servicemen. On one sheet of paper.
- Do we have such small losses? - the correspondents doubted.
“So we are fighting well,” the senior officers answered instructively.
And the journalists did not realize that such a report was compiled periodically at the headquarters, and then destroyed. At the same time, previous data were not taken into account and were not summed up, so as not to sow panic.
No secrecy stamp was assigned to such lists. A report on the real state of affairs was sent every day to Moscow, where the final calculations were made. From those officers who were admitted to the information about the dead and wounded, they took their word of honor on non-disclosure, without any orders and orders. At the disposal of the editorial board of Nasha Versiya na Neva was a miraculously preserved list of January 30, 1995.
August 10th, 2014
December 31, 1994 - January 1, 1995. "New Year's assault" of Grozny. The 81st Guards Motorized Rifle Regiment (GvMSP) from Samara. This year is 20 years old. Dedicated to the heroes ...
"Yes, our regiment suffered tangible losses in Grozny: both in personnel and in equipment," says Igor Stankevich, a former deputy commander of the 81st Guards Motorized Rifle Regiment, awarded for courage and heroism shown in those January battles in Grozny, the rank Hero of the Russian Federation. "But we were at the forefront of the main attack, and the first, as you know, is always the most difficult. In all battles, those who are put in the vanguard risk more than others. I declare responsibly: our regiment has fulfilled its task. And I will say more: the general concept of the entire operation in Grozny was realized, among other things, thanks to the courage and courage of our soldiers and officers, who were the first to enter the battle and heroically fought all these difficult January days. "(Igor Stankevich, former deputy commander of the 81st Guards motorized rifle regiment, Hero of the Russian Federation)
The last photo shows CHECHNYA, 1995. SOLDIERS OF THE 81st REGION IN THE AREA OF STANITS CHERVLENAYA.
The 81st Guards Motorized Rifle Regiment was formed in 1939 in the Perm Region. The baptism of fire for his personnel was participation in the battles on the Khalkhin-Gol River from June 7 to September 15, 1939. During the Great Patriotic War, the regiment took part in battles near Moscow, took part in the Oryol, Kamenets-Podolsk, Lvov, Vistula-Oder, Berlin and Prague operations, ending hostilities in Czechoslovakia. During the war, 29 of its servicemen were awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.
For merits in battles during the Great Patriotic War, the regiment was awarded awards and distinctions: the Order of Suvorov, 2nd degree, for the capture of the city of Petrakow (Poland), gratitude was announced and the honorary name "Petrakuvsky" was awarded, for the capture of the cities of Ratibor and Biskau awarded the order Kutuzov 2nd degree, for the capture of the cities of Cottbus, Luben, Ussen, Beshtlin, Lukenwalde was awarded the Order of Bogdan Khmelnitsky 2nd degree, for the capture of the German capital city of Berlin was awarded the Order of the Red Banner.
In the postwar period, the regiment was stationed in the German Democratic Republic in Karlhorst. In 1993 the regiment was withdrawn from Germany to the territory of the Russian Federation and deployed in the village of Roshchinsky, Samara region.
By the fall of 1994, the 81st was staffed with the so-called mobile forces. Then the Armed Forces just began to create such units. It was assumed that, on the first command, they could be deployed to any region of the country to solve various tasks - from eliminating the consequences of natural disasters to repelling an attack by bandit formations.
With the granting of a special status to the regiment, combat training was noticeably intensified in it, and manning issues began to be dealt with more effectively. The officers began to be allocated the first apartments in a residential town built with funds from the Federal Republic of Germany in Chernorechye. In the same 94th year, the regiment successfully passed the check of the Ministry of Defense. The 81st, for the first time after all the troubles associated with the withdrawal and arrangement in a new place, showed that he had become a full-fledged part of the Russian army, combat-ready, capable of performing any tasks.
A number of well-trained servicemen were eager to serve in hot spots, in the same peacekeeping forces. As a result, about two hundred servicemen were transferred from the regiment in a short period. Moreover, the most demanded specialties are driver mechanics, gunners, snipers.
In 1981, it was believed that this was not a problem, the vacancies that had formed could be filled, trained new people ...
In early December 1994, the regiment commander and I, Colonel Yaroslavtsev, and I arrived on official business at the headquarters of our 2nd Army, - Igor Stankevich recalls. Some of the high-ranking military leaders called. “That's right,” the general replied to the subscriber to one of his questions, “I have the commander and deputy of the 81st regiment. I will bring the information to them right away. "
After the general hung up, he asked all those present to come out. In a tete-a-tete situation, it was announced to us that the regiment would soon receive a combat mission, that "we must prepare." Application region - North Caucasus. The rest will be later.
In the photo Igor Stankevich (January 1995, Grozny)
According to the then Defense Minister Pavel Grachev, the meeting of the Russian Security Council on November 29, 1994 was decisive. The speaker was the late Minister for Nationalities Nikolai Yegorov. According to Grachev, “he said that 70 percent of Chechens are just waiting for them to come Russian army... And with joy, as he put it, they will sprinkle flour on our soldiers' road. The remaining 30 percent of Chechens, according to Yegorov, were neutral. And at five o'clock in the morning on December 11, our troops in three large groups moved to Chechnya.
Someone at the top lured flour with gunpowder ...
The 81st motorized rifle regiment of the PrivO, which was to go to war in December 94th, was shortly staffed with servicemen from 48 units of the district. All fees - a week. I also had to select commanders. A third of the officers of the primary level were "biennial", had only military departments of civilian universities.
On December 14, 1994, the regiment was alerted and began transferring to Mozdok. The transfer was carried out in six echelons. By December 20, the regiment was fully concentrated on the training ground in Mozdok. In the regiment, by the time they arrived at the Mozdok station, 49 of 54 platoon commanders had just graduated from civilian universities. Most of them did not fire a single shot from a machine gun, let alone fire a regular round from their tanks. In total, 31 tanks (of which 7 were faulty), 96 infantry fighting vehicles (of the bottom 27 faulty), 24 armored personnel carriers (5 faulty), 38 self-propelled guns (12 faulty), 159 units of automotive equipment (28 faulty) arrived in Mozdok. In addition, the tanks lacked elements of reactive armor. More than half of the batteries were discharged (the cars were started from the tug). Defective communications were literally piled up.
The task of the commander of the forces of the groupings for actions in the city and the preparation of assault detachments was set on December 25. The regiment, which partly concentrated on the southern slopes of the Tersk ridge, and partly (with one battalion) was located in the area of \u200b\u200ba dairy farm 5 km north of Alkhan-Churtsky, two tasks were determined: the nearest and the next. The nearest one was to occupy the Severny airport by 10 am on December 31. The next one - by 16 o'clock to seize the intersection of Khmelnitsky and Mayakovsky streets. Personally by the commander of the United Group, Lieutenant General A. Kvashnin, with the commander, chief of staff and battalion commanders of the 81st Guards. SME operating in the main direction, classes were held on organizing interaction when performing a combat mission in Grozny.
On December 27, the regiment began its advance and was located on the northern outskirts of Grozny, not far from the airport ...
From the investigation of journalist Vladimir Voronov ("Top Secret", No.12 / 247 for 2009):
“But the parents are firmly convinced that no one was engaged in combat training in the regiment. Because from March to December 1994, Andrei held a machine gun in his hands only three times: on the oath and twice more at the shooting range - the fathers-commanders became generous by as much as nine rounds And in the sergeant's training, in fact, they did not teach him anything, although they gave him stripes. The son honestly told his parents what he was doing in Chernorechye: from morning till night he built dachas and garages for gentlemen officers, nothing else. some kind of dacha, general or colonel: the boards were polished with a plane to a mirror shine, one was adjusted to the next sweat.After that I met with Andrey's colleagues in Chernorech: they confirm that it was, all the "combat" training - the construction of summer cottages and maintenance A week before they were sent to Chechnya, the radio was turned off in the barracks, televisions were taken out. Parents, who managed to attend the dispatch of their children, claimed that the soldiers had their military cards taken away. the parents saw Andrei just before the regiment was sent to Chechnya. Everyone already knew that they were going to war, but they drove gloomy thoughts from themselves.
By the beginning of the war in Chechnya, the once elite regiment was a pitiful sight. Almost none of the regular officers who served in Germany remained, and 66 officers of the regiment were not regular officers at all - "two-year students" from civilian universities with military departments! For example, Lieutenant Valery Gubarev, commander of a motorized rifle platoon, a graduate of the Novosibirsk Metallurgical Institute: he was drafted into the army in the spring of 1994. He was already in the hospital telling how grenade launchers and a sniper were sent to him at the last moment before the battle. "The sniper says: 'Show me how to shoot.' And the grenade launchers - about the same ... Already in the column to line up, and I train all the grenade launchers ... "
The commander of the 81st regiment, Alexander Yaroslavtsev, later admitted: “People, to be honest, were poorly trained, who drove little BMP, who shot little. And from such specific types of weapons as a grenade launcher and a flamethrower, the soldiers did not shoot at all. Lieutenant Sergei Terekhin, the commander of a tank platoon, wounded during the assault, claimed that only two weeks before the first (and last) battle, his platoon was manned. And in the 81st regiment itself, half of the personnel was missing. This was confirmed by the chief of staff of the regiment Semyon Burlakov: “We are concentrated in Mozdok. We were given two days to reorganize, after which we marched off to Grozny. At all levels, we reported that a regiment with such a composition was not ready to conduct hostilities. We were considered a mobile unit, but we were staffed according to the peacetime staff: we had only 50 percent of the personnel. But most importantly, there were no infantry in the motorized rifle squads, only the crews of combat vehicles. There were no shooters directly, those who were supposed to ensure the safety of combat vehicles. Therefore, we walked with what is called “bare armor”. And, again, the overwhelming majority of the platoon men are two-year-olds who had no idea about the conduct of hostilities. Driver mechanics only knew how to start the car and get under way. Gunner-operators could not shoot from combat vehicles at all. "
Neither the battalion commanders, nor the company and platoon commanders had maps of Grozny: they did not know how to navigate in a strange city! The commander of the regiment's communications company .. Captain Stanislav Spiridonov in an interview with Samara journalists said: “Maps? There were maps, but they were all different, of different years, they did not fit together, even the names of the streets are different. " However, platoon-two-year-olds did not know how to read maps at all. “Here the chief of staff of the division got in touch with us,” Gubarev recalled, “and personally set the task: the 5th company along Chekhov - to the left, and to us, the 6th company - to the right. So he said - to the right. Just right. " When the offensive began, the regiment's combat mission changed every three hours, so we can safely assume that it did not exist.
Later, the regimental commander ... could not ... explain who set his task and what. First they had to take the airport, moved forward - a new order, turned around - again the order to go to the airport, then another introductory one. And on the morning of December 31, 1995, about 200 combat vehicles of the 81st regiment (according to other sources - about 150) moved to Grozny: tanks, armored personnel carriers, infantry fighting vehicles ... They did not know anything about the enemy: no one provided the regiment with intelligence, and they themselves did not conduct reconnaissance. The 1st battalion, which was marching in the first echelon, entered the city ... and the 2nd battalion entered the city with a gap of five hours ..! By this time, little was left of the first battalion, the second was on its way to its destruction ... "
The mechanic-driver of the T-80 tank, junior sergeant Andrei Yurin, when he was in the Samara hospital, recalled: “No, no one set the task, they just stood in a column and went. True, the company commander warned: “Just shoot! A child on the road - push. "
In the photo, Lieutenant General L.Ya. Rokhlin
Initially, General Lev Rokhlin was assigned the role of commander of the forces entering the city. This is how Lev Yakovlevich himself describes it (a quote from the book "The Life and Death of a General"): "Before the storming of the city," says Rokhlin, "I decided to clarify my tasks. Based on the positions we occupied, I believed that the Eastern grouping, to command it was suggested that I should be headed by another general. And it would be expedient to appoint me to command the Northern group. On this topic I had a conversation with Kvashnin. He appointed General Staskov to command the Eastern group. "And who will command the Northern group?" I ask. Kvashnin replies: "I am ... We will deploy the forward command post in Tolstoy-Yurt. You know what a powerful group it is: T-80 tanks, BMP-3. (There were almost no such people in the troops then.) "-" What is my task? "- I ask." Go to the palace, occupy it, and we will approach. " He said that the city is not attacked with tanks. "This task was removed from me. But I insist:" What is my task? "-" You will be in reserve, "they answer. - You will cover the left flank of the main grouping. "And they appointed a route of movement." After this conversation with Rokhlin, Kvashnin began to give orders to the units directly. So, the 81st regiment was given the task of blocking the Reskom. At the same time, the tasks were brought to the units at the very last moment.
Colonel-General Anatoly Kvashnin's secrecy was a separate line, apparently, it was some kind of "know-how" of Kvashnin, everything was hidden, and the task was posed directly along the movement of the units, the trouble is that the units acted independently, in isolation, prepared for one thing, but were forced to do something completely different. Inconsistency, lack of relationship is another distinctive feature this operation. Apparently, the whole operation was based on the confidence that there would be no resistance. This only suggests that the leadership of the operation was divorced from reality.
Until December 30, the commanders of units and battalions did not know about their routes or missions in the city. No documents were worked out. Until the last moment, officers of the 81st regiment believed that the task of the day was the intersection of Mayakovsky-Khmelnitsky. Before entering the regiment into the city, its command asked how long it takes to bring it into combat readiness? The command reported: at least two weeks and replenishment of people, tk. the regiment is now "bare armor". To solve the problem with the lack of people, the 81st regiment was promised 196 replenishment people for the BMP landing, as well as 2 regiments of the Internal Troops to clean up the quarters passed by the regiment.
Kompolka Yaroslavtsev: “When Kvashnin gave us the task, he sent us to the GRU colonel to get information about the enemy, but he did not say anything specific. Everything is general. There, north-west of Grozny, south-west of Grozny, there is a group of so many. I tell him, wait, which north-west, southeast, I’m drawing a route for you, Bohdan Khmelnitsky, so I’m walking along it, tell me what I can meet there. He answers me, here, according to our data, there are sandbags in windows, here a strong point may or may not. He did not even know whether the streets were blocked there or not, so they gave me these fools (UR-77 "Meteorite") so that I would blow up the barricades, but nothing was blocked there In short, there was no intelligence, neither in the number nor in the location of the militants. "
After a meeting on December 30, Colonel-General Kvashnin ordered an officer to be sent for replenishment, but due to bad weather it was not possible to deliver people on time. Then it was proposed to take two battalions of the Internal Troops as a landing, the chief of the regiment Martynychev was sent after them, but the command of the Internal Troops did not give up the battalions. That is why it turned out that the 81st regiment went to the city of Grozny "with bare armor", having at best 2 people in the BMP landing force, and often not at all!
At the same time, the regiment received a strange order: one battalion had to go to the station, bypassing Rescom, and then behind its back the second battalion had to blockade Rescom, that is, without securing the occupation of one line, it had to go to the next, which is contrary to the charter, methods ... In fact, this separated the first battalion from the main forces of the regiment. For what the station was needed, one can only guess - apparently, this is also part of the "know-how".
The regiment commander Yaroslavtsev recalls these days in this way: "I ... worked with the battalion commanders, we did not have time to outline, of course, it is necessary, not only to the company, you need to go down to the platoon to show where to get what. But due to the fact that like this - go ahead, come on, the first battalion ... take the station and surround it, seize it, and the second battalion move forward and surround Dudayev's palace ... they didn't describe where and what, the battalion commander himself made a decision on where to send, according to the situation. ... The immediate task was to reach the intersection ... Mayakovsky-Khmelnitsky, then further one - the station, the other - Dudaev's palace ... but it was not signed in detail, because there was no time, nothing, but in theory, each platoon needs to paint where it should be roughly where get out, until what time and what to do. ”As far as I understood, the commanders thought so: with bare armor and surround, stand, point the barrels there, and partially, for example, if there was no one there, by infantry, report that he was surrounded ... we will tighten some about there a negotiating group, or there are scouts, and they will go forward! "
Chronology last day 1994: At 7 o'clock in the morning on December 31, the advance detachment of the 81st regiment, which included a reconnaissance company, attacked the Severny airport. With the advance detachment was the chief of staff of the 81st Lieutenant Colonel Semyon Burlakov. By 9 o'clock, his group completed the immediate task, seizing the airport and clearing two bridges across the Neftyanka River on the way to the city.
Following the advance detachment, the column was moved by the 1st MSB of Lieutenant Colonel Eduard Perepelkin. To the west, through the Rodina state farm, was the 2nd MSB. Combat vehicles moved in columns: tanks were in front, self-propelled anti-aircraft guns were on the flanks.
From the airport "Severny" the 81st MSE went to Khmelnitsky Street. At 9:17 am, the motorized riflemen met the first enemy forces here: an ambush from a detachment of Dudayevites with a tank, an armored personnel carrier and two Urals attached. The reconnaissance company entered the battle. The militants managed to knock out the tank and one of the "Urals", but the scouts also lost one BMP and several wounded. The regiment commander, Colonel Yaroslavtsev, decided to delay reconnaissance to the main forces and temporarily stop the advance.
Then the advance resumed. By 11.00, the columns of the 81st regiment reached Mayakovsky Street. It was almost 5 hours ahead of the previously approved schedule. Yaroslavtsev reported this to the command and was ordered to move to blockade the presidential palace, to the city center. The regiment began its advance towards Dzerzhinsky Square. By 12.30, the forward units were already near the station, and the group's headquarters confirmed the earlier order given to surround the presidential palace.
All management of the units was carried out by the "come-on" method. The commanders who ruled from afar did not know how the situation in the city was developing. To force the troops to go forward, they blamed the commanders: "everyone has already reached the center of the city and is about to take the palace, and you are marking time ...". As the commander of the 81st regiment, Colonel Alexander Yaroslavtsev, testified later, to his inquiry regarding the position of his neighbor to the left, the 129th regiment of the Leningrad Military District, he received the answer that the regiment was already on Mayakovsky Street. "This is the pace," the colonel thought then (Krasnaya Zvezda, 01.25.1995). It never occurred to him that this was far from the case ... Moreover, the closest neighbor on the left of the 81st regiment was consolidated detachment 8 corps, and not the 129th regiment, which was advancing from the Khankala area. Although it is on the left, but very far. Judging by the map, this regiment could have ended up on Mayakovsky Street only after passing the city center and passing the presidential palace.
In the photo there is a COLONEL IN RESIDENCE, PARTICIPANT OF COMBAT ACTIONS IN THE TERRITORY OF DRA AND CR, CAVALER OF SEVERAL BATTLE ORDERS, COMMANDER OF 81 SMR IN THE EARLY 90-X YAROSLAVTSEV ALEXANDER ALEXEEVITS.
From the memoirs of a tanker: "I was in front with the company tanks, our infantry retreated. The regiment commander gives the command -" forward! "
I clarified - where to go, the task of the day is completed, there is no infantry to cover the tanks ...
He says - "Skating rink", this is Pulikovsky's order, understand correctly, go to the station ...
The presentiment of an unkind adventure did not deceive me. In observation devices, I saw tightly "stoned" militants who slowly moved along the houses, but did not enter into confrontation. Even then I realized that they were letting us into the "New Year's carousel". I understood that if something went wrong, it would be difficult to get out of the station. But it never crossed my mind that our posts would not be on the entry route after the assault groups had passed ... "
At 13.00, the main forces of the regiment passed the station and along Ordzhonikidze Street rushed to the complex of government buildings. And then the Dudayevites began a powerful fire resistance. A fierce battle broke out near the palace; Colonel Yaroslavtsev was wounded and transferred command to the chief of staff of the regiment, Lieutenant Colonel Burlakov.
At 16.10 the chief of staff received confirmation of the task to blockade the palace. But the motorized riflemen faced the most severe fire resistance. The Dudayev grenade launchers, dispersed among the buildings in the center of the city, began to shoot our combat vehicles literally point-blank. The regiment's columns began to gradually split into separate groups. By 17 o'clock, Lieutenant Colonel Burlakov was also wounded, about a hundred soldiers and sergeants were already out of action. The intensity of the fire effect can be judged by at least one fact: only from 18.30 to 18.40, that is, in just 10 minutes, the militants knocked out 3 tanks of the 81st regiment at once!
The units of the 81st mechanized infantry brigade and the 131st motorized rifle brigade that broke through to the city were surrounded. The Dudayevites brought down a storm of fire on them. The soldiers, under the cover of the BMP, took up a perimeter defense. The bulk of the personnel and equipment was concentrated in the forecourt, in the station itself and in the surrounding buildings. The 1st mdb of the 81st regiment was located in the station building, the 2nd mdb - in the goods yard of the station.
The 1st MSR under the command of Captain Bezrutsky occupied the building of the road administration. The infantry fighting vehicles of the company were displayed in the courtyard, at the gates and on the exit tracks to the railroad bed. At dusk, the enemy's onslaught intensified. Losses have increased. Especially in the technique, which was very tight, sometimes literally caterpillar to caterpillar. The initiative passed into the hands of the enemy.
The relative calm came only at 23.00. At night, the skirmishes continued, and in the morning the commander of the 131st Omsb Brigade, Colonel Savin, requested permission from the higher command to leave the station. A breakthrough was approved to the Lenin Park, where the units of the 693rd SMR of the West Group defended. At 15:00 on January 1, the remnants of the units of the 131st Omsb Brigade and the 81st SME began to break through from the railway station and the freight station. Under the incessant fire of the Dudayevites, the columns suffered losses and gradually disintegrated.
28 people from the 1st MRR of the 81st MRR broke through on three infantry fighting vehicles along the railway. Having reached the Press House, the motorized riflemen got lost in the dark unfamiliar streets and were ambushed by the militants. As a result, two BMPs were hit. Only one car, commanded by Captain Arkhangelov, made it to the location of the federal troops.
... As of today, it is known that only a small part of the people left the encirclement from the units of the 81st mechanized infantry brigade and the 131st motorized rifle brigade, which were at the forefront of the main attack. The personnel lost commanders, equipment (in just one day on December 31, the 81st regiment lost 13 tanks and 7 infantry fighting vehicles), scattered around the city and went out to their own on their own - one by one or in small groups.
The consolidated detachment of the 81st SME, formed from the units that remained outside the "station" ring, managed to gain a foothold at the intersection of Bogdan Khmelnitsky and Mayakovsky streets. The command of the detachment was assumed by the deputy commander of the regiment, Lieutenant Colonel Igor Stankevich. For two days, his group, being in a semi-encirclement, remaining practically on a bare and shot through place - the intersection of two main city streets, held this strategically important section.
From the memoirs of an eyewitness: "And then it began ... From the basements and from the upper floors of buildings, grenade launchers and machine guns hit the columns of Russian armored vehicles sandwiched in narrow streets. The militants fought as if it was they, and not our generals, who had studied at military academies. First, they burned the head and The rest, without haste, were shot as if in a shooting range.Tanks and infantry fighting vehicles, which managed to break fences, escape from traps, without the cover of motorized riflemen also became easy prey for the enemy.By 18.00, in the area of \u200b\u200bLenin Park, the 693rd Motorized Rifle Regiment was surrounded We lost contact with the West, and heavy fire stopped the combined paratrooper regiments of the 76th division and the 21st separate brigade Airborne Forces. With the onset of darkness, 3,500 militants with 50 guns and tanks in the area of \u200b\u200bthe railway station suddenly attacked the 81st regiment and 131st brigade who were carelessly standing in columns along the streets. At about midnight, the remnants of these units, supported by two surviving tanks, began to withdraw, but were surrounded and almost completely destroyed.
At the same time, champagne corks were clapping at New Year's tables across the country and Alla Pugacheva sang from the TV screen: “Hey, you are up there! There is no escape from you again ... "
Neither December 31, nor January 1, nor in the following days, the 81st regiment left the city, remained on the front line and continued to participate in hostilities. The battles in Grozny were fought by Igor Stankevich's detachment, as well as the 4th motorized rifle company of Captain Yarovitsky, which was in the hospital complex.
For the first two days in the center of Grozny, there were virtually no other organized forces. There was another small group from General Rokhlin's headquarters, it kept close.
Lieutenant-General Lev Rokhlin, the former commander of the North-East grouping, eloquently recalled the morale of our troops these days: “I set the commanders the task of holding the most important facilities, promised to present them for awards and higher positions. In response, the brigade commander replies that he is ready to quit, but he will not be in command. And then he writes a report. I propose to the battalion commander: "Come on ..." "No, - he answers - I also refuse." It was the hardest blow for me. "