It is now quite obvious that the first Chechen war (along with the NATO aggression against Yugoslavia) is one of the largest military-political events of the late 20th century. At the turn of the third millennium, this hotbed of separatism and banditry, which has 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 business 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 there have been more and more supporters of the policy of armed overthrow of the illegitimate regime of Chechen President Dzhokhar Dudayev 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 Reserve of the Soviet Army, 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 Russian Federation.

On November 29, the now historic meeting of the Security Council of the Russian Federation took place, at which the decision to start hostilities was finally taken.

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 Chechen Republic". In accordance with this document, the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, Internal Troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, FGC (since April 3, 1995 - Federal Security Service - FSB. - Auth.) Were assigned tasks - to stabilize the situation, disarm illegal armed formations (IAF) and restore legality and order in accordance with legislative acts 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) Ministry of Internal Affairs and by December 5 to occupy the starting areas for actions in three directions: Mozdok, Vladikavkaz and Kizlyar. Front-line aviation of the 4th Air Army and combat helicopters should be relocated to field airfields by December 1. Block completely air space 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 militants outside Grozny and disarm them.

The Interior Troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs were entrusted with the protection of communications and routes for the advancement of military groups. The FSK and the special forces of the Ministry of Internal Affairs were entrusted with the search, identification and detention of leading officials of the Dudayev regime, capable of leading armed actions and sabotage in the rear of the 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 state border to 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 the groupings of troops 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 the 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 concept of 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 the territory of 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 transfer of the promotion of units and subdivisions Russian army turned into serious problems for them. Having clarified their main routes, the militants had by this time blocked 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 term 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 on the routes of the troops were mined. The militants, who were often in the crowd of blockers, even disarmed 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 had no 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 of Khankala.

The decision to send troops to Grozny was made on December 26, 1994 at a meeting of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, where Pavel Grachev and Sergei Stepashin reported on the situation in the republic. Prior to this, no specific plans had been developed to capture 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 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 listen to their proposals, all his" instructions "turned into obscene swearing and swearing at their subordinates┘ The headquarters 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 introduction of a moratorium on fighting in Chechnya and start negotiations, as well as an appeal with the expression of condolences to the families and friends of the victims.

The Chechen opposition, which had gone into the shadows during the hostilities, also became active in a different capacity (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 of the NGO Grozneftekhim). On December 26, 1994, it was announced that a government for the national revival of Chechnya was created, headed by Salambek Khadzhiev, and its readiness to discuss with Russia the question of creating a confederation without demanding the withdrawal of troops. But, as everyone is well aware, the good intentions of this government, which wished 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 to 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 groupings 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: a consolidated 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 MRR, consolidated detachment of 33rd MRR 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 infantry fighting vehicles, 50 BMD and 75 guns and mortars. The fourth group - "East" is commanded by the deputy commander of the airborne forces 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 BMD and 35 guns and mortars. Total number involved troops is 15 thousand. 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 seize the presidential palace, government buildings, and the railway station┘

As a result of blocking the city center, the Katayama area and the actions of troops in three converging directions, the main group of Dudayev would allow a complete encirclement. The idea of ​​the 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," the UGV headquarters counted. "What's in Moscow, what's in Grozny. Everyone will be preparing to celebrate 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 people's militia units and newly arrived mercenaries were being re-equipped, and additional firing points for strong points on the defensive lines were equipped.

At the same time, Dudayev'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 agents of illegal armed groups 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 combined orchestra. And that takes time for teamwork!"

The technical readiness factor 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." The headquarters of the North Caucasus Military District had maps of Grozny minimal amount... 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 groupings to begin an 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. prepared in a hurry, without a real assessment of the forces and means of the enemy - this is a fact. Even the name of the operation (once again. - Author) did not have time to come up with. "

The last morning in December 1994 greeted 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 northern part 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 blocked the presidential palace, taking up positions a few 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 effectiveness. Another battalion of the 276th SME took under protection the bridges across the river. An oil industry 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. There was only one block left before the Dudayev Palace and the Council of Ministers building, 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. Two of her 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" groupings, 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 into the 3-4 blocks, was stopped by the rubble and aimed fire of militants 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 riflemen was changed. But in the area of ​​the 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 ​​Minutka Square. A real tragedy befell their "brothers-Tula" from the 104th Guards Red Banner Airborne Division. The five lead vehicles of its column 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 information, 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, in Kvashnin's opinion, "significantly influenced" the unfavorable course of the operation's development.

The troops of General Petruk's "West" grouping, 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 block the presidential palace from the south.

At 7.30 am, the vanguard of the 693rd mechanized infantry division of the 19th motorized rifle division of Colonel Kandalin entered the city and until 12.00 did not meet 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

In the afternoon, 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 the Dudayevites in the area of ​​the park named after IN AND. Lenin. Communication with him was lost.

The "winged infantry" fought more successfully in the area of ​​the Andreevskaya valley. Having received from the commander of the 76th Guards. Airborne Division of Guards Major General Ivan Babichev's combat mission to suppress the firing points of the militants, the Pskov paratroopers of the battalion of the Guards Colonel Vyacheslav Sivko deployed battle formations and entered the fray. In an effort to take possession of a part of the oil refinery named after. 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 the sun was shining, then at the end it was twilight - tanks with oil pierced by bullets and shells were burning, thick smoke was pouring down┘ Pskoviches 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, 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 reinforce the West grouping. However, his march was carried out much slower than the situation required.

Failed to achieve success on December 31 and the Internal Troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, allocated to reinforce the leading battle group of forces. Due to the lack of a clear front line (the militants were beating from the areas where the federals were located), some of the units intended for building 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 testimony 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 cars burned out 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 the 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. 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. Reinforcements. Almost no one 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 region" from the reserve, by order of the commander of the Sever grouping of forces, Major General Konstantin Pulikovsky, it was decided to nominate the 131st Maikop 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, numbering over 1,000 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 of it." 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 group. 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 set the following combat mission: the 1st battalion under the command of the brigade commander Colonel Savin to go to the railway station and cut off the enemy's withdrawal from the rear of the presidential palace; 2- The 1st battalion was supposed to capture the Grozny-Tovarnaya station and hold it until the main forces approached. city ​​center.

We started our advance at 4.00 am from the area of ​​the oil tower, which is at the Kolodeznoye pass. Soon we went to the area of ​​the Sadovy village. Then we advanced into the city - to the House of the Press, and then to the station we reached practically no losses. 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 flashed 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 execution of 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 out 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, standing 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 set to the units of the Interior Ministry of the Russian Federation), did not conduct 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, more than 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 were here only on the morning of January 1. By this time, the 1st Battalion of the 81st Samara Regiment was desperately fighting the superior forces of the "spirits" here from 19:00 the previous day and all night long. 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, it was all over here. And the 131st became another victim Illegal armed groups.

"At the station we were completely squeezed," senior warrant officer Shibkov continued his sad story. In addition, the armored vehicles in the brigade were old and had 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 the conduct of battle 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 the 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 a 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 ​​the 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 Press appeared. We look, from nowhere, two "bempashki" of the 81st motorized rifle regiment are approaching us. The brigade commander, the head of the brigade's artillery, 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 this time, heavy fire was opened in our direction. I don’t know what would have happened to us if it had not been for the nearby motor depot. She became a saving island in this sea of ​​fire. Having jumped 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.

He barely took out an RGD-5 grenade from his pouch.

Highlight, - I say, - I will put them "efkoy".

And so they did. The soldiers who were in the yard of the motor depot - about 10-15 people - crawled after us. I will never forget their eyes. For one, such a small and puny boy, horror mixed with despair. The other, 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 they didn’t prepare us for war, they didn’t really explain what and why. Then, during the short breaks between the shelling, the first thing that came to mind was that 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 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 everything 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. And 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 the 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. Meters through a hundred 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 Maykop brigade, headed 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. Almost 3 months the remains of the 131st The msbr was still on the territory of Chechnya, its combined battalion took part in the protection of the "Severny" airport, and then in the capture of Gudermes, and only by the end of April a part was 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 forecourt (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, in addition to Kloptsov, there were two Russian priests from Moscow, two civilians and a "human rights activist", a deputy of the State Duma of the Russian Federation Sergei Kovalev. The meaning of the latter's appeal to the "blue berets" was as follows: surrender, and you will help free your comrades from captivity. military ranks and the ability to continue the service.

During the negotiations, a shot was fired from the enemy 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 the approach of their main forces.

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 the 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 market yard. railway station, where all his combat vehicles were burned by a sea of ​​"spirits" fire. To the station wanted to break through 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 that approached them from one of the Siberian special forces brigades of the GRU. For almost two hours, the Siberian special forces held back the onslaught of the superior forces of the Dudayevites. But their strengths were unequal. Almost the entire group, led by the commander, was killed. As a result of the two-day battle near the station, the militants also suffered significant losses: over 300 killed.

The surprise effect of the attack by federal troops was lost. Disaster was approaching. In fact, only units of the North and North-East groupings were able to break into 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. 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.

On the morning of January 1, P. Grachev's order was received by the commander of the groupings of troops in 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 reinforce the lost grouping "North-East" Lieutenant-General Rokhlin, who competently organized defense in the area of ​​the city hospital and cannery, a combined battalion of special forces of the Airborne Forces was successfully brought into Grozny on the morning of January 1.

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 were dying on the streets of blazing Grozny. One and a half thousand souls met with eternity.

STARS LIGHT ON 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 died in an unequal battle with illegal armed groups, in full surrounded by motorized riflemen of the 81st Samara regiment and the 131st Maikop brigade did not fulfill. Both those and others drank the cups of their destinies in full.

Meanwhile, in his headquarters carriage at the railway control center in Mozdok, the intoxicating Minister of Defense of Russia Pavel Grachev was celebrating his birthday. 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, in all fairness, 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 personnel urgent service succumbed to the persuasion of representatives of the Committee of Soldiers' Mothers and left the front line, of which about 400 people were put on the wanted list by the federal command.

And yet, bearing heavy losses, Russian troops in the first days of the new year 1995, they were not “crushed” in Grozny, as the same “human rights activist” deputy Kovalev loudly declared. This became possible, in addition to the Pskov paratroopers guards, and thanks to such soldiers as, for example, the tanker Lieutenant Grigorashchenko - the prototype of the hero of Alexander Nevzorov's film "Purgatory". Crucified by enemies on the cross, 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 occupied a dominant point. "They offered him 100 thousand dollars in vain. - Author)." That's it! Enough! Well done! - shouted to the surrounded and wounded Russian soldier. - Leave! We will not touch you! We will bring you to yours! "- promised the Chechens." Good, - he said. - 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 the 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 approaches 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 dearly paid. 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 Division on January 1, 1995 in Grozny, 10 soldiers and sergeants were killed 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. 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; flag over the presidential palace. By February 21, they finally blocked Grozny from all directions, and five days later broke the resistance of the illegal armed groups in it. In total, 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 formations 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, without having had time to fire a single shot at the enemy, have already gone into eternity. The other - with groans 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 their dissatisfaction with the policies of Boris Yeltsin. Uniforms, food, 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 manpower, 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, 129 msp with a separate tank battalion and an artillery battalion formed. The 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. Seleznyov, 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 is the grenade launcher today. There is an order from the Supreme Commander. It's disgusting at heart ...
KamAZ of the district song and dance ensemble of LenVO, by order of the educational work department, travels around small entrepreneurs, 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, daily. The combat control 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.
Dudaev'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 you 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 partly 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 no longer stood - crawling through 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 such a thing in Afghanistan ... I abruptly cut him off, saying that it was not time to find out who fought where and where.
An hour later, the regiment commander got in touch and reported that for a day he had been gathering those who remained alive, and the 129th 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 fighting 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: to 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 either 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 talked 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, he changed his face and forced everyone to show their 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 stayed for three months, not leaving for Chechnya itself, and he called his subordinates to his report even a hundred kilometers away. And everything worked out for him in a wonderful way. And he received the order for his displayed 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 by 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 whether there might be 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 tankman, serves in Chechnya ... And opposite the son's name in the headquarters it says “Missing” ... An officer on duty 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 did not get captured ...
And a week and a half later, the call at the headquarters rang again. “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 very heat of 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 crawled even before that tank. In the house next to him, an old Chechen woman told that she had pulled out the burned-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 dad" ... 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 misappropriation of money at the headquarters of the Leningrad Military District, where the tangerines were replaced by a ceremony of farewell to the dead officers and warrant officers.
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 learned 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, 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, the 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 about 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.

November 1994
The troops are openly expressing their dissatisfaction with the policies of Boris Yeltsin. Uniforms, food, 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 manpower, 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 an artillery battalion attached to it was formed. The 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 is the grenade launcher today. There is an order from the Supreme Commander. It's disgusting at heart ...
KamAZ of the district song and dance ensemble of LenVO, by order of the educational work department, travels around small entrepreneurs, 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, daily. The combat control 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.
Dudaev'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 you 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 partly 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 no longer stood - crawling through 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 such a thing in Afghanistan ... I abruptly cut him off, saying that it was not time to find out who fought where and where.
An hour later, the regiment commander got in touch and reported that for a day he had been gathering those who remained alive, and the 129th 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 fighting 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: to 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 either 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 talked 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, he changed his face and forced everyone to show their 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 stayed for three months, not leaving for Chechnya itself, and he called his subordinates to his report even a hundred kilometers away. And everything worked out for him in a wonderful way. And he received the order for his displayed 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 by 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 whether there might be 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 tankman, serves in Chechnya ... And opposite the son's name in the headquarters it says “Missing” ... An officer on duty 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 did not get captured ...
And a week and a half later, the call at the headquarters rang again. “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 very heat of 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 crawled even before that tank. In the house next to him, an old Chechen woman told that she had pulled out the burned-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 dad" ... 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 misappropriation of money at the headquarters of the Leningrad Military District, where the tangerines were replaced by a ceremony of farewell to the dead officers and warrant officers.
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 learned 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, 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, the 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 about 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.