The sixth sense of special forces
A year ago, when I heard the song “Scout Special Forces Airborne Forces” in the tent of the military personnel of the 45 separate guards regiment of the special-purpose airborne troops, I first thought that it was performed by a professional musician, it sounded so good.
In response to a question about the author of the hit, the fighters showed me a photo of a tall, strong man in a field uniform and a blue beret: “This is our intelligence officer, he served in a special detachment! Slava Korneev his name, Leshy - call sign. He is a holder of the Order of Courage, medals of the Order for Services to the Fatherland, II degree and two medals "For Courage". Not ryazheny, not fake, most real. And he sings about a case that he truly knows. ”
The veteran of intelligence, the author-performer Vyacheslav Korneev tells about himself, about the service, life and songs.
- I was born 25 February 1976, in the polar city of Kovdor, in the Murmansk region. School years passed quickly, and in the spring of 1994, I was drafted into the army. Despite my passionate desire to serve in the airborne troops, they brought me to an artillery training school in Pargolovo, near St. Petersburg. They learned the commander of the calculation of the anti-tank guns MT-12, assigned the rank of junior sergeant and distributed them in the 134 th guards motorized rifle regiment 45 of the peacekeeping forces, which was based in the village of Kamenka, the Vyborg district. The commander of our regiment was Guards Colonel Mikhail Yuryevich Malofeev. 17 January 2000, he will die in Grozny in the rank of Major General and will be posthumously awarded the high title of Hero of Russia.
One night I, the officer on duty at the soldiers' canteen, introduced himself to a general passing by and asked to be sent to the Caucasus. Was it reckless? I do not know. Only in response, I heard: “What unit? Hand over the outfit, the location of the run-march "! And spun! Getting weapons, equipment, food. The construction of personnel. The commander reads the lists of descending, but my name does not sound on this list! Why? Seeing my intransigence, the commander knocked out the guy flooded with tears, and I took his place. So I became the deputy platoon commander, retreating to war.
First impressions
The next day, as part of the battalion, they flew to Mozdok, disembarked on take-off. Cold, dirt, crowds of armed people scurry back and forth. Having seen musician Yuri Shevchuk among the soldiers, he made his way to him and asked for an autograph. He did not refuse and signed on the top deck of my guitar. We even sang with him a couple of verses from The Last Autumn.
Moving to the field next to the takeoff, spent the night. And in the morning look - there is no our battalion! And we, 22 fighter in body armor and helmets, with weapons and equipment, were left alone, without officers. Nobody needed, no one wanted!
Having stayed without hot food and water for three days, having had time to chew on the snacks and burn all gas masks, overcoats and felt boots, they got rounds of ammunition and grenades. Just got up in some kind of receiving ammunition system and received half a cap of ammunition! We did not ask any surnames, nor were they forced to subscribe anywhere. And at night we dragged two boxes of grenades from an unguarded caponier filled with this good to the top.
One day, we met a colonel who stopped us in a formidable voice: “Who are they? What kind of flock? ”I introduced myself, explained. The colonel ordered to follow him and led us to the bath. After bathing, he sent us to the dining room. Clean and well-fed, we boarded the bus and went with the colonel, as it turned out, to the city of Cool, to the 135 motorized rifle brigade.
In the brigade we were fed, dressed, re-armed, and a day later we were sent in a column to Chechnya. We did not go for long, often avoiding public roads and leaving several malfunctioning cars along the way. Now and artillery positions ... Howitzers and self-propelled guns deafeningly hit where, sinking in the mud, our column creeps.
Jumping from the "Ural" to the ground, I slipped. Taking a stable position, I realized that I was standing on a corpse, rolled out in a rut. Helping others get out of the car, he warned me to be more attentive. The disfigured corpse is what we saw in Chechnya in the first place.
The task assigned to our division led us to the central market of Grozny. The trucks crowded tightly into the courtyard adjacent to the market building, and while we unloaded from them foodstuffs, duffel bags and sleeping bags, they were sadly waiting for their sad fate.
Some man running past, hung with “Flies”, grenades, knives and pistols, nervously straightening the edge of a hunting rifle dangling on his thigh, attacked me: “You ... on ... Why did you drive the equipment on ... here, your mother on ...? She'll burn it all. ”
Our only BTR, it turns out, was burned still on its way. After finishing the unloading and leaving Mikola Pitersky to the guard of dry-rations, I went for a reconnaissance of the market building. The personnel died of thirst, and I discovered deposits of cans with compote! Mines, occasionally piercing the roof, no longer scared, but my heart was restless.
And then it began! One of the first mines flew into dry packs, digging into them Mykola Pitersky! Dug up. Alive! Our "Urals", meanwhile, have already blazed! Sorry, the guitar burned out in the cab. Someone shouted: “There they knocked out a tank!” We run to watch. Look out carefully from the windows. There he is! Very close! Lit. And suddenly a deafening shot! The shell hits the five-story building. They say that at this time she was stormed by paratroopers. Then - as in a dream. Explosion! We are thrown on broken glass! When the dust subsided, we saw that tank not. Everlasting memory…
After sitting in the market building for a day, we finally got the task of seizing a high-rise building on Karl Liebknecht Street, adjacent to a small market square.
Our new platoon commander outlined the task for us in a very intelligible form: “To run fast, without tripping over corpses. Stop - death! Let's go to the house - we'll figure it out! ”
They ran. The first of the three nine-story buildings was already occupied by the paratroopers, and we got the second without a fight. Neither the tenants nor the militants, empty.
My platoon was tasked to gain a foothold on the sixth floor and prevent the enemy from entering the house through the roof of the neighboring five-story building.
The apartment, whose windows overlooked the roof of this five-story building, was impressive, the apartment was very rich.
We emptied the refrigerator and set up an improvised table in the hallway, but did not have time to pick up the condensed milk banks opened for the recently arrived New Year and the housewarming party, as something serious got into the house. The building shook, the fire started. The fire spread so fast that we barely jumped out of the apartments into the porch, as they burned to the ground, and while the apartments were burning, we, choking in smoke, sat on the flight of stairs because there was death on the street. In the third nine-story building were "spirits".
Sausage
The next day, the commander set the task: “In connection with the destruction of the entire food stock of the battalion by the enemy, it is necessary with the help of four volunteers and a miraculously surviving infantry fighting vehicle of unknown affiliation to get into the market. There to find and then take out the maximum amount of food! "
The main volunteer was me. I decided to connect my section commanders to this task. Good guys. Reliable. Descended, found in the ruins of the house the BMP and even its driver. There was no one else in the crew, and where his unit was located, the guy had no idea. After listening to the task, the mechanic nodded: “We’ll do it, but ... the car does not turn left. Traction killed! We will waltz! Well, turn left, turning 270 degrees to the right! ”
Loaded in landings and rushed. The first turn to the left ... spinning ... scary. Forward! The second turn is spinning. There is no light in the car, we are not able to open the hatches from the inside, if anything, horror! And now, through the crash and clatter of trucks, bullets pounded on the armor! And suddenly hit! Crashed! "Everyone is alive? Here we are! ”The mechanic shouted. As it turned out, he was traveling all the way in a “hiking” position! Under bullets! Well gives! And he told me: “Why? Triplexes are broken, you can't see a damn! ”Hero man!
Ran through the market. Empty, our troops have gone somewhere, and what to expect is unknown. Products found quickly. Sausage! She was a lot. Having cracked the mouths of Krakow and having thrown automatic machines behind his back, the amphibious compartments of the BMP and their own belongings and pockets quickly loaded with sausage. Childish greed played a cruel joke with me. Realizing that there was little load on the battalion, I decided to leave my guys on the market and, having climbed into the tower of the car, personally deliver the cargo and return for the second batch. “Go!” I shouted to the mechanic, barely getting to the hatch. And he went. Confidently so with the afterburner! And he didn’t know, I didn’t know that behind him I, in a sausage stuffed with a bulletproof vest and with a plump duffel bag, are trying to get into the tower. While we got to the coveted house, I did not have a single whole store! And I threw empty on the armor.
Having made three raids in a row, we completed the task. Thank you brother mehanu!
Assault
On Friday, 13 in January, my platoon received an order to occupy one of the houses on Rosa Luxemburg Street. He stood butt to the presidential palace, and attempts to seize him have not yet been crowned with success. The paratroopers holding up to the last were trapped in his basement, and the “spirits” were in charge at the house.
We ran to our house through the wasteland between the five-story buildings, came under fire. There was nowhere to hide, except for the burnt BMP. For it all crowded platoon, go on scary. But it is necessary, otherwise they will put everything on the flank. They rushed to the brick booth, such a heat center with pipes and valves, hid behind the wall.
We sat behind the booth for more than an hour, waiting for the Shilka. She was supposed to cover us by shooting at the windows of the palace. And we had to run right under the barrage of its fire! Before our eyes, three fighters from another unit jumped out from somewhere and rushed headlong to our house! In our entrance! One of them, a meter away from the door, fell, shot by a sniper, and two jumped inside. One threw the wounded man out of the door of the entrance, but he could not cling to it, the bullets hit him one by one. The second fighter was shooting with militants inside the house.
Suddenly, about twenty meters away a mine arrives with a characteristic whistle! One of our shards hit his leg. Well, I think, dressing up the wounded, it began! He offered the commander to place a platoon inside the house: “Probably, the“ spirits ”correct the fire of their mortar at that moment!” The platoon commander announced the proposal to the battalion commander. The answer is bright: “No, wait, now there will be a team! It is better to check this house for the presence of a sniper. Got it, Mr. Gad! ”
Well, they were divided into three groups, three people in each, ran around the house from the opposite side and jumped into the windows. Purely. When they returned, on the second floor they heard two strong explosions in a row. About where we just left our platoon. Throw down! And there ... Blood, smoke, groans! The squad leader Dan Golden with his troika finished examining his porch before us, went out, and covered him - covered in blood! The commander, Stas Golda, is wounded. Later, doctors counted eighteen fragmental wounds on his body, and the Motherland awarded the Order of Courage.
Signalman where is the station alive? Our Р-159 on Mykola St. Petersburg's chest took on a few shards, but it worked properly! “Milling cutter,” I scream. - “Milling cutter-12”, I have “200” and “300”, I specify the quantity, and the commander is injured! I ask for help in the evacuation! ”And the battalion commander calmly replies that a command was given for the assault and that I collected healthy people and completed the task. And promises to evacuate the wounded, even without asking how many of them. The platoon is consolidated, who and from where it is given is unknown, did not exchange addresses with everyone, we don’t know the names of many. So they fought for the Motherland.
Indeed, to the left of us, we drove out on a direct lead and roared with a Shilka fire. I had no choice but to send the “Mill” to the hell and start providing help to the bleeding guys. I nevertheless achieved their evacuation. And we have completed the task. Blood and sweat. So I became a platoon commander. Cock of nine people. Minus thirteen!
Then everything went easy. Ready, "Milling Cutter-12"? Ready to answer! “Forward!” - the cry from the radio. And what is storming the house together, without a smoke cover, not understanding where are yours, and where are strangers? Now all this is remembered, like a nightmare or stills from the film. All in blood, black from dirt and soot, seven automata left behind from the evacuated guys, in the hands of PKM from forty meters shredding the house my guys are running to! Tactics? What the hell tactic? We ran to the fifth floor, throwing grenades at the door and sometimes shooting. Sealed. Counted. Everything.
Later, when it was necessary to pull out the main forces, we cleaned all the apartments of our entrance from top to bottom. Walking down the street at that time was in a bad form, so the main forces were pulled up to us through the wall in which we punched a hole with the help of a grenade launcher, some kind of mother, and from where came the sledge hammer!
It was in this house, “having borrowed” from SVasha Lyutin's friend to his SVD, on the butt of which there were already three cuts with a bayonet, I became a sniper. Equipped a wonderful, tactically competent position. He settled in the bath, on a stool. For emphasis - pre-emptied fridge. From there, through a small hole punched in by a shell in the wall, swept through an impressive segment of the terrain in front of the house, namely, an extension to the presidential palace and part of the palace itself.
Once, marines ran into our house: two officers and a sailor. The sailor, as it turned out, was real, from a warship! Perhaps that is why he almost shot me when I changed positions. But the Marines impressed me with others. Live bait! One, standing in the window opening, began to fan the palace with tracer fans, and the second, in the back of the room, having prepared the RPG-18 for battle, waited. As an artilleryman, I understood that the guys were walking along the razor's edge, but they were stubbornly lucky. Nibble on live bait was excellent, and soon I joined this “fishing artel”, and the sailor ensured that none of the fighters came out to my bullet, moving around the apartment.
Combat Commonwealth
There was a day when the company commander set me the task to take three volunteers and with them to find and evacuate the bodies of the two dead, Sergey Les and Dima Strukov from the third platoon, from the street rubble. They died a few days ago. Attempts to find them have already been undertaken by a company head officer, Ensign Purtov. Then the “spirits” with the fighters were squeezed behind the pilastery (this is such a protrusion from a house the size of two bricks) and methodically began to destroy the shelter, leading through it an incredibly dense fire from the house, which we then occupied with a platoon. We dragged them together with my fellow countryman Pomors, covering the waste with our fire. I will never forget how Ensign Purtov doing a dash, stumbles, falls, and in the place where he was just now, an automatic burst bites into a brick ...
In general, the task is clear. I am an automatic on my shoulder, a helmet on my head. I suggest one fighter to go, the second, the third, and they - who are with the stomach, who with a sudden headache, someone from the post. They do not want to risk, even burst. But when the search for volunteers reached the guys from Dagestan, they, without further ado: the helmet and the cap went, commander! But they did not know the dead at all, for which we had to go! And here I, two Dagestanis and Kazakhs went into this search.
We found the body of Sergei quickly, told to the very booth, and then - stop. A fire of such density that it becomes clear - in the light of day we will not pass. Even puffing on this damn site. Tried it. They managed to return to the house only in the morning, leaving Sergey in place, but putting the body so that it could be seen from our windows. They could not pick up and transfer the body to the rear after several days, when the militants left the palace without a fight.
Somehow, in the midst of fighting on our site, the battalion commander needed to go to the rear, and for protection he took me with him. The rear units were then in the park named after Lenin. I, left to myself for some time, wandered through the park, wondering how they live here in tents? And if mine? And suddenly something seemed strange to me. Everywhere, wherever I went, everyone died down, threw firewood, cleaning and silently looked at me. And there was in these views some kind of respect, interspersed with compassion. “Look, look, from the foremost guy!” - I heard and, as if waking up, looked around. Then invitations for heating fell down in tents, inquiries, congratulations on being alive! “What is the matter?” I ask. “How do you know that I am from the front line?” “Did you see yourself in the mirror?” One asks. "Of course not! Where are the mirrors in the city? Everything is burned and broken! ”- I laugh. “Na-ka, take a look! People like you are brought to us only dead! ”- embarrassed, the fighter handed me a mirror. Well, I took a look. He looked and was scared. From the mirror, a monster looked at me in a dirty, ragged black hat with a black, smoky face, burnt bristles and eyebrows, red teary eyes.
A little later, when the fighting for the city moved to other neighborhoods, we decided to visit the less affected porches of our house. Find something like mattresses. My platoon was lucky to have burned down apartments to the ground, and for the last week I slept on two drawers from under the VOGs, without a sleeping bag, of course. Typing junk, on the way back to our "temple" we saw an interesting picture: the Dudayev Palace was savagely stormed by the guys in white camouflage and in unprecedented unloadings. Spetsnaz, otherwise, I thought evil, a couple of days ago you would be here!
After a decade and a half, noting the 30 anniversary of the 901 OBSpN with fellow soldiers, we watched the Chechen chronicle, when suddenly ... In the frame, the end of our house flashed and the hole pierced by the projectile through which I once made my first shot from the SVD. So those guys in camouflage turned out to be my current friends! It's a small world!
Then our war began to decline. For a month we stood in the village of St. Andrew’s Valley at the CBU, then in Shali. In May, when the war went to the mountainous areas, our battalion, which lost more than half of the personnel, was taken out for rest and resupply to Khankala.
At the shooting range in my career I met my fellow countryman Dima Koksharov. We talked. He served in the 45-th regiment of the Airborne Forces. And the harsh guys, descending on the ropes down into the quarry and performing tactical exercises incomprehensible to me at that time with the screw-cutters unprecedented in infantry, turned out to be his fellow soldiers. Cool scouts, I thought, where am I to them!
New life
In September, the war ended for us. Battalion column departed to the point of permanent deployment in Cool. I rode on the armor of the closing BMP, and all the way behind us dragged a broom tied to the armor, never to return here. Sign!
Resigned to stock. I came to my parents in Smolensk. And there - darkness! The depressing impression of the dying village. Unemployment, alcoholism, drug addiction. Young people engaged in stupid self-destruction.
The only right decision was to return to the army, and seriously and for a long time. The commander of the 45 OPSPN, Colonel Viktor Kolygin, to whom I arrived for an attitude in 1996, told me: “We don’t take a citizen for a contract, register in the Tula division, and translate from there.”
In 173, a separate reconnaissance company in Tula heard a similar one: “Let's go first to the regimental reconnaissance, but we'll see.” So, with the reconnaissance company of the 51 th paratroop regiment, I began my combat journey in the Airborne Forces.
During the year of service I managed to go on a three-month business trip to Abkhazia. For several years, the paratroopers in Gudauta carried out a peacekeeping mission, and I made a small contribution to restoring peace on the southeast coast of the Black Sea.
After Abkhazia, Major Sergey Konchakovsky, assistant chief of the intelligence division, paid me close attention. He asked provocative questions, followed my answers and actions. Soon Konchakovsky suggested that I go to Sokolniki and talk with the commander of the special squad of the 45 regiment, where I left, having enlisted the necessary recommendations.
A special squad
The service at the new place attracted and swallowed. I liked everything: people, equipment, weapons, equipment, approach to conducting training sessions.
When I arrived for the weekend in Tula with a whole backpack of spetsnaz gadgets and in a fashionable padding polyester and told the officers about everything that he had seen and learned during a month of service in special-purpose reconnaissance, most of them caught fire there. What they did soon.
History the appearance of my call sign - Leshy is quite funny. The commander of the reconnaissance group, Captain Stanislav Konoplyannikov, built us, young intelligence officers, and ordered me to invent call signs. I came up with the “Leshy”, but did not begin to voice it, fearing to get into an awkward situation, suspecting that there was already such a call sign in the regiment. And when the commander, bypassing the line and writing down the invented call signs, stopped in front of me, I told him: “I didn’t think of it, Comrade Captain.” To which he replied: “Well, then you will be Leshim!” Since then, since 1998, I have been Leshy.
In September 1999, they flew to Dagestan, in the midst of the outbreak of war. They performed various tasks of reconnaissance, search and destruction of militant bases. In October, working for the 61st Separate Kirkenes Red Banner Marine Brigade of the Northern fleet, the first went to the Terek.
14 October, completing the task of conducting optical reconnaissance of the settlement S., our group moved to the evacuation area. We walked with increased attention. Constantly it seemed that something was wrong on the left as if someone was looking at us.
And here is the armor! It became calmer. Suddenly the radio station comes to life. It is followed by an order that radically changed our plans, and many, and destinies. We had to watch the forester's house, which was nearby, but in the opposite direction.
Two of our armored personnel carriers (the group commander Pavel Klyuyev was driving on the first senior, and V. were on the second) went along a narrow road along the Terek. The river bank is low, the places are overgrown, wild, beautiful. To the right of the road there are four-meter reeds, to the left there is a turn and thick brilliant green on a one-and-a-half-meter artificial shaft.
At the entrance to the right turn, in front of a huge puddle, the car slowed down, but something made me turn back. It seemed that with side vision I caught something similar to a “grenade thrower” target. Three seconds passed before I realized that this was really a rocket launcher! Bearded, disguised with branches, he prepared himself for shooting from his knee, and it seemed that he was aiming me straight at the forehead from some fifteen meters! I didn’t want to admit that, so with a cry: “There he is ...!”, He turned the SVD in his direction. My next cry: “Attention! On the left, drowned in the roar of the shot and who killed the armored personnel carrier of the explosion. As we ended up behind the armor, I don’t remember, apparently, persistent tactical training affected. From excess pressure in the engine compartment vomited and lifted power hatches. I think it saved the lives of many of our group, because from the roadside shaft at least a dozen militants shot our lifeless machine at close range, while their grenade thrower was preparing for the second shot. Having landed on the store, machine gunners lay down to recharge, and the grenade thrower again drove the “flea” into the stern of our car. And again the lead rain! And so three times in a row. And all three times the grenade launcher pecked into the stern.
Hiding under the nose of the “box” with a rifle that was useless at 10 – 15 meters, I had no idea what was going on with the group. Are the guys alive? Near Novosel. And the rest? Abrek crawled up to us from the side of the road and with a gesture he showed up to armor, and there Klyuev. He lay down on the bleeding Igor Salnikov - Gosha. Believing to save, Abrek and I carefully pulled them off their armor. Gosha’s head was pierced, but signs of life gave us hope. I tried to find signs of life and the group commander, but, alas. “How is Pasha?” Asked Abrek, bandaging Gosha. “No more Pasha!” I replied, dropping the useless bandage. Gosh died a few days later, already in the hospital. That day when Pasha was buried.
"Spirits" themselves suggested how to deal with their attack, starting to throw grenades at us. Abrek stayed with Gosha and Pasha, and I returned to Novosela under the nose of the BTR, when suddenly F-1 flies out from behind the shaft and falls on the road about five to seven meters from us! These were infinitely long seconds, as in slow motion. I shout: “Novoselov, grenade!” “What kind of grenade?” He goggles. “In my opinion, efka!” - and I fall between Pasha and Gosha, covering my head with my hands. Tightly compressed legs pull to the center of the explosion and wait - where will the splinter fly to me? Explosion. It has passed! And surely rushing back to where the damn grenade had just ripped.
We fall, take out all our grenades from the unloading and calmly, methodically, with shooting checks confidently throw them on the other side of the shaft! How do you like that, action movies?
It helped! Novosel guessed to climb into the armored personnel carrier and, using a mechanical trigger, empty the PKT box. A turning point in the battle situation set in, shooting for a while subsided, the groans of the wounded and the crackling of the branches became audible. Branches! So, the militants were preparing for evacuation. Then the second BTR rolled up, for some reason it was lagging behind, and its appearance caused the militants to speed up their withdrawal, covering it with active fire. So tight that two of our machine gunners, who climbed onto the shaft, had to leave their positions and crawl to the road. Then again, as in a slow motion film shooting: V. rises to the full height of the shaft, raises his AKMS with a drum to 75 of ammunition, branches twisted by enemy bullets fall nearby, and he, like a spell, shoots at Zelenka, until the drum is wedged. The bark and shreds of foliage fly into his face, but he, without bending down, shoots!
V. is a man of unparalleled courage, will and uncompromising. This Russian officer. I am glad that many of his exploits were noticed, and by the Decree of the President of Russia he was awarded the title Hero of Russia. After few years.
The battle subsided. “Who?”, V. asked briefly. “Pasha, Gosh,” answered Novosel and I. They also brought Vitya Nikolsky, a bullet pierced his thigh right through him. We went to the children lying on the ground. I squeezed the wrist of the group commander in my hand in the hope of feeling the pulse, and suddenly: there is! I shout: “Comrade Major! Pulse is. V. touched Pasha's neck and silently shook his head. It turns out that with excitement I squeezed my hand too hard and felt my pulse.
A BMP with scouts from the Stavropol regiment flew up to the battlefield. Dismounting, they took up the defense around us, lifting their heads in disbelief in search of the enemy. Tired, probably, they evacuate-evacuate us all day, all the way. Here, our second armored personnel carrier turned around and began to take it back, in order to take the damaged fellow onto the trailer and drag it to the regimental location. An APC wheel drove into a puddle on the side of the road. There is a mine. A knock, a powerful explosion, and a multi-ton machine jumped up. All threw the blast wave to different sides!
For a moment, silence, I lay in the middle of the road, looking surprised at black rubber snow - this is an armored personnel carrier wheel, split by breaking a mine into trash, slowly and sadly waltzing with small black snowflakes on the ground, settling on the faces of the living and the dead scouts. Thank you, I think, brother-driver of the first reservation, you listened to our advice not to run into puddles. If we were the first to hit this mine, there would be no one left alive.
As soon as the rumor returned, I heard a painful moan through the ringing in my ears. On the shaft lay Stavropol Minenkov. The leg is torn off, but he himself is conscious, even trying to apply a tourniquet. “How is the leg?” Asks. “It's all right, you will walk!” - I answer, and myself quietly pushing the severed leg, which lies next to his head, down. The blood was stopped, the man was saved.
I will add that Mikhail Minenkov was awarded the title of Hero of Russia by decree of the Acting President of Russia from 17 in January 2000.
Having removed the machine guns from the broken armored personnel carriers and having shot the onboard radio stations, we decided to blow up the cars. We did not have the opportunity to pull them out that day, and the militants must not be left. I was preparing our car for demolition, and tears flowed from my eyes. From that moment on, my other adult life began. Life in the airborne special forces.
The group that conducted the inspection of the area of the battle and the evacuation of armor, found several more mines and land mines installed on the road. Apparently, the militants were preparing a powerful ambush, and it was not at all we were their target. It is very likely that this battle prevented a great tragedy, since the passage of a column of one of the paratrooper regiments was expected along this road.
Well, we, a handful of relatively unscathed scouts, contused and tired, with harsh, gloomy faces, appeared before the terrible eyes of Major General Popov, who personally met at the side of the helicopter that had taken us to the CBU. His welcome speech put the guys into shock: “So, fighters, I, of course, understand everything, the war is on, but you must observe the uniform! Where are your caps, comrade scouts? ”
A few days later we gathered in our tent to remember the dead friends. We just reported that Gosh died in hospital. When the third toast was raised in memory of the fallen brothers, the deputy commander of the 218 Special Forces battalion, Major Pyotr Yatsenko, picked up the guitar and put a piece of text in front of him, sang his new song about our group. While he was singing, it seemed that we were going through that short but cruel fight again. Many, sneaking away, wiped a mean male tear.
Pyotr Karlovich was sitting right in front of me, and when the song was over and everyone came to, I asked him for a piece of text with the text in order to rewrite it in my notebook. Return the sheet Yatsenko I was not able to. On the next task, which we reached in two groups, Peter Karlovich, commanding a special-purpose reconnaissance group, died the death of the brave in battle with the superior forces of the enemy. By decree of the President of Russia on 24 March 2000, Peter Yatsenko was awarded the title Hero of Russia (posthumously).
The sheet with the song is now stored in the Museum of Military Glory OOSN 45 OPSPN Airborne.
"Spetsnazovskaya Chuyka"
There were many interesting tasks. In November, we go to ambush. Two groups. Our guide. Two nights. Charged, checked the connection, jumped. Team: "Head watch, go ahead!" Moved. With the first step, fear recedes into the background, giving way to attention and caution, cold calculation and lightning reaction. But fear does not disappear altogether. Who said that the scout is not afraid of anything? Lies! How scary! But the real intelligence officer is able to manage his fear, directing him in the right direction so that fear becomes caution. Come on. As before, all five senses are clenched into a fist and work at the limit. But for some reason, on this task, another one, the sixth sense - the so-called “spetsnaz chuyka” was added to them. This is when you enter the task and you know in advance: that something will happen, and sometimes you even understand at what particular moment. So this time.
At every step, stumbling, I go and try to keep calm. Who walked at night on a mowed corn field, he will understand me. Before the edge of the forest covering the ridge, through which we need to cross, only six hundred meters, but what were the meters ?! We walked them four hours! The feeling that someone was watching us did not leave me for a minute! And then I heard two blows with a metal object on a gas pipe, stretching parallel to our route to the left, below. “Stop! Attention! ”I report about strikes to the commander. He did not hear any knocking. “Go!” They did not have time to get under way, like again: “Bammm-Bammm” ...
Hurry to save the forest! Having dissolved in Zelenka, they came in contact, breathed their breath, and again: “The head patrol is ahead!” The commander stubbornly did not want to follow the night road, preferring rugged terrain, namely, dense thickets of prickly acacia, through which two reconnaissance groups with dowry from sea infantry artnavodchikami and radio operators and dressed in shaggy costumes "Leshy", wade with a deafening bang! But time was running out, and I managed to convince the commander to follow the road!
Quickly, without fanfare and adventure, we went to the right edge and went to their sites to organize ambushes. The main object of our attention was the primer about forty meters from the edge. It was there that the Mole set up a PWS-50 mine. But for some reason on this day the "spirits" categorically did not want to use the roads and tactically went right along the edge, almost stepping on the trunk of my VSS! Being enthusiastically communicating, one pair of militants with automatic weapons at the ready passed over me, with the interval of fifty meters - the second. I managed to notice in the bag of one of them something round, resembling an anti-tank mine.
Where is the team to work out the enemy? When the “spirits” were walking over me, I covered my radio station with my hand and felt that something was being said about it, but what? After giving the gangsters a couple more minutes of life, we missed them to ambush another group. Of course, warning the brothers that guests are rushing to them.
What if it's just a gangster's gut? What to do? Reflections were interrupted by fierce shooting in the area of the second ambush! Gone work! Left engine hum! The cherry handsome Grand Cherokee drove into the sector of the destruction of our mine! In sight, I clearly saw a healthy bearded uncle. Squeezing a machine gun in his hand, he was looking ahead with concentration. Explosion! The jeep covered a cloud of vzmetnuvshey dust mixed with smoke, from which the car never left. The veil was dispelled, and my eyes fixed the goal. Well, I think you came, Mr. Basayev, I shoot at the doors, I hear the sound of crumbling glass.
Looking to the right, to find out how ours are there, I saw that the group had begun to leave. How? What for? After all, in the car ... One could only guess what and who could be found during the inspection of the jeep. But waste, so waste. I give the command to the observers on the left and go to the extreme. Preliminary collection point - 200 meters to the rear. Before me is the Lech radio operator. The star is his call sign. Star runs, straightening a backpack with a radio station on one shoulder. Suddenly, well, very unexpectedly for us, on the left of the group earned PKM! I prepared for battle, the Star to the right broke through the thorns, stuck. The bush has already begun to crumble under a hail of bullets! Yes, you throw this damn backpack, friend! Threw. Gone. Thank God!
Somehow gathered in the collection point. Considered. Everything? There is no one - time. Call the station - in response to clicks. Clearly, only works on reception, village meals. Oriented. I was sent to meet him! I meet. I look - run, yes not one! Some villain with a gun fell in behind, and he is not far behind! Well, I think, decided our Olezhka alive to grab? We will not allow this! I take the scoundrel on the sight, let me take a closer look, bring out the idle. Stop! Well this is our, Ryazan! Oh, the commander! Now for sure everything is assembled.
“Star, let's get in touch!” Growls the commander. “Yes, what a Star I am now, we don’t have a station anymore,” the radio operator responded dejectedly. We recall the radio operator Morpekhovskogo artnavodchika. Immediately before the task, I reinforced 300 gram of explosive PVV-5 with ITP-50 fuse on his Historian radio station and instructed: “In the event of a threat of the station falling into the hands of the enemy, transfer the primer-cap to the fighting position and pull the ring out, understood?” He understood, aha! With the very first shot, the boy thought that all the Basmachis from the neighboring villages rushed to the attack in order to take possession of his radio station, and bravely blew it at the exit! Business!
Going to the evacuation area, somehow on the radio stations intended for work within the group, they called for armor, and in order to increase the communication range the radio operator had to climb a tall tree! And laughter and sin. Beautiful was the evacuation. With rushes and indispensable smoke. And the commander of the second group, as it turned out, was a very lazy man! Or very smart. He did not go to the evacuation area on foot, but flew into it on a comfortable Mi-8 helicopter! So it is more convenient, he explained, directing the unloading of trophies and their former owners from the board. By the way, the round in the bag, resembling an anti-tank mine, turned out to be quite tasty pita.
But the task did not end there. Arriving at the turntable, the group’s intelligence chief ordered the group to fly out with him and show the jeep destroyed in the battle. There is. Flying over the ambush site, we find that the cars and the track are cold! We clearly see the angle of attack of our mine plowed by the explosion and that’s it! It turns out that the "spirits" dragged the car into the forest and carefully camouflaged it with branches. But we found! During the search of the jeep, I worked together with Anatoly Lebed, a reconnaissance legend, the future Hero of Russia, who ridiculously died in 2012 in an accident. The commanders were satisfied with the results of the inspection: documents, radio stations, weapons and equipment. Listening to the ether helped us reveal the ninety-two correspondents working in our area of intelligence, and the identity of the field commander destroyed in battle. About this ambush in 1999, short news a note wrote the magazine "Brother": "November. As a result of search-and-ambush actions, the 45th separate Special Forces Regiment of the Airborne Forces destroyed the closest associate of Salman Raduyev with the call sign ... "
The joy of victory and the pain of defeat
I remember the death of the signalman of the detachment of the senior warrant officer Alexei Ryabkov.
To work under Kharachoy that in the Vedeno district, we came out in two groups. One was thrown on the turntables far into the mountains, the second on the BMD was rolling towards the paratroopers who had completed their task, providing them with access to the area of operation.
Ryabkov was in the group on the armor. The road serpentine stretched along the mountain slopes. There was no more than five minutes to go to the roadblock when they came across an ambush of militants. The explosion behind the head machine of the column thundered suddenly, followed by machine-gun and machine-gun bursts. Alexey got a bullet in the neck. He managed to release the entire store from the machine before he fell, whispering that he was wounded.
The fight was short. The BMD guns deployed in the direction of the attackers fired a volley. Zastrikotali automatic soldiers. "Spirits" hastened to retire.
In the Vedeno district, our special squad gave good results in 2002 and 2005. We blew up several residential bases and destroyed militants of different hierarchies. They helped previous experience, knowledge of the geography of the tropes and the psychology of enemy behavior.
Once my non-standard appearance was successfully used by security officers. I, shaved barely, but with a solid beard, looked like a Chechen, and the staff of Group A of the CSF FSB of Russia, dressing me in the appropriate place civilian clothes and hanging a pendant with a picture of a mosque around my neck, went outside to monitor the house in private sector. The information transmitted by me, the security officers used as intended - the leader of the local gangster underground was neutralized.
Creation
In 2005, immediately after returning from a business trip, I was injured incompatible with the service in the special forces, and in 2007, after completing the course of treatment, I was retired. And now, without being able to jump with a parachute, to go on tasks as part of a reconnaissance group, I can only write, sing, talk about the special forces to the younger generation and cooperate with military-patriotic clubs.
He wrote his first poems in Chechnya back in 2004. Somehow, in the summer of 2005 of the year, my good friend, author-performer Vitaly Leonov, with a fair wind brought us to Khatuni with a concert. The joy of meeting there was no limit! For his residence, of course, the tent of our reconnaissance group was chosen. Leafing through my notebook, Vitaly shared his thoughts that my poems can make good songs. In the area of the airport "New Khatuni" Vital gave several concerts for the fighters, and even sang for reconnaissance groups, departing on the night of the task. He had plenty of impressions from the trip, and soon after returning from the Caucasus, Vitaly was born a wonderful song about intelligence with the same name. When I heard my poems that became a song, I thought: “Why not?” - I decided to try my hand at work myself.
10 years of service in the airborne special forces, I sincerely consider the best years of my life. The video for the song about the 45-th special-purpose regiment of the airborne troops was shot by my friend Igor Chernyshev, in the past, a special-purpose scout for special forces. Many years ago, when it was time for Igor to quit his job, it was from him that I adopted the good old Vintorez. Now Igor is not only a wonderful cameraman and director, but also a talented actor of theater and cinema.
I am very pleased that my songs have settled in the hearts of listeners a love for the army and a desire to serve the Fatherland in the airborne special forces and other units of the Armed Forces. Remember, friends, it is not you who give the army years of your life! This army gives you years that make you real men!
In response to a question about the author of the hit, the fighters showed me a photo of a tall, strong man in a field uniform and a blue beret: “This is our intelligence officer, he served in a special detachment! Slava Korneev his name, Leshy - call sign. He is a holder of the Order of Courage, medals of the Order for Services to the Fatherland, II degree and two medals "For Courage". Not ryazheny, not fake, most real. And he sings about a case that he truly knows. ”
The veteran of intelligence, the author-performer Vyacheslav Korneev tells about himself, about the service, life and songs.
- I was born 25 February 1976, in the polar city of Kovdor, in the Murmansk region. School years passed quickly, and in the spring of 1994, I was drafted into the army. Despite my passionate desire to serve in the airborne troops, they brought me to an artillery training school in Pargolovo, near St. Petersburg. They learned the commander of the calculation of the anti-tank guns MT-12, assigned the rank of junior sergeant and distributed them in the 134 th guards motorized rifle regiment 45 of the peacekeeping forces, which was based in the village of Kamenka, the Vyborg district. The commander of our regiment was Guards Colonel Mikhail Yuryevich Malofeev. 17 January 2000, he will die in Grozny in the rank of Major General and will be posthumously awarded the high title of Hero of Russia.
One night I, the officer on duty at the soldiers' canteen, introduced himself to a general passing by and asked to be sent to the Caucasus. Was it reckless? I do not know. Only in response, I heard: “What unit? Hand over the outfit, the location of the run-march "! And spun! Getting weapons, equipment, food. The construction of personnel. The commander reads the lists of descending, but my name does not sound on this list! Why? Seeing my intransigence, the commander knocked out the guy flooded with tears, and I took his place. So I became the deputy platoon commander, retreating to war.First impressions
The next day, as part of the battalion, they flew to Mozdok, disembarked on take-off. Cold, dirt, crowds of armed people scurry back and forth. Having seen musician Yuri Shevchuk among the soldiers, he made his way to him and asked for an autograph. He did not refuse and signed on the top deck of my guitar. We even sang with him a couple of verses from The Last Autumn.
Moving to the field next to the takeoff, spent the night. And in the morning look - there is no our battalion! And we, 22 fighter in body armor and helmets, with weapons and equipment, were left alone, without officers. Nobody needed, no one wanted!
Having stayed without hot food and water for three days, having had time to chew on the snacks and burn all gas masks, overcoats and felt boots, they got rounds of ammunition and grenades. Just got up in some kind of receiving ammunition system and received half a cap of ammunition! We did not ask any surnames, nor were they forced to subscribe anywhere. And at night we dragged two boxes of grenades from an unguarded caponier filled with this good to the top.
One day, we met a colonel who stopped us in a formidable voice: “Who are they? What kind of flock? ”I introduced myself, explained. The colonel ordered to follow him and led us to the bath. After bathing, he sent us to the dining room. Clean and well-fed, we boarded the bus and went with the colonel, as it turned out, to the city of Cool, to the 135 motorized rifle brigade.
In the brigade we were fed, dressed, re-armed, and a day later we were sent in a column to Chechnya. We did not go for long, often avoiding public roads and leaving several malfunctioning cars along the way. Now and artillery positions ... Howitzers and self-propelled guns deafeningly hit where, sinking in the mud, our column creeps.
Jumping from the "Ural" to the ground, I slipped. Taking a stable position, I realized that I was standing on a corpse, rolled out in a rut. Helping others get out of the car, he warned me to be more attentive. The disfigured corpse is what we saw in Chechnya in the first place.
The task assigned to our division led us to the central market of Grozny. The trucks crowded tightly into the courtyard adjacent to the market building, and while we unloaded from them foodstuffs, duffel bags and sleeping bags, they were sadly waiting for their sad fate.
Some man running past, hung with “Flies”, grenades, knives and pistols, nervously straightening the edge of a hunting rifle dangling on his thigh, attacked me: “You ... on ... Why did you drive the equipment on ... here, your mother on ...? She'll burn it all. ”
Our only BTR, it turns out, was burned still on its way. After finishing the unloading and leaving Mikola Pitersky to the guard of dry-rations, I went for a reconnaissance of the market building. The personnel died of thirst, and I discovered deposits of cans with compote! Mines, occasionally piercing the roof, no longer scared, but my heart was restless.
And then it began! One of the first mines flew into dry packs, digging into them Mykola Pitersky! Dug up. Alive! Our "Urals", meanwhile, have already blazed! Sorry, the guitar burned out in the cab. Someone shouted: “There they knocked out a tank!” We run to watch. Look out carefully from the windows. There he is! Very close! Lit. And suddenly a deafening shot! The shell hits the five-story building. They say that at this time she was stormed by paratroopers. Then - as in a dream. Explosion! We are thrown on broken glass! When the dust subsided, we saw that tank not. Everlasting memory…
After sitting in the market building for a day, we finally got the task of seizing a high-rise building on Karl Liebknecht Street, adjacent to a small market square.
Our new platoon commander outlined the task for us in a very intelligible form: “To run fast, without tripping over corpses. Stop - death! Let's go to the house - we'll figure it out! ”
They ran. The first of the three nine-story buildings was already occupied by the paratroopers, and we got the second without a fight. Neither the tenants nor the militants, empty.My platoon was tasked to gain a foothold on the sixth floor and prevent the enemy from entering the house through the roof of the neighboring five-story building.
The apartment, whose windows overlooked the roof of this five-story building, was impressive, the apartment was very rich.
We emptied the refrigerator and set up an improvised table in the hallway, but did not have time to pick up the condensed milk banks opened for the recently arrived New Year and the housewarming party, as something serious got into the house. The building shook, the fire started. The fire spread so fast that we barely jumped out of the apartments into the porch, as they burned to the ground, and while the apartments were burning, we, choking in smoke, sat on the flight of stairs because there was death on the street. In the third nine-story building were "spirits".
Sausage
The next day, the commander set the task: “In connection with the destruction of the entire food stock of the battalion by the enemy, it is necessary with the help of four volunteers and a miraculously surviving infantry fighting vehicle of unknown affiliation to get into the market. There to find and then take out the maximum amount of food! "
The main volunteer was me. I decided to connect my section commanders to this task. Good guys. Reliable. Descended, found in the ruins of the house the BMP and even its driver. There was no one else in the crew, and where his unit was located, the guy had no idea. After listening to the task, the mechanic nodded: “We’ll do it, but ... the car does not turn left. Traction killed! We will waltz! Well, turn left, turning 270 degrees to the right! ”
Loaded in landings and rushed. The first turn to the left ... spinning ... scary. Forward! The second turn is spinning. There is no light in the car, we are not able to open the hatches from the inside, if anything, horror! And now, through the crash and clatter of trucks, bullets pounded on the armor! And suddenly hit! Crashed! "Everyone is alive? Here we are! ”The mechanic shouted. As it turned out, he was traveling all the way in a “hiking” position! Under bullets! Well gives! And he told me: “Why? Triplexes are broken, you can't see a damn! ”Hero man!
Ran through the market. Empty, our troops have gone somewhere, and what to expect is unknown. Products found quickly. Sausage! She was a lot. Having cracked the mouths of Krakow and having thrown automatic machines behind his back, the amphibious compartments of the BMP and their own belongings and pockets quickly loaded with sausage. Childish greed played a cruel joke with me. Realizing that there was little load on the battalion, I decided to leave my guys on the market and, having climbed into the tower of the car, personally deliver the cargo and return for the second batch. “Go!” I shouted to the mechanic, barely getting to the hatch. And he went. Confidently so with the afterburner! And he didn’t know, I didn’t know that behind him I, in a sausage stuffed with a bulletproof vest and with a plump duffel bag, are trying to get into the tower. While we got to the coveted house, I did not have a single whole store! And I threw empty on the armor.
Having made three raids in a row, we completed the task. Thank you brother mehanu!
Assault
On Friday, 13 in January, my platoon received an order to occupy one of the houses on Rosa Luxemburg Street. He stood butt to the presidential palace, and attempts to seize him have not yet been crowned with success. The paratroopers holding up to the last were trapped in his basement, and the “spirits” were in charge at the house.
We ran to our house through the wasteland between the five-story buildings, came under fire. There was nowhere to hide, except for the burnt BMP. For it all crowded platoon, go on scary. But it is necessary, otherwise they will put everything on the flank. They rushed to the brick booth, such a heat center with pipes and valves, hid behind the wall.
We sat behind the booth for more than an hour, waiting for the Shilka. She was supposed to cover us by shooting at the windows of the palace. And we had to run right under the barrage of its fire! Before our eyes, three fighters from another unit jumped out from somewhere and rushed headlong to our house! In our entrance! One of them, a meter away from the door, fell, shot by a sniper, and two jumped inside. One threw the wounded man out of the door of the entrance, but he could not cling to it, the bullets hit him one by one. The second fighter was shooting with militants inside the house.
Suddenly, about twenty meters away a mine arrives with a characteristic whistle! One of our shards hit his leg. Well, I think, dressing up the wounded, it began! He offered the commander to place a platoon inside the house: “Probably, the“ spirits ”correct the fire of their mortar at that moment!” The platoon commander announced the proposal to the battalion commander. The answer is bright: “No, wait, now there will be a team! It is better to check this house for the presence of a sniper. Got it, Mr. Gad! ”
Well, they were divided into three groups, three people in each, ran around the house from the opposite side and jumped into the windows. Purely. When they returned, on the second floor they heard two strong explosions in a row. About where we just left our platoon. Throw down! And there ... Blood, smoke, groans! The squad leader Dan Golden with his troika finished examining his porch before us, went out, and covered him - covered in blood! The commander, Stas Golda, is wounded. Later, doctors counted eighteen fragmental wounds on his body, and the Motherland awarded the Order of Courage.
Signalman where is the station alive? Our Р-159 on Mykola St. Petersburg's chest took on a few shards, but it worked properly! “Milling cutter,” I scream. - “Milling cutter-12”, I have “200” and “300”, I specify the quantity, and the commander is injured! I ask for help in the evacuation! ”And the battalion commander calmly replies that a command was given for the assault and that I collected healthy people and completed the task. And promises to evacuate the wounded, even without asking how many of them. The platoon is consolidated, who and from where it is given is unknown, did not exchange addresses with everyone, we don’t know the names of many. So they fought for the Motherland.
Indeed, to the left of us, we drove out on a direct lead and roared with a Shilka fire. I had no choice but to send the “Mill” to the hell and start providing help to the bleeding guys. I nevertheless achieved their evacuation. And we have completed the task. Blood and sweat. So I became a platoon commander. Cock of nine people. Minus thirteen!
Then everything went easy. Ready, "Milling Cutter-12"? Ready to answer! “Forward!” - the cry from the radio. And what is storming the house together, without a smoke cover, not understanding where are yours, and where are strangers? Now all this is remembered, like a nightmare or stills from the film. All in blood, black from dirt and soot, seven automata left behind from the evacuated guys, in the hands of PKM from forty meters shredding the house my guys are running to! Tactics? What the hell tactic? We ran to the fifth floor, throwing grenades at the door and sometimes shooting. Sealed. Counted. Everything.
Later, when it was necessary to pull out the main forces, we cleaned all the apartments of our entrance from top to bottom. Walking down the street at that time was in a bad form, so the main forces were pulled up to us through the wall in which we punched a hole with the help of a grenade launcher, some kind of mother, and from where came the sledge hammer!
It was in this house, “having borrowed” from SVasha Lyutin's friend to his SVD, on the butt of which there were already three cuts with a bayonet, I became a sniper. Equipped a wonderful, tactically competent position. He settled in the bath, on a stool. For emphasis - pre-emptied fridge. From there, through a small hole punched in by a shell in the wall, swept through an impressive segment of the terrain in front of the house, namely, an extension to the presidential palace and part of the palace itself.
Once, marines ran into our house: two officers and a sailor. The sailor, as it turned out, was real, from a warship! Perhaps that is why he almost shot me when I changed positions. But the Marines impressed me with others. Live bait! One, standing in the window opening, began to fan the palace with tracer fans, and the second, in the back of the room, having prepared the RPG-18 for battle, waited. As an artilleryman, I understood that the guys were walking along the razor's edge, but they were stubbornly lucky. Nibble on live bait was excellent, and soon I joined this “fishing artel”, and the sailor ensured that none of the fighters came out to my bullet, moving around the apartment.
Combat Commonwealth
There was a day when the company commander set me the task to take three volunteers and with them to find and evacuate the bodies of the two dead, Sergey Les and Dima Strukov from the third platoon, from the street rubble. They died a few days ago. Attempts to find them have already been undertaken by a company head officer, Ensign Purtov. Then the “spirits” with the fighters were squeezed behind the pilastery (this is such a protrusion from a house the size of two bricks) and methodically began to destroy the shelter, leading through it an incredibly dense fire from the house, which we then occupied with a platoon. We dragged them together with my fellow countryman Pomors, covering the waste with our fire. I will never forget how Ensign Purtov doing a dash, stumbles, falls, and in the place where he was just now, an automatic burst bites into a brick ...
In general, the task is clear. I am an automatic on my shoulder, a helmet on my head. I suggest one fighter to go, the second, the third, and they - who are with the stomach, who with a sudden headache, someone from the post. They do not want to risk, even burst. But when the search for volunteers reached the guys from Dagestan, they, without further ado: the helmet and the cap went, commander! But they did not know the dead at all, for which we had to go! And here I, two Dagestanis and Kazakhs went into this search.
We found the body of Sergei quickly, told to the very booth, and then - stop. A fire of such density that it becomes clear - in the light of day we will not pass. Even puffing on this damn site. Tried it. They managed to return to the house only in the morning, leaving Sergey in place, but putting the body so that it could be seen from our windows. They could not pick up and transfer the body to the rear after several days, when the militants left the palace without a fight.Somehow, in the midst of fighting on our site, the battalion commander needed to go to the rear, and for protection he took me with him. The rear units were then in the park named after Lenin. I, left to myself for some time, wandered through the park, wondering how they live here in tents? And if mine? And suddenly something seemed strange to me. Everywhere, wherever I went, everyone died down, threw firewood, cleaning and silently looked at me. And there was in these views some kind of respect, interspersed with compassion. “Look, look, from the foremost guy!” - I heard and, as if waking up, looked around. Then invitations for heating fell down in tents, inquiries, congratulations on being alive! “What is the matter?” I ask. “How do you know that I am from the front line?” “Did you see yourself in the mirror?” One asks. "Of course not! Where are the mirrors in the city? Everything is burned and broken! ”- I laugh. “Na-ka, take a look! People like you are brought to us only dead! ”- embarrassed, the fighter handed me a mirror. Well, I took a look. He looked and was scared. From the mirror, a monster looked at me in a dirty, ragged black hat with a black, smoky face, burnt bristles and eyebrows, red teary eyes.
A little later, when the fighting for the city moved to other neighborhoods, we decided to visit the less affected porches of our house. Find something like mattresses. My platoon was lucky to have burned down apartments to the ground, and for the last week I slept on two drawers from under the VOGs, without a sleeping bag, of course. Typing junk, on the way back to our "temple" we saw an interesting picture: the Dudayev Palace was savagely stormed by the guys in white camouflage and in unprecedented unloadings. Spetsnaz, otherwise, I thought evil, a couple of days ago you would be here!
After a decade and a half, noting the 30 anniversary of the 901 OBSpN with fellow soldiers, we watched the Chechen chronicle, when suddenly ... In the frame, the end of our house flashed and the hole pierced by the projectile through which I once made my first shot from the SVD. So those guys in camouflage turned out to be my current friends! It's a small world!
Then our war began to decline. For a month we stood in the village of St. Andrew’s Valley at the CBU, then in Shali. In May, when the war went to the mountainous areas, our battalion, which lost more than half of the personnel, was taken out for rest and resupply to Khankala.
At the shooting range in my career I met my fellow countryman Dima Koksharov. We talked. He served in the 45-th regiment of the Airborne Forces. And the harsh guys, descending on the ropes down into the quarry and performing tactical exercises incomprehensible to me at that time with the screw-cutters unprecedented in infantry, turned out to be his fellow soldiers. Cool scouts, I thought, where am I to them!
New life
In September, the war ended for us. Battalion column departed to the point of permanent deployment in Cool. I rode on the armor of the closing BMP, and all the way behind us dragged a broom tied to the armor, never to return here. Sign!
Resigned to stock. I came to my parents in Smolensk. And there - darkness! The depressing impression of the dying village. Unemployment, alcoholism, drug addiction. Young people engaged in stupid self-destruction.
The only right decision was to return to the army, and seriously and for a long time. The commander of the 45 OPSPN, Colonel Viktor Kolygin, to whom I arrived for an attitude in 1996, told me: “We don’t take a citizen for a contract, register in the Tula division, and translate from there.”
In 173, a separate reconnaissance company in Tula heard a similar one: “Let's go first to the regimental reconnaissance, but we'll see.” So, with the reconnaissance company of the 51 th paratroop regiment, I began my combat journey in the Airborne Forces.
During the year of service I managed to go on a three-month business trip to Abkhazia. For several years, the paratroopers in Gudauta carried out a peacekeeping mission, and I made a small contribution to restoring peace on the southeast coast of the Black Sea.
After Abkhazia, Major Sergey Konchakovsky, assistant chief of the intelligence division, paid me close attention. He asked provocative questions, followed my answers and actions. Soon Konchakovsky suggested that I go to Sokolniki and talk with the commander of the special squad of the 45 regiment, where I left, having enlisted the necessary recommendations.
A special squad
The service at the new place attracted and swallowed. I liked everything: people, equipment, weapons, equipment, approach to conducting training sessions.
When I arrived for the weekend in Tula with a whole backpack of spetsnaz gadgets and in a fashionable padding polyester and told the officers about everything that he had seen and learned during a month of service in special-purpose reconnaissance, most of them caught fire there. What they did soon.
History the appearance of my call sign - Leshy is quite funny. The commander of the reconnaissance group, Captain Stanislav Konoplyannikov, built us, young intelligence officers, and ordered me to invent call signs. I came up with the “Leshy”, but did not begin to voice it, fearing to get into an awkward situation, suspecting that there was already such a call sign in the regiment. And when the commander, bypassing the line and writing down the invented call signs, stopped in front of me, I told him: “I didn’t think of it, Comrade Captain.” To which he replied: “Well, then you will be Leshim!” Since then, since 1998, I have been Leshy.In September 1999, they flew to Dagestan, in the midst of the outbreak of war. They performed various tasks of reconnaissance, search and destruction of militant bases. In October, working for the 61st Separate Kirkenes Red Banner Marine Brigade of the Northern fleet, the first went to the Terek.
14 October, completing the task of conducting optical reconnaissance of the settlement S., our group moved to the evacuation area. We walked with increased attention. Constantly it seemed that something was wrong on the left as if someone was looking at us.
And here is the armor! It became calmer. Suddenly the radio station comes to life. It is followed by an order that radically changed our plans, and many, and destinies. We had to watch the forester's house, which was nearby, but in the opposite direction.
Two of our armored personnel carriers (the group commander Pavel Klyuyev was driving on the first senior, and V. were on the second) went along a narrow road along the Terek. The river bank is low, the places are overgrown, wild, beautiful. To the right of the road there are four-meter reeds, to the left there is a turn and thick brilliant green on a one-and-a-half-meter artificial shaft.
At the entrance to the right turn, in front of a huge puddle, the car slowed down, but something made me turn back. It seemed that with side vision I caught something similar to a “grenade thrower” target. Three seconds passed before I realized that this was really a rocket launcher! Bearded, disguised with branches, he prepared himself for shooting from his knee, and it seemed that he was aiming me straight at the forehead from some fifteen meters! I didn’t want to admit that, so with a cry: “There he is ...!”, He turned the SVD in his direction. My next cry: “Attention! On the left, drowned in the roar of the shot and who killed the armored personnel carrier of the explosion. As we ended up behind the armor, I don’t remember, apparently, persistent tactical training affected. From excess pressure in the engine compartment vomited and lifted power hatches. I think it saved the lives of many of our group, because from the roadside shaft at least a dozen militants shot our lifeless machine at close range, while their grenade thrower was preparing for the second shot. Having landed on the store, machine gunners lay down to recharge, and the grenade thrower again drove the “flea” into the stern of our car. And again the lead rain! And so three times in a row. And all three times the grenade launcher pecked into the stern.
Hiding under the nose of the “box” with a rifle that was useless at 10 – 15 meters, I had no idea what was going on with the group. Are the guys alive? Near Novosel. And the rest? Abrek crawled up to us from the side of the road and with a gesture he showed up to armor, and there Klyuev. He lay down on the bleeding Igor Salnikov - Gosha. Believing to save, Abrek and I carefully pulled them off their armor. Gosha’s head was pierced, but signs of life gave us hope. I tried to find signs of life and the group commander, but, alas. “How is Pasha?” Asked Abrek, bandaging Gosha. “No more Pasha!” I replied, dropping the useless bandage. Gosh died a few days later, already in the hospital. That day when Pasha was buried.
"Spirits" themselves suggested how to deal with their attack, starting to throw grenades at us. Abrek stayed with Gosha and Pasha, and I returned to Novosela under the nose of the BTR, when suddenly F-1 flies out from behind the shaft and falls on the road about five to seven meters from us! These were infinitely long seconds, as in slow motion. I shout: “Novoselov, grenade!” “What kind of grenade?” He goggles. “In my opinion, efka!” - and I fall between Pasha and Gosha, covering my head with my hands. Tightly compressed legs pull to the center of the explosion and wait - where will the splinter fly to me? Explosion. It has passed! And surely rushing back to where the damn grenade had just ripped.
We fall, take out all our grenades from the unloading and calmly, methodically, with shooting checks confidently throw them on the other side of the shaft! How do you like that, action movies?
It helped! Novosel guessed to climb into the armored personnel carrier and, using a mechanical trigger, empty the PKT box. A turning point in the battle situation set in, shooting for a while subsided, the groans of the wounded and the crackling of the branches became audible. Branches! So, the militants were preparing for evacuation. Then the second BTR rolled up, for some reason it was lagging behind, and its appearance caused the militants to speed up their withdrawal, covering it with active fire. So tight that two of our machine gunners, who climbed onto the shaft, had to leave their positions and crawl to the road. Then again, as in a slow motion film shooting: V. rises to the full height of the shaft, raises his AKMS with a drum to 75 of ammunition, branches twisted by enemy bullets fall nearby, and he, like a spell, shoots at Zelenka, until the drum is wedged. The bark and shreds of foliage fly into his face, but he, without bending down, shoots!
V. is a man of unparalleled courage, will and uncompromising. This Russian officer. I am glad that many of his exploits were noticed, and by the Decree of the President of Russia he was awarded the title Hero of Russia. After few years.
The battle subsided. “Who?”, V. asked briefly. “Pasha, Gosh,” answered Novosel and I. They also brought Vitya Nikolsky, a bullet pierced his thigh right through him. We went to the children lying on the ground. I squeezed the wrist of the group commander in my hand in the hope of feeling the pulse, and suddenly: there is! I shout: “Comrade Major! Pulse is. V. touched Pasha's neck and silently shook his head. It turns out that with excitement I squeezed my hand too hard and felt my pulse.
A BMP with scouts from the Stavropol regiment flew up to the battlefield. Dismounting, they took up the defense around us, lifting their heads in disbelief in search of the enemy. Tired, probably, they evacuate-evacuate us all day, all the way. Here, our second armored personnel carrier turned around and began to take it back, in order to take the damaged fellow onto the trailer and drag it to the regimental location. An APC wheel drove into a puddle on the side of the road. There is a mine. A knock, a powerful explosion, and a multi-ton machine jumped up. All threw the blast wave to different sides!For a moment, silence, I lay in the middle of the road, looking surprised at black rubber snow - this is an armored personnel carrier wheel, split by breaking a mine into trash, slowly and sadly waltzing with small black snowflakes on the ground, settling on the faces of the living and the dead scouts. Thank you, I think, brother-driver of the first reservation, you listened to our advice not to run into puddles. If we were the first to hit this mine, there would be no one left alive.
As soon as the rumor returned, I heard a painful moan through the ringing in my ears. On the shaft lay Stavropol Minenkov. The leg is torn off, but he himself is conscious, even trying to apply a tourniquet. “How is the leg?” Asks. “It's all right, you will walk!” - I answer, and myself quietly pushing the severed leg, which lies next to his head, down. The blood was stopped, the man was saved.
I will add that Mikhail Minenkov was awarded the title of Hero of Russia by decree of the Acting President of Russia from 17 in January 2000.
Having removed the machine guns from the broken armored personnel carriers and having shot the onboard radio stations, we decided to blow up the cars. We did not have the opportunity to pull them out that day, and the militants must not be left. I was preparing our car for demolition, and tears flowed from my eyes. From that moment on, my other adult life began. Life in the airborne special forces.
The group that conducted the inspection of the area of the battle and the evacuation of armor, found several more mines and land mines installed on the road. Apparently, the militants were preparing a powerful ambush, and it was not at all we were their target. It is very likely that this battle prevented a great tragedy, since the passage of a column of one of the paratrooper regiments was expected along this road.
Well, we, a handful of relatively unscathed scouts, contused and tired, with harsh, gloomy faces, appeared before the terrible eyes of Major General Popov, who personally met at the side of the helicopter that had taken us to the CBU. His welcome speech put the guys into shock: “So, fighters, I, of course, understand everything, the war is on, but you must observe the uniform! Where are your caps, comrade scouts? ”
A few days later we gathered in our tent to remember the dead friends. We just reported that Gosh died in hospital. When the third toast was raised in memory of the fallen brothers, the deputy commander of the 218 Special Forces battalion, Major Pyotr Yatsenko, picked up the guitar and put a piece of text in front of him, sang his new song about our group. While he was singing, it seemed that we were going through that short but cruel fight again. Many, sneaking away, wiped a mean male tear.
Pyotr Karlovich was sitting right in front of me, and when the song was over and everyone came to, I asked him for a piece of text with the text in order to rewrite it in my notebook. Return the sheet Yatsenko I was not able to. On the next task, which we reached in two groups, Peter Karlovich, commanding a special-purpose reconnaissance group, died the death of the brave in battle with the superior forces of the enemy. By decree of the President of Russia on 24 March 2000, Peter Yatsenko was awarded the title Hero of Russia (posthumously).
The sheet with the song is now stored in the Museum of Military Glory OOSN 45 OPSPN Airborne.
"Spetsnazovskaya Chuyka"
There were many interesting tasks. In November, we go to ambush. Two groups. Our guide. Two nights. Charged, checked the connection, jumped. Team: "Head watch, go ahead!" Moved. With the first step, fear recedes into the background, giving way to attention and caution, cold calculation and lightning reaction. But fear does not disappear altogether. Who said that the scout is not afraid of anything? Lies! How scary! But the real intelligence officer is able to manage his fear, directing him in the right direction so that fear becomes caution. Come on. As before, all five senses are clenched into a fist and work at the limit. But for some reason, on this task, another one, the sixth sense - the so-called “spetsnaz chuyka” was added to them. This is when you enter the task and you know in advance: that something will happen, and sometimes you even understand at what particular moment. So this time.
At every step, stumbling, I go and try to keep calm. Who walked at night on a mowed corn field, he will understand me. Before the edge of the forest covering the ridge, through which we need to cross, only six hundred meters, but what were the meters ?! We walked them four hours! The feeling that someone was watching us did not leave me for a minute! And then I heard two blows with a metal object on a gas pipe, stretching parallel to our route to the left, below. “Stop! Attention! ”I report about strikes to the commander. He did not hear any knocking. “Go!” They did not have time to get under way, like again: “Bammm-Bammm” ...
Hurry to save the forest! Having dissolved in Zelenka, they came in contact, breathed their breath, and again: “The head patrol is ahead!” The commander stubbornly did not want to follow the night road, preferring rugged terrain, namely, dense thickets of prickly acacia, through which two reconnaissance groups with dowry from sea infantry artnavodchikami and radio operators and dressed in shaggy costumes "Leshy", wade with a deafening bang! But time was running out, and I managed to convince the commander to follow the road!
Quickly, without fanfare and adventure, we went to the right edge and went to their sites to organize ambushes. The main object of our attention was the primer about forty meters from the edge. It was there that the Mole set up a PWS-50 mine. But for some reason on this day the "spirits" categorically did not want to use the roads and tactically went right along the edge, almost stepping on the trunk of my VSS! Being enthusiastically communicating, one pair of militants with automatic weapons at the ready passed over me, with the interval of fifty meters - the second. I managed to notice in the bag of one of them something round, resembling an anti-tank mine.
Where is the team to work out the enemy? When the “spirits” were walking over me, I covered my radio station with my hand and felt that something was being said about it, but what? After giving the gangsters a couple more minutes of life, we missed them to ambush another group. Of course, warning the brothers that guests are rushing to them.
What if it's just a gangster's gut? What to do? Reflections were interrupted by fierce shooting in the area of the second ambush! Gone work! Left engine hum! The cherry handsome Grand Cherokee drove into the sector of the destruction of our mine! In sight, I clearly saw a healthy bearded uncle. Squeezing a machine gun in his hand, he was looking ahead with concentration. Explosion! The jeep covered a cloud of vzmetnuvshey dust mixed with smoke, from which the car never left. The veil was dispelled, and my eyes fixed the goal. Well, I think you came, Mr. Basayev, I shoot at the doors, I hear the sound of crumbling glass.
Looking to the right, to find out how ours are there, I saw that the group had begun to leave. How? What for? After all, in the car ... One could only guess what and who could be found during the inspection of the jeep. But waste, so waste. I give the command to the observers on the left and go to the extreme. Preliminary collection point - 200 meters to the rear. Before me is the Lech radio operator. The star is his call sign. Star runs, straightening a backpack with a radio station on one shoulder. Suddenly, well, very unexpectedly for us, on the left of the group earned PKM! I prepared for battle, the Star to the right broke through the thorns, stuck. The bush has already begun to crumble under a hail of bullets! Yes, you throw this damn backpack, friend! Threw. Gone. Thank God!
Somehow gathered in the collection point. Considered. Everything? There is no one - time. Call the station - in response to clicks. Clearly, only works on reception, village meals. Oriented. I was sent to meet him! I meet. I look - run, yes not one! Some villain with a gun fell in behind, and he is not far behind! Well, I think, decided our Olezhka alive to grab? We will not allow this! I take the scoundrel on the sight, let me take a closer look, bring out the idle. Stop! Well this is our, Ryazan! Oh, the commander! Now for sure everything is assembled.
“Star, let's get in touch!” Growls the commander. “Yes, what a Star I am now, we don’t have a station anymore,” the radio operator responded dejectedly. We recall the radio operator Morpekhovskogo artnavodchika. Immediately before the task, I reinforced 300 gram of explosive PVV-5 with ITP-50 fuse on his Historian radio station and instructed: “In the event of a threat of the station falling into the hands of the enemy, transfer the primer-cap to the fighting position and pull the ring out, understood?” He understood, aha! With the very first shot, the boy thought that all the Basmachis from the neighboring villages rushed to the attack in order to take possession of his radio station, and bravely blew it at the exit! Business!
Going to the evacuation area, somehow on the radio stations intended for work within the group, they called for armor, and in order to increase the communication range the radio operator had to climb a tall tree! And laughter and sin. Beautiful was the evacuation. With rushes and indispensable smoke. And the commander of the second group, as it turned out, was a very lazy man! Or very smart. He did not go to the evacuation area on foot, but flew into it on a comfortable Mi-8 helicopter! So it is more convenient, he explained, directing the unloading of trophies and their former owners from the board. By the way, the round in the bag, resembling an anti-tank mine, turned out to be quite tasty pita.
But the task did not end there. Arriving at the turntable, the group’s intelligence chief ordered the group to fly out with him and show the jeep destroyed in the battle. There is. Flying over the ambush site, we find that the cars and the track are cold! We clearly see the angle of attack of our mine plowed by the explosion and that’s it! It turns out that the "spirits" dragged the car into the forest and carefully camouflaged it with branches. But we found! During the search of the jeep, I worked together with Anatoly Lebed, a reconnaissance legend, the future Hero of Russia, who ridiculously died in 2012 in an accident. The commanders were satisfied with the results of the inspection: documents, radio stations, weapons and equipment. Listening to the ether helped us reveal the ninety-two correspondents working in our area of intelligence, and the identity of the field commander destroyed in battle. About this ambush in 1999, short news a note wrote the magazine "Brother": "November. As a result of search-and-ambush actions, the 45th separate Special Forces Regiment of the Airborne Forces destroyed the closest associate of Salman Raduyev with the call sign ... "
The joy of victory and the pain of defeat
I remember the death of the signalman of the detachment of the senior warrant officer Alexei Ryabkov.
To work under Kharachoy that in the Vedeno district, we came out in two groups. One was thrown on the turntables far into the mountains, the second on the BMD was rolling towards the paratroopers who had completed their task, providing them with access to the area of operation.
Ryabkov was in the group on the armor. The road serpentine stretched along the mountain slopes. There was no more than five minutes to go to the roadblock when they came across an ambush of militants. The explosion behind the head machine of the column thundered suddenly, followed by machine-gun and machine-gun bursts. Alexey got a bullet in the neck. He managed to release the entire store from the machine before he fell, whispering that he was wounded.
The fight was short. The BMD guns deployed in the direction of the attackers fired a volley. Zastrikotali automatic soldiers. "Spirits" hastened to retire.
In the Vedeno district, our special squad gave good results in 2002 and 2005. We blew up several residential bases and destroyed militants of different hierarchies. They helped previous experience, knowledge of the geography of the tropes and the psychology of enemy behavior.
Once my non-standard appearance was successfully used by security officers. I, shaved barely, but with a solid beard, looked like a Chechen, and the staff of Group A of the CSF FSB of Russia, dressing me in the appropriate place civilian clothes and hanging a pendant with a picture of a mosque around my neck, went outside to monitor the house in private sector. The information transmitted by me, the security officers used as intended - the leader of the local gangster underground was neutralized.Creation
In 2005, immediately after returning from a business trip, I was injured incompatible with the service in the special forces, and in 2007, after completing the course of treatment, I was retired. And now, without being able to jump with a parachute, to go on tasks as part of a reconnaissance group, I can only write, sing, talk about the special forces to the younger generation and cooperate with military-patriotic clubs.
He wrote his first poems in Chechnya back in 2004. Somehow, in the summer of 2005 of the year, my good friend, author-performer Vitaly Leonov, with a fair wind brought us to Khatuni with a concert. The joy of meeting there was no limit! For his residence, of course, the tent of our reconnaissance group was chosen. Leafing through my notebook, Vitaly shared his thoughts that my poems can make good songs. In the area of the airport "New Khatuni" Vital gave several concerts for the fighters, and even sang for reconnaissance groups, departing on the night of the task. He had plenty of impressions from the trip, and soon after returning from the Caucasus, Vitaly was born a wonderful song about intelligence with the same name. When I heard my poems that became a song, I thought: “Why not?” - I decided to try my hand at work myself.
10 years of service in the airborne special forces, I sincerely consider the best years of my life. The video for the song about the 45-th special-purpose regiment of the airborne troops was shot by my friend Igor Chernyshev, in the past, a special-purpose scout for special forces. Many years ago, when it was time for Igor to quit his job, it was from him that I adopted the good old Vintorez. Now Igor is not only a wonderful cameraman and director, but also a talented actor of theater and cinema.
I am very pleased that my songs have settled in the hearts of listeners a love for the army and a desire to serve the Fatherland in the airborne special forces and other units of the Armed Forces. Remember, friends, it is not you who give the army years of your life! This army gives you years that make you real men!
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