Alexander Nikishin: Special Forces are for life
Nikishin Alexander Nikolaevich - commander of the special-purpose squad "Vityaz" of the internal troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia, colonel. By decree of the President of the Russian Federation No. 689 of 12 of May 1996, for courage and heroism shown in the performance of a special task, Colonel Nikishin was awarded the title Hero of the Russian Federation with the award of the Gold Star medal.He remembers the smallest details of the operations in which he participated, knows the names and addresses of all the lost wards, he communicates with their relatives, helps them as much as they can. And from the photos on the wall of his office, it is not the state men who look at me, but brothers in berets.
About himself, his life, service and war, Alexander Nikolaevich does not speak too eagerly, he speaks more about the people around him. On the soldiers and officers, cohesive team of like-minded people who have passed the most difficult trials. Tests of war.
Born 8 March 1958, in the village of Ilek, Orenburg region. There the river of the same name flows into the famous Ural River. Places are beautiful! The Urals are wide, the forests along it, the grass in the meadows, the fields of wheat.
Later we moved to Orenburg. My father, Nikolai Yakovlevich, after graduating from the pedagogical institute and the party school, worked successfully in the district committee of the party. He was almost thirty years old when his lieutenant was drafted into the army. Served sent to the snowy Magadan, then transferred to Saratov, a teacher in the Higher Military Command School of the USSR Interior Ministry. In stock Dad retired with the rank of lieutenant colonel.
In 1975, after graduating from high school, I became a cadet of this famous school. The years spent in the alma mater are still the warmest memories. The truth is written in books: the school was an example of all the best that was in the Soviet Union. Strong male friendship, military partnership, mutual assistance and mutual assistance in solving any problems that arose made the team a reliable link in the army system, ready to carry out any order of the Motherland.
The commander of my battalion was Leonid Filaretov, a military man to the bone. A graduate of the Suvorov School, a competent teacher and a wise mentor, he became a role model for students. Great help was provided by the captains Bogomazov and Romanov, the first lieutenant Maltsev.“You want to be strong - run, you want to be smart - run, you want to be strong - run!” - Filarets said, passing the precepts of the ancient Greeks to his cadets. In this way - an increase in physical activity - he increased the level of knowledge and supported the digestibility of any subject, ranging from higher mathematics and ending in English. And that's fine. We ran on any, the most cross-country, shot from all kinds weapons and taught materiel.
Toward the end of the training process, in the spring of 1979 of the year, guests from the Separate Motorized Rifle Division of the special purpose of the Interior Ministry troops came to talk with the good people. Of the one hundred and fifty battalion cadets for service in Moscow, they selected the 25 man.
The Dzerzhinsky Division is a good school of life. Some called her a disciplinary battalion for officers. The capital, the highest authorities near, will not hide from him anywhere, so you always need to be alert. And working with documents, and especially working with people. I was enthusiastically distributed to Moscow, I was seduced by the combat readiness and the special spirit of the unit.
The military unit No. 3419, where I arrived to command a platoon, was engaged in guarding and escorting special and military cargo. One battalion guarded facilities in Moscow, the second - accompanied cargo, including traveling outside the country. The service was interesting, ride.
Two years later, I was appointed commander of the first training platoon of the first training company. It was not easy, but very useful, to serve under the battalion commander Valentin Kokoyev, a subtle psychologist and in a good, meticulous teacher. Taking over the life skills of a combatant, already after half a year I felt that I myself had begun to understand well the everyday intricacies of schoolchildren.
After becoming a company commander through 5 for years, then a deputy battalion commander, I realized that I was obliged to move on, which meant to go to the MV Frunze Military Academy.
Three years of study passed quickly. Shel 1992 year. Life during this time has changed beyond recognition. Union collapsed. My former colleagues had the bitter experience of participating in the aftermath of the terrible earthquake in Armenia, as well as in the hostilities of ethnic and ethnic armed conflicts. Sadly, that's all.
As a graduate with honors, I was appointed deputy commander of a special-purpose unit "Vityaz" of the MVD MVD. Then, when the commander, Hero of Russia, Colonel Sergey Lysyuk, went up, from April 1994 to July 1996 I commanded the squadron.
He joined the team in a combat situation. 20 August 1992, the squad raised the alarm: an aggravated situation on the border between Georgia and Abkhazia required intervention. In order to conduct reconnaissance and search activities in order to detain and disarm Chechen militants who were trying to penetrate Abkhazia, we were thrown into Karachay-Cherkessia, in the region of the Georgian border. On August 26, a detachment blocked a column of militants near the village of Dashhurts.
Then we moved to Kabardino-Balkaria, passions were raging there at the local airport, seized by supporters of the Confederation of Mountain Peoples of the Caucasus, and at the Government House, where there were calls for the overthrow of legal authority. It is good that representatives of the command of the internal troops and the leadership of the republic managed to defuse the situation through negotiations, without the use of force.
Here, in the detention facility in Nalchik, armed prisoners staged a riot. Using special means and methods of hand-to-hand combat, we quickly pacified the prisoners and restored order.
Soon, a detachment of 7 people, together with the local police and security officers, quietly "packed" the criminal "authority" and four of his accomplices in the mountain Tyrnyauz. They were detained at the local hospital with lightning speed, and the young deputy commander of the reconnaissance platoon of the combat support group, Grigory Mylarshchikov, clashed one on one with the leader of the heavy weight category.
By the way, the highest-class specialist in shooting, high-altitude training, hand-to-hand and knife fights, Grisha, after the first Chechen war, continued his service in the Special Strategic Unit of the FSB of Russia. He freed the hostages in Nord-Ost and Beslan. It is he who is depicted on the most famous posters of the magazine "Brother" about the special forces: "Try the special forces to taste, you will like it." Now Mylarschikov, gentleman of the three Orders of Courage, Colonel Stock.
In the same place, in Tyrnyauz, Vladimir Kobzev and the fighters detained another criminal leader, with an accomplice walking around the city.
From Nalchik we were transferred to the zone of the Ossetian-Ingush conflict. In Beslan, the airport was guarded, then security was ensured during negotiations between the leaders of North Ossetia and Ingushetia, they obtained information about the militants of the opposing sides, and they released the Ezminskaya Hydroelectric Station seized by the Ingush “national guard”.
At the entrance to Vladikavkaz, we liquidated a separatist armed post at which Ossetians, under the guise of protecting water intake, extorted tribute from the owners of cars passing by. In the village of Prigorodnoye seized weapons and two bags of drugs. At the mechanical plant near Vladikavkaz, underground production of parts for automatic rifles, SVD and other weapons was discovered. Later they blocked and neutralized local drug dealers.In May-July, 1993 performed the tasks of blocking the Ossetian-Ingush border. Worked in the villages of Karshadon, Umi, Yegor, Saniba, V. Parsa.
In the area of the village of Ali-Yurt, the gangsters, finding our scouts approaching, opened fire with an equipped bunker. The fight lasted about two hours. I had to tighten the armored vehicles and the main forces. Losses of militants made 42 people killed.
The events of October 1993, when unprecedented bloody clashes took place in Moscow, became the most difficult test of a detachment for combat readiness.
By the evening of October 3, the epicenter of events had moved to the Ostankino television center. We managed to occupy the building of the television center, and then the hardware-studio complex. The task of guarding the television center in order to prevent the adversaries of B. N. Yeltsin from entering the building who wanted to go on television was fulfilled. Close to midnight, the situation around the protected object sharply sharpened, the movement began, shots rang out. We did not open fire until the last, until the situation required our adequate response. The fight lasted about an hour. Having ousted the attackers from the square and the adjacent public garden, the detachment completely seized the initiative.
For courage and heroism shown in the performance of military duty, Sergey Lysyuk and Nikolay Sitnikov (posthumously) were awarded the title Hero of the Russian Federation. Orders and medals were awarded to other distinguished servicemen of the detachment.
A year later, Chechnya broke out. To the border with the self-proclaimed Ichkeria, to Mozdok, we left after a separate tank division battalion, September 17th.
With us in Mozdok, we took everything we could take, right up to the armor-clad beds. A few months later, these beds helped us a lot. When the equipment got stuck in the liquid of the now famous Chechen mud, the soldiers threw them under the wheels, and the equipment got out of the pits and ruts and kept moving.
As time went on, we were preparing for small hostilities. The grouping of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia, assembled in Mozdok, numbered up to five thousand people. Everyone understood that there would be some kind of mess, but no one understood which one. I remember the words of General Anatoly Romanov, told to me by 30 of October, after the first unsuccessful attempt of the Dudayev opposition to seize Grozny: “The decision has been made. The entry of troops into Chechnya is scheduled for Moscow. It remains to agree a timeline.
Well done Romanov, did not listen to the instructions of Nikolai Egorov - plenipotentiary representative of the President of Russia in Chechnya, who wanted to pacify the recalcitrant Dudayev with our hands. Romanov owned the situation, he knew that the militants were seriously preparing to fight, and our scanty for large-scale operation grouping rolled into the asphalt. As time has shown, even after months, when the joint group with the army team numbered up to one hundred thousand people, it was necessary to fight in very harsh conditions.
Before 11 December, the day of the commencement of "measures to restore constitutional order in the Chechen Republic," we were intensively engaged: we learned movement in the mountains and studied the terrain. Having acclimatized well, settled down in field conditions and organized life, we were engaged in reconnaissance of the area, escorting motorcade with humanitarian supplies to the villages, whose residents supported or loyally treated the federal government. Senior officers of the Ministry of Emergency Situations usually drove the elder columns and those responsible for the cargo. Often, the delivery of civilian goods ended in clashes with militants who tried to appropriate these goods to themselves.
11 th flew in a hurry to Dagestan Khasavyurt. There, local Akkin Chechens blocked the movement of a column of the Nizhny Novgorod operational regiment of internal troops. The gangsters, having protected themselves with a human shield of women, surrounded the cars. Nizhny Novgorod did not have combat experience and did not dare to shoot at civilians, confused. The militants, taking advantage of the situation, captured 59 soldiers, four armored personnel carriers, vehicles with weapons and property. As a result of the decisive actions of the detachment to support the organization of the defense of the remnants of the column and successful negotiations with the elders of 38, the captives gained freedom. Hiding behind the rest, the bandits retreated toward Grozny. Release them through negotiations could only a few months later.
Two weeks later, we were used against militants who attacked trains and cars in a forest belt near the village of Ishcherskaya in the Naursky district of Chechnya.
When reconnoitering the area, it turned out that the Chechens had built a solid stronghold out of reinforced concrete blocks of one and a half meters thick according to all the rules of fortification art. Loopholes, trenches, mines on the approaches. It's all serious. They also read literature, and their school instructors graduated, domestic and foreign. But we destroyed these militants, and destroyed their structures. Cunning military. Having attempted an attack, they pointedly showed the bandits that they were going to leave, began to pull the column. Apparently, they joyfully watched and overlooked a small group of Grigoriy Mylarschikov, who had toured a strong point on two armored personnel carriers from the flank. The attendants, having come close to the object without any resistance, used a flamethrower and grenade launchers, and quickly and without loss achieved victory.
And at the entrance to the village Alpatovo almost got into an ambush. The scenario of actions of the bandits looked like a Khasavyurt one. We, not forgetting how the Chechens treated the servicemen of the Nizhny Novgorod regiment who succumbed to the provocation, acted according to the situation. The line of Seregi Smirnov above the heads of the crowd raging on the road, the forward movement of the armored personnel carriers ahead, the special forces' confidence in their abilities and the bloodless outcome.December 29 in cooperation with other special forces participated in the events already in the very village of Ishcherskoy, where they destroyed the T-62 tank.
After the New Year holidays, an armored train was escorted, and reconnaissance and search activities were conducted along the railway line following it: Mozdok - Chervlennaya - Grozny. Withdrew from Dudayev’s about 200 machine guns, 50 pistols, a large amount of ammunition. The task of unlocking the strategically important highway successfully completed.
In March, in order to assess the enemy forces, they were engaged in reconnaissance on the approaches to Argun. We participated in measures to capture this city, and then Gudermes, where the main forces of the militants were dispersed after artillery strikes, so only in the area of the city hospital did we have a fire contact.
For operations in the village of Samashki, located in a clean field near the road to the village of Arshty and Bamut, prepared as usual. The general management of the units was carried out by Lieutenant-General Anatoly Romanov.
On April 5, the reconnaissance company of the Sofrinsky brigade on the BMP and two armored personnel carriers conducted the first reconnaissance in force. The next day, the command decided to enter the village from the other side, overcoming the minefields. A tank with a mine sweep was moving ahead of the reconnaissance on three armored personnel carriers. Passing a railway crossing, the tank moved forward, but the armored troop-carrier, which followed it, hit the land mine. The tank, having destroyed the enemy's firing point, also blew up, after which another BTR flew at the mine. Units were forced to return to their original position.
On the morning of April 7, on the outskirts of the village, the task force met with the elders. They were declared requirements: SOBR and OMON fighters combing the village to identify weapons and ammunition and carry out passport control, after which the troops move on. According to this scheme, the Interior Ministry officers, as a rule, always worked in the settlements.
In the afternoon, in the direction of Sernovodsk, refugees began to stretch from the village. We did not interfere with them, but the documents were checked and the transport was checked for weapons. It became clear: militants strengthened and the battle could not be avoided. Intelligence during this time revealed enemy firing points, trenches dug on the outskirts and in the village itself, determined the minefields established by the militants.
By evening, the command had cut tasks for each assault group, determined the route of advancement and the points where it was necessary to consolidate and set barriers for the nomination of the following groups. However, the entrance to the village was not easy, the militants ambushed: the tank was blown up and two armored personnel carriers were destroyed.
The trenches, where the militants fired from, they dug not along the streets, but in densely overgrown front gardens, where they were not easy to find. The ravine in the middle of the village also helped them. The clashes inside Samashki ended only by noon the next day. Most of the others suffered from the Sofrino brigade, were killed and seriously wounded.
Leaving the checkpoints with the militiamen on the outskirts of the village, we continued to move in the direction of Achkhoy-Martan and Bamut, not suspecting what kind of hype will be played out in the media about this fight. The information, inflated by the forces of “human rights defenders” who created the myth of the atrocities of the military in Samashki, turned the tough battle of the Afrin people and policemen who were ambushed into a savage punitive action. It is a pity that the world community has dropped to the point that it chose to believe the propaganda of gangsters who have arms to their elbows. Unfortunately, even the speech of the deputy Stanislav Govorukhin - the head of the parliamentary commission to investigate this precedent, who personally went to Samashki, nobody wanted to hear.
When I arrived to Govorukhin to answer the commission’s questions, I was extremely surprised that the deputies had audio recordings of all the negotiations that we conducted in Samashki using radio stations. What kind of communication did the militants have to have then, in order to hear and write down everything that we had spoken in almost 20 hours? And who helped them? For what purpose?
I had to comment on every word I said on the air. Explain many details of the battle. With a well-known film director, we understood each other, and he drew the right conclusions, and I also realized how important the information component in the conduct of hostilities in today's world is. I understood that television, broadcasting a well-mounted picture, can mislead anyone and can make people think and perceive the event as it is beneficial for someone hiding behind the scenes.
It is also interesting that a little later, when we met with the militants at the negotiations during the summer moratorium on firing, we discussed our opposition in various clashes. And those militants, gritting their teeth, admitted: we have no complaints about the “knights”, you are honestly fighting.
Having occupied Achkhoi-Martan in a couple of days, a group of internal troops approached the mountain village of Bamut, located in a deep gorge with a single road. Above the entrance to the village stood Bald Mountain, which was turned by bandits into a stronghold.
In Bamut, we suffered first losses. On April 14, the commander of the assault squadron of the 1 platoon of the 2 special purpose group was killed sergeant Alexander Kisilenko, a native of the Belgorod region. And on April 18 - deputy commander of the 4 GOS, senior lieutenant Oleg Rastegayev, a native of Vladimir, a graduate of the Moscow Higher Combined-Arms Command School named after the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR. As I spoke with his parents at the funeral, as I explained to them, for what we are fighting in Chechnya and why their son died, I will never forget. Thank you, parents of all my fighters, kowtow for raising sons!
In the evening of April 13, the detachment received the task to advance towards the village of Bamut, approach from the west through the forest, organize ambushes and, after finding the militants, destroy them.
On the night of April 14 together with the brothers from the Rosich and Rus detachments, numbering about 200 people, without bullet-proof vests, with the maximum ammunition for small arms, with flamethrowers and grenade launchers went to the village. Quiet, not rattling, not rustling, silently. Before dawn, entering the forest, divided into groups and stretched out. The terrain was a different height hills, overgrown with trees and shrubs.
Slowly moving to the next hill, we heard the sound of working equipment. The watch from 7 man, having reached almost to the top of the hill, came across the watch of militants from 10 man. Militants destroyed. But after the patrol from above, a large gang of Dudaev people of at least 100 people appeared. Pal Kisilenko, Kibordin and Rasskazov were seriously injured, but the bandits had to retreat. After 4 of the day, having received the task to enter and clean the northern part of the village, they set about to act. We drove the column. Somewhere in front of the mine, the BMD exploded, caught fire, and after some time the ammunition exploded. Further, turning to the right, we set to work. Two groups under the cover of an armored personnel carrier crosswise, clinging to the fences, house after street passed all the streets. Everything is clear.
Learning about the ambush on Bald Mountain, in which the guys from “Rosich” landed, they rushed to the rescue. While passing through the Upper Bamut, from the mainstream skyscraper, the militants struck a fire strike at the column.
Reaching the soles of the mountain, it was necessary to overcome the open space and rush to Zelenka. Given the difficulty of recovery, we decided to go without armor. Immediately came under aimed fire from a distance, but, dodging and biting through a dozen steps into the grass, they climbed up. Two turntables appeared in the sky. The trajectory of their approach showed that they can give a volley on their own. Seeing the orange smoke, the turntables fired a volley further, in the direction of the alleged location of the Dudayevites. Taking advantage of the lull, everyone rushed forward to the trees.On the ascent, meeting the wandering towards the wounded, they assisted them. Reaching the main group, joined her and joined the battle. An hour later, covering each other, began a joint descent. Militants have increased fire using mortars, tried to bypass the flanks and surround. Could not.
Downstairs, after plunging the wounded into the armored personnel carriers, remaining, at the same time fighting off the militants sticking from above, they retreated on foot until the next armor approached.
On May 24, we received an order to provide cover for one of the ODON regiments advancing to three heights. It was not possible to advance reconnaissance at the height of 541,9 in advance, we were not allowed to go deeper into the forest. It remained to act on the situation. My deputy, Viktor Nikitenko, went to the task force from the squadron.
Columnar before the start of the climb, the guys turned off the main road and drove through the forest. In Zelenka, turning on a spacious meadow, the first BMP went up the path. And suddenly went to the rear of a well-fortified militant camp. There were dugouts, trenches, armored personnel carriers, three LNG! And all the trunks looked at the road, which was viewed from there as in the palm of your hand. It’s good that Nikitenko turned away from her, thereby disrupting the enemy’s plan to destroy the column while climbing to a height.
A battle ensued, two LNG were destroyed immediately, the militants were pushed to the right of the trail, in the field in front of the forest, where they hid in the trenches. From there, the militants managed to incite the BMP with a grenade launcher. The driver was still alive, the tower of the car pereklinilo. Ensign Valentin Leleko, who tried to assist the crew, was fatally wounded.
The second infantry fighting vehicle, standing in the clearing, rushed to the aid of the first along the trail. The gunmen shot through the car following behind it, BTR, through a shot from the LNG that remained intact, wounded the driver, gunner-operator Konstantin Smirnov died immediately.
The force of the explosion from the back of the armored personnel carrier tore off the side hatch cover. And behind the car was a group. Senior instructor of the group Ensign Dmitry Rashchupkin died.
Fighters from the second BMP dismounted and, hiding behind armor, emerged from the forest into a clearing, under heavy fire of militants. The BMP gun fires out the Dudayev’s armored personnel carrier, and fire from the machine guns to cover the group’s departure from the first vehicle.
Gangsters wounded Private Andrei Arefkin with a grenade launcher. Friends immediately picked it up and provided first aid, but they could not evacuate; they themselves received gunshot and shrapnel wounds. The BMP several times came from grenade launchers, struck the sides, but the driver, a young guy, did not leave the car, did not leave the battle, waited for the wounded and dead to be loaded.
The battle lasted more than three hours. The militants, leaving the dead, retreated into the depths of green. The height was taken the next day. But at what cost, be he wrong. The detachment carried the biggest in its stories losses. All the special forces involved in the battle, showed resilience, courage and bravery, I think everyone is a hero.
I remember the eyes of Kostya Smirnov’s father, overwhelmed with anxiety and despair, who looked into the window of a zinc coffin. Shaking his head quietly, he silently swallowed a mean tear. “Commander, we will not show my mother, let him remember alive,” he said. The funeral is for me the hardest part of commanding labor.
On June 2, during a battle at the height of Bezymyannaya, the senior gunner of the 2 platoon of the 3 GSN soldier Sergey Sergein died. Sergei covered the assault group with fire, and his dedication helped the "knights" to perform the combat mission.
The task then was the usual one: to occupy the height and hold until the operational regiment of the division approached.
The group reached the summit, overgrown with small bushes with an abandoned oil derrick in the middle, without a single shot. Just dismounted and began to turn around in order of battle, as an armored carrier hit a mine, and from the bushes, about a hundred meters away, the militants began to shoot from automatic weapons.
At about three o'clock the group fired back, directed artillery at the ravine, but the militants did not let up. It was decided to leave the height. Cover group remained Sedin. He was awarded the Order of Courage posthumously.
In early December, the detachment was sent to the place of permanent deployment, to Moscow. For three months of rest, we planned to restore the equipment, put in order the weapons, heal, gain strength. And, of course, seriously work out, given the experience gained and the specifics of fighting. In Chechnya, we also made time for classes, ran crosses, fired, engaged in hand-to-hand combat, and carried out an examination for the right to wear a wrap-up beret. Education is the basis of future success. As for fatigue and difficult “habitat”, the military people are not used to complaining. Here the truth is simple: if the special forces fail to cope with the task, then there is no one to entrust its implementation. It turns out that we are that final authority, the standard of military skill and valor, on which the others are equal. It is not easy to keep the bar, but even to us the spotted berets and chevrons with a submachine gun in their fist did not go for beautiful eyes.We celebrated the New Year, started the educational process. But January's 9 gang of Salman Raduyev attacks the Dagestan city of Kizlyar. Anxiety!
Raduevtsy burned two helicopters, trying to capture the town of the battalion of internal troops. Does not work. Then they hit for sure - on the peaceful population! They seize the hospital, drive the locals into it and, threatening with reprisal, present an ultimatum: to withdraw the Russian troops from Chechnya.
After negotiations with the authorities of Dagestan, militants receive security guarantees and buses for departure to Chechnya.
11 January at the turn to the village of Pervomaiskoye column stopped. Militants captured Novosibirsk militiamen who were at the checkpoint, turned into a settlement and began to prepare for defense.
We flew to Mozdok by plane from Chkalovsky. From there on the turntables flew to Pervomaisky, where they stood in the open field. Winter, cold, wind.
So far, politicians tried to earn a reputation and were conducting incomprehensible negotiations with Raduev, and the generals could not decide who would manage the operation from which department, the militants, using hostages, dug trenches and communication between houses for three days, built fortifications. We were preparing for battle.
Colonel-General Pavel Golubets, after listening to the proposals of colleagues from the state security agencies and the Ministry of Defense, offered his own version of the operation. "Proposed? Do it! ”- answered him. I note: later, examining the details of the entire campaign, I came to the conclusion that it was Holubets who played the greatest role in the success of the common cause.
During the reconnaissance, it turned out that of all those who had to go on the assault, young boys - conscripts - only in the unit "Vityaz". In SOBRs and special forces of the FSB, of course, mature men. In time, almost 150 subordinates, counting the 15 assigned from the ROS "Rus", were brought up to battle, and lead along, to gain a foothold in the southeastern outskirts of the village — that was the task Holubets set for me.
The detachment took the initial position in a shallow aryk. Behind him, the company of the Buinaksk motorized rifle brigade was pulled out to block the exit from the village. The company commander, a smart guy, told me that there are channels in the field through which you can secretly get to the outskirts and, if you're lucky, walk to the very center of the village. This information helped develop a plan of action.
The assault began on January 15. First, artillery and helicopters worked on the militants for a short time, then we went. Rush. Jerks. Sometimes it was necessary to lie in the funnels, the rockets, still smoking from tears, and roll down into the ditches, pressing into the mud.
The distance in 800 meters was bloodied, six people were injured. But, having destroyed the military guard of the militants, we still entered Pervomayskoye. We examined a number of houses, threw grenades into the trench with the machine gunner.
There was a moment when the attached mortar battery, which covered the detachment with fire, began to peel so close that it became clear: we would get into the fork, not the militants. Applying obscene language, I ask a battery officer, who is obliged not only to follow me dejectedly, but also to correct the fire through radio communications: “Why are your beats here? I guess you’ll say now that the batteries are dead and you can’t do anything? ” “Yes, there is no connection, we are covered,” he responds with the voice of a martyr, who has resigned himself to the situation. But my fighters, grated rolls, poured out a spare set of batteries from their pockets, established a connection. And the officer quickly and intelligibly explained to the shooters how and where to move the fire.
It was getting dark. Allowing fighters to spend the night inside houses, I considered it inappropriate, one shot from a grenade launcher could turn the house into a mass grave. Plus the risk of getting hit in the morning aviation. We decided to jump over a long heavy fence stretching across the street we occupied and return to the outskirts to gain a foothold in the folds of the terrain. It’s safer for the fighters. In order not to get us from the flanks, nor from the front. He organized a circular defense, gave the guys a break in turn.
Although what's the rest? We spent the night in hastily equipped positions, at the aryk, and, of course, half of the group constantly carried combat duty to prevent a possible breakthrough of the bandits, the rest slept in the snow, feet to the fire. The prose of life: for most fighters, the shoes of heat have melted, and their noses froze up, flushed, like those of snowmen.
All night long, artillery and aircraft fired with special lighting projectiles, creating the impression of an artificial day, only rather gloomy.
Viktor Nikitenko, with a group of fighters, conducted reconnaissance, identified the firing points of the militants, handed over to the command post Kulikov. When retiring to the starting line, Nikitenko ran into rainbowmen. In an exchange of gunfire, an 1 gunner of the GOS soldier Dmitry Evdokimov, a native of the Kurgan Region, received a wound in the stomach. Dima was evacuated to the rear, transferred to the hospital, but could not be saved.
On the morning of January 16, we went on the attack again. Reached the main street. Supported by fire officers of the Dagestan special intelligence unit, rushing through the adjacent street. They destroyed several of the bandits and freed the hostages who were with them. Four former servicemen who went over to the side of the militants a month ago in Gudermes were detained and transferred to the military counterintelligence agencies.
These defectors, seeing my fighters, rushing into the courtyard, tried to take hostages. Having hidden the automata, we jumped out to meet them and began vying with each other about their misfortunes. However, you can’t catch mine on the chaff, the forgery was opened quickly, having found among militants a notebook of militants with a schedule of duty at the post and numbers assigned to the sentry weapons. The names of false prisoners were in that notebook.
One of the assault groups was headed by my deputy for work with personnel, Oleg Kublin. After suppressing several firing points of the rainbowers in the windows of houses, he tried to bypass the machine gunner from the flank, who was shooting through the trench from the whole street. Oleg was seriously wounded in the stomach, but until he lost consciousness continued to coordinate the actions of his group. Well done fighters, vkolov anesthetic, they pulled him out from under the shelling and handed over to doctors. Thanks to their efforts in various cities and hospitals, Kublin almost a year later rose to his feet and returned to service.
A private Oleg Dolgov, a dowry from OSN Rus, died. 6 October 1995, he was ambushed in which General Romanov was wounded. Then lucky, remained unharmed. Here, risking his life, he managed to quietly get to the position of the enemy and throw it with grenades. From there, covering each other with fire, Oleg and a friend carried a crate of ammunition to the special forces, who took the lead. Both were slightly injured by enemy fire. Dolgov gave his friend a safe place so that he could do the dressing, and he himself was struck down by a sniper's bullet.
Oleg Dolgov was awarded the title Hero of the Russian Federation (posthumously). One of the streets in the village of Lunacharsky, Samara Region, is named after him.
With the support of helicopters, we reached the end of the village along the allotted site. Cleaned up the house of the bandits. There was a time when we were completely bogged down at a crossroads, but our older brothers from Alpha helped us.
In view of the onset of darkness, they decided to withdraw to the starting line.
After two practically sleepless nights, we and the security officers were sent to rest in heated buses, fitted to the village at a reasonable distance. Stocked with dry rations.
17-th command pulled to Pervomaisky three installation "Grad". Of course, there was no order to go on the assault under the guns of installations.
In the morning darkness of January 18, the rainbow men tried to escape from the village and go across Chechnya across the Terek River. Most of the bandits fell from the fire of GRU special forces and paratroopers, artillery and aviation, some escaped in the forest.
In the afternoon, at the next entrance to the village, the resistance was practically not felt. Clashes with the remaining militants to cover the gang's escape ended quickly.
12 and 13 February "Vityaz" involved in special operations in the villages of Kadi-Yurt and Engel-Yur. We seized weapons and detained residents involved in the gangs.
February 16 participated in the liberation from the militants of the village Novogroznenskoe, where, according to intelligence, the headquarters of Aslan Maskhadov and the remnants of the Raduev gang were located. The bandits dug many trenches, trenches and passages in Novogroznensky, equipped cellars and houses with pillboxes.
February 18, together with the DSB battalion and the regiment of the DON-100 common column moved to the village. The militants met with fierce fire. It was not possible to break the enemy’s defenses on the move. In order to avoid large losses, the leaders gave the command to go.
In the morning of February 19, after the artillery preparation, the BMP and the riot police and SOBR units advanced. The detachment acted in the second echelon. Fight broke out fierce. The police suffered losses, had to retreat.
February 20 gave us one tank for each assault group, and again - go ahead! Transferring the fire of tanks into the village, hiding behind armor and maneuvering, the attackers took control of the village, forcing the militants to the outskirts. By evening, the remnants of the gang disappeared in the dark, the situation in Novogroznensky stabilized.
A couple of days later I received the command to take the detachment to Moscow to rest.
At home, drinking freshly brewed coffee and looking out the window at the quiet sky of the capital, I rejoiced at the sun and realized that it was there, in the war, that not only the hardest days of my life, but also the best, passed. Days that tested me for the strength of character, for attitude to serious things - good and evil, love and hate, happiness and sorrow, to people and homeland. I felt proud for my guys, for honest, correct men, none of whom surrendered, did not show cowardice and cowardice, did not quit the battlefield, did not whine and did not complain of pain and deprivation, but honestly and consciously performed my duty to the people !
In July, I was transferred to serve in the Main Command of the Internal Troops. From there, from the Office of Emergency Situations, I retired a year later.Since then I have been working in the Interregional Association of Veterans of the Special Forces "Rus". The tasks of our organization include assistance to employees of special forces who were injured or injured in the performance of military duty, support for families of fallen comrades, military-patriotic education of young people, employment of special forces who were dismissed from service due to illness, injury or injury.
The fight against organized crime and terrorism cannot be conducted on the basis of isolated, uncoordinated actions; this struggle requires a targeted, integrated approach involving not only public services, but also all the forces of society, and above all, people with powerful professional experience. Today, the regional representative offices of the Association "Rus" operate in the cities of St. Petersburg, Nalchik, Volgograd, Sochi, Saratov, Samara, Elista, Novgorod, Belgorod, Mytishchi, Kaliningrad. Together we are trying to make our own contribution to the benefit of our country. Spetsnaz is for life!
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