GRU Special Forces Officer Alexander Musienko: If chaos ensues
An expert in extreme situations gives some advice on survival, self-defense and counter chaos.- Alexander, today political uncertainty is clearly superimposed on the weakness of state institutions. If the so-called Orange Revolution wins, the prospect of a social explosion cannot be discounted. In one form or another, chaos is approaching us. We must be ready for all its manifestations, right up to the most extreme. You as an expert in extreme situations, tell us about the social methods of countering chaos.
Alexander MUSIENKO: The danger of a social explosion exists even in such a region as Moscow, where there are a lot of police and internal troops capable of extinguishing a major conflict. It is possible that a distraught crowd will turn over or burn everything in the street without asking whether it is a Mercedes or a six of 20 years ago who is disabled by the war in Afghanistan, who happened to be near.
As experience shows, a criminal element primarily uses this situation. Ordinary criminality, homeless people, drug addicts, etc. come to the fore. Due to their aggressiveness and dissatisfaction with the situation, they are the first to grab weapon - for a stick, a baseball bat, a piece of reinforcement - and begin their dirty work. Their goal is one - enrichment. They will run not into poor neighborhoods, but into well-developed areas. Their potential victim is the so-called middle class. Because in the cottage settlements or government houses - its own security system, security, fences, etc. there is not easy to penetrate. And the middle layers, it turns out, the most unprotected.
- Assuming such a negative scenario, we should focus ordinary people on self-defense and self-preservation. It is about the culture of adaptation to new difficult conditions ...
- If the security forces are unable to influence the situation, then ordinary citizens will not be able to do so. So, you need to adapt, adapt as much as possible to the existing situation.
Therefore, it is necessary, without hesitating, not shyly hiding eyes, to openly say what to do at the “X” hour, how to secure your life, the lives of your loved ones and property acquired by overwork. Because in our world, a person without material means, without shelter, without sources of livelihood and income means little. Our state, unfortunately, does not provide any social guarantees, even in a peaceful, quiet time. And in the period of escalation of the internal political situation, it is likely to be completely eliminated. Therefore, it makes sense to identify priority areas of social adaptation in a period of chaos.
First of all, you need to clearly understand: you can’t do anything alone. When the situation gets out of control in a separate locality, the association of citizens by place of residence comes to the fore. It is good if there are so-called “access committees” in the houses. When, in everyday circumstances, volunteers take on the duties of collecting tenants, determine the system of citizens' passes, carry out repairs at the entrance, establish playgrounds, hire concierges, etc., during the crisis, the same people are able to organize protection. These people are united, they know each other, they know the phone numbers of their neighbors.
- What should be done at the first sounds of shots outside the windows?
- First of all, restrict access to the entrance of unauthorized persons. You have to understand: one concierge will not cope with this task. Therefore, you need to organize the duty of two or three people. Better than three, because two people, in the presence of a metal door, will restrain an attempt to get inside, the third, in the absence of mobile and telephone communications, may have time to run around the floors, mobilize all men in the stairwell and organize repulse.
So, we need a duty system, an alert system, and a rapid response team. These are men, healthy and strong, who have an officially registered hunting weapon or other means of protection - for example, gas and traumatic pistols. These are not the forces that can organize repulse to some military formation with armored personnel carriers and machine guns. But we must understand that the military formation will not storm the entrance with the purpose of robbery.
And against bullies and criminal elements of such a primary defense is enough. A few shots from a rifle into the air - and the criminal element refuses to enter the house ...
On the first floors of the entrance should be prepared containers with water: plastic five-liter bottles, buckets, basins ... Because any bottle of "Molotov cocktail" and any tracer bullet will lead to a fire.
In addition to the available electric combination locks, you must have a deadlock or a dead lock with several spare key sets in the access door. All these "little things" should be thought out and spelled out.
- In the future, you can even create a special memo ...
- Exactly. Write a memo and organize quick training courses for all of this. We need a lecture hall, we need a story with specific examples. There are many nuances. And it is difficult for a civilian to foresee everything in advance.
Police professionals (acting and dismissed), special forces of the FSB and the Ministry of Internal Affairs who worked at the addresses and know the procedure for conducting special operations in the residential sector can be professionals in this area. Such people know the ways and means of entering the premises. So they can take countermeasures.
- It is clear that it is most effective to defend with firearms. But there is a psychological barrier in its application ...
- In the initial period of instability, the officially registered weapon - hunting and self-defense weapons - will be seized from the population by the bodies of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. In any case, law enforcement agencies will take all measures to take away weapons from the civilian population.
On the one hand, this is good, but on the other - very bad. In the US, there are still debates about civilian weapons, which are committed a huge number of crimes. We have recently been shooting from travmatiki anywhere. This suggests a low internal culture of people with weapons.
Another thing is that in the post-Soviet space there are a lot of illegal weapons on their hands - they were given by Karabakh, Chechnya, Dagestan, Ossetia, Abkhazia, etc. The weapon circulation is huge. I believe in Russia - more than 2-3 million units of small arms (rifled and smooth-bore) are walking.
- That is, a law-abiding citizen finds himself in a deliberately losing position: he surrenders his weapon, and around - a sea of illegal trunks.
- This is true. But if we talk about priority measures to protect our lives, we must first think not about our own arsenal, but about barricading the first and second floors, creating a system that prevents entry into the house. Here you can apply the old-fashioned method, the method of defense of fortresses. Invaders because you can pour boiling water over the top or pour them with gasoline. If a person understands that one match will turn it into a torch, then, naturally, he will not take further part in the assault.
- As we know, during the period of unrest or active hostilities and anarchy, utilities do not work. How to survive without basic amenities, without heating, water supply, sewerage?
- The first threat we are talking about is a social threat - more precisely, a criminal one. And the second - yes! - man-made.
These are situations related to the shutdown of gas, electricity, water supply, up to emergency emissions of caustic and toxic substances by neighboring enterprises, the same chlorine, for example. Accidents of this kind can be both sabotage and purely man-made. If a leak occurs and the area becomes infected, what should be done? Here every sane person should provide a number of measures.
Basic tips. First, it is necessary to check that there is enough water in the house: both to extinguish the fires and for the water supply. The second is the tightness of the premises. It is necessary to take care of windows and glass, especially in winter. If glass breaks, an immediate alternative is needed - plywood or polyethylene, and then a blanket. In any case, the temperature in a multi-storey building, if the heating systems are turned off, will be equal to the ambient temperature for a certain time. This will not happen so quickly in a brick house, but the walls in the reinforced concrete structure will freeze faster.
- What to do?
- It is necessary to warm the exterior walls with carpets, rugs. Even to a wardrobe will play a role for warming a blank outer wall and will save some heat. But, again, your efforts will be useless if the neighbors leave their flat with broken windows from above or below - the ceilings and the floor are frozen faster than the walls, and nothing can be done about it.
Summer in the city: with corpses uncleaned in the streets, garbage and human waste, is terrible, but winter is worse. In winter, heating of the dwelling comes to the fore. No matter how we insulate the walls, there should be heating. Now for sale a lot of autonomous power plants in a few kilowatts. But for this device must be procured fuel. And, again, efficiency is important here - to burn gasoline in the generator in order to generate electricity, to cook food in the electric furnace and turn on the heater? Isn't it easier to have a gas stove, an oil-fired or wood-burning stove?
“When it comes to survival, both furniture and the library can be used as fuel.
- Compared with wood, paper has a very low heat transfer coefficient. And separately to stick papers - the skin of manufacture is not worth it. Now, if the paper or sawdust soaked with diesel fuel, you get a completely different result.
A trained resident of a megalopolis should have a supply of some combustible substances on which it is possible to cook hot food in an elementary way. The presence of a kerosene lamp, gas stove with spare cylinders will partially solve the problem. This is especially true of those who have small children, and you need to warm up baby food. All this must also be thought out. It is necessary to understand that if something happens, such devices in the store will not be bought. Each person, realizing this, should create his own personal emergency reserve at home.
- So we moved to the third problem - the problem of material and technical means to adapt to one or another critical conditions of life in the country.
- Here our older generation: grandparents, especially those who survived the war, will give us all a head start. They always had a minimum supply at home. My parents always buy half a bag of buckwheat, a bag of sugar, a bag of flour. The same is done by the villagers. City for some reason do not think about it, although nothing prevents them from buying a box of condensed milk, stews, pasta, flour, which can always be diluted with water and cooked elementary food. Cereals, salt, sugar, honey, canned fish are products that are stored for a long time.
No need to make a stock in 2-3 tons, you will not save enough for a lifetime! We have designated the dates. Social crisis can last from several days to several weeks. In a political crisis, the main thing is to survive a month and a half of anarchy. Then, in any case, some kind of power will come, some kind of trade will begin. The maximum political crisis can last six months. Naturally, even for one person to create a three-month supply is not so easy. Even if he consumes an average of 1 kg of food per day, you need to stock up on 90 kg for each. And the 4 family is physically hard to store 360 kg of food at home.
But here it is not a question of creating an autonomous stock - it is a question of an additional stock to what people will extract for themselves. Indeed, in any case, life will not end, everyone will not succeed in barricading themselves.
So the traditional question, where it is better to keep money in difficult times, I always answer - in banks! In banks of condensed milk, stews, etc.
If a political crisis sets in, the last bank of condensed milk will not be sold for 100 dollars. It will become priceless, but the dollar bill will turn into a piece of paper.
Each determines himself how much he needs, but the stock of products must be.
The following is a supply of combustible materials, gasoline-kerosene, which will provide appliances for cooking. In Kurgan-Tyube in Tajikistan and in Grozny, people cooked their meals on the street, made a wood fire or burned a jar of diesel fuel. You can pour diesel in a can of sand and cook even on the balcony.
We in Afghanistan prepared our tea this way, secretly from the enemy. Such fuel smokes, but under certain conditions of masking: in a ravine, ravine or in a dry channel, it can be used. But, again, this needs to be taught to people. You can tell a hundred times how to pour diesel and burn it, but it will not burn. It is necessary to show everything, to teach that the sand was dry, that the bank was filled with it by half or a third, not filled, but abundantly moistened with kerosene or diesel fuel, periodically stir the sand, and so on ... This is a whole culture with small nuances that need to be taken into account.
- A drug problem will arise during the crisis. What medications do you need in your home?
- Medications for chronic diseases of family members come out on top. There should be a supply of drugs - the maximum that a person can only store. If the ulcer is “Almagel” and others, if diabetes mellitus is insulin-containing drugs, etc. Stored preparations should be used as they expire and renew them again. That is, the required stock must always be present.
In second place are hemostatic preparations and dressing agents: harnesses, bandages, brilliant green, iodine, etc. A person should know how to provide first aid for bleeding - arterial, venous and capillary, for fractures and bruises. In the first aid kit must be gastric funds, because the transition to another food, poor quality or expired, can cause gastrointestinal upset.
The next group - sedatives, sedatives. Then - a huge group of drugs - cough, including antibiotics.
Do not forget about the epidemic. Must be antiseptics. The same bleach. No bleaching powder - domestic bleach will go: process the toilet, and the dishes, and pour some pockets of sewage on the street near your entrance ...
- The fight against unsanitary conditions then comes to the fore.
- Yes, this is a problem - where to put waste, especially in summer. It is clear that now we take out the garbage in the garbage can. But if garbage collection will not be carried out, then after two or three weeks, an extensive landfill will arise at the site of the garbage cans, and it will become unbearable in the district. We will take the garbage away, but someone will start to pour it from the balcony right under your feet. It is not joke. Therein lies the great threat of epidemics.
Ideally, you need a hole that you need to dig. For my family, I can dig a hole a meter per meter, and within a month this will be enough for me. But this hole will be filled during the day, because Ivanov, Petrov, Sidorenko and Akhmedov will not dig, but will begin to pour their garbage into my hole. It means that it is necessary to dig a hole together with the neighbors and put a controller so that other people do not empty the garbage into it. It is very difficult to adjust the mechanism, if everyone thinks only about themselves.
By the way, the products you have should be stored such that give a minimal amount of food waste. If there is a potato, it is not necessary to peel it, but cook in a uniform, like all other vegetables. And it's not just that the waste is decomposed. Thus, we save products using them to the maximum.
There will be a problem of sewage in full growth - it will not be possible to use it in an apartment building. On the last floor, the person will still be able to use it, and on the first and second floors everything will be flooded. And if a resident in the house is unconscious, the only way for people living on the lower floors to avoid flooding with faeces is to install hard plugs on the sewer system. But still, the liquid will rise up through the plastic pipes and they can not stand ... If the pipe breaks, the contents of this 20-floor column will flood the lower floors. This is a huge, unsolvable problem.
- If there is a powerlessness, the water supply will immediately turn off ...
- But people will still carry water upstairs, wash food, although it is easier to wash them outside, boil tea, cook soup. The liquid will still fall into the sewer ... In the same Kurgan-Tube, people took water from the canals. In Moscow, it can be natural reservoirs - rivers, canals, ponds, large puddles and snow. People will carry water from there on carts and sleds. Water will boil and drink ...
From here one more subject: serious stocks of drinking water in the apartment are necessary. If you use water from natural sources, then you need disinfection means: from boiling to filtering and disinfection using chemicals. One problem creates another, and it’s impossible to solve them for one person overnight ... For this, an adaptation culture is needed, with which we can determine the necessary amount of water, food, power plants, etc. All this is difficult, but solved.
“But in any case, the megalopolis turns into a death zone ... It is clear that such large cities as Moscow are in complete loss in advance.
- As soon as there is a threat of prolongation of the conflict, it is necessary to dump from a large city. At worst - in the suburbs, and better - in a distant village, in urban-type villages, to relatives, friends. The ideal option is when people unite on a patrimonial, some kind of social and professional basis or according to their interests and leave for the village - historical homeland. 10-15 adult men plus neighbors create a self-defense unit. The same thing can happen in the cottage village, where people live in mansions of 200 square meters. meters per person. They alone cannot hold such a space - all the more so, such villages are certainly under the gun.
In order to keep such a village, it is necessary to create self-defense forces. One of the inhabitants of the choir will call a friend in the city and say: "Sanya, come to me to live with your family and take someone else!". In crowded but not mad!
Residents of cottage settlements should be prepared for this, because the employees of their private security companies will flee to rescue their families during the crisis. Money at this time will depreciate, turn into candy wrappers.
If a city dweller has nowhere to run, let him flee into the forest. We remember the summer of 2010, when the peatlands were burning, and Moscow was choking with smog. I drove my pregnant daughter away from Moscow to the Tver region, on Lake Seliger. When we arrived there, all the shores of the lake were filled with Muscovites. People lived in tents, escaped from smoke. It’s good that there is clean water nearby, working shops ... It’s good that people watched themselves and one after another, observed sanitation, littered the garbage in the pits. Muscovites came in small groups, got to know each other and lived there, making household and household appliances for convenience.
There was organized camp-camp life. And it begins, as you know, from ... the toilet. Because if twenty people live a day without a toilet, the next night will not be easy to move away from the camp ... Plus hygiene issues, etc.
Accordingly, it is necessary to have a clear algorithm for what to do and where to go. It is necessary to have one main evacuation option and two spare ones. Everything, as in spetsnaz. The main route of movement and one or two backup. Suppose we live in a city, wait a week or two. The first option is to go to the Tver region, the second - to relatives in Siberia, the Urals, Voronezh or Kursk regions, even if a third cousin of a cousin lives there.
- And ideally, you should already have your base away from Moscow.
- I have many acquaintances who have purchased real estate in the villages of the Tver, Ivanovo, Kostroma regions precisely for such purposes. They got acquainted with the locals and, if necessary, can go there. Getting to know the locals and making contact is important,
Because we are newcomers there. For Muscovites, and so in recent times is not very good attitude. And then there can be aggression in general: they say, it’s not sweet to us here without you, and you, the parasites, have come. Therefore, when people come, they must carry something positive. That is, do something good not only for yourself. For example, if a specialist doctor arrived, it means that he should organize a first-aid post in this village. You can share with the locals clothing, food, medicine.
It is important to understand that in case of force majeure, to hold on to a city apartment, for property - death is like. Human life is the most expensive. I witnessed when people in Grozny were sitting on things and bags. They sat in apartments and basements, and bombs and shells fell into the houses, houses folded, and people found themselves buried alive, saving a carpet, a refrigerator or a TV. So many Russians died in the winter of 95. But you could hide more or less valuable things, make caches, or just part with them, saving your life and the lives of loved ones.
In such cases, the outcome with documents, money, jewelry, the minimum set of products will be the best option. It is better to leave by car. And if it does not work, then on foot, because even under normal conditions, huge traffic jams are lined up in Moscow and the Moscow region, and if something happens, a traffic collapse will occur. And then from Moscow, at least, kilometers 70-100 will have to go on foot.
- Behind all this, there is a huge reservoir of problems. And then one family can not cope, we need a society. Need a community. And here the first place is the possibility of self-organization of society, the creation of cell-blocks.
- The optimally self-sufficient team is the 70-100 man, where 20-30 are strong and physically healthy men, plus women and children. This is enough to autonomously adapt to the forest, anywhere. This is the so-called camp. It is already hard to feed a large number; it is difficult to provide security with a smaller one. And the 70-100 man is optimal.
You have arrived in a rural place. It is necessary to organize self-defense - first of all, block all roads, simply dig them up, make rubble of trees and dig ditches, thereby eliminating detours through the forest and the field. It is clear that a bulldozer or tank will pass, but passenger cars, on which criminal elements, as a rule, move, trucks, buses - will not pass. The bandits will need to stop, go out, dismantle the debris, and this is the time won in order to alert the rapid response team. The men will come running with pitchforks and poles and chase the uninvited guests.
Next - the warning system. Bell tower, rail hangs, empty gas cylinder. Rapid ringing - alarm. Moreover, the bells should be in two or three directions - where the roads are. Whence a bell sounds, it means a threat from there. People need to know the order of alert and action for combat crews: who and what is to be reported.
Again, in the village, survival is simpler - there are water sources, the waste disposal system is already thought out, there is individual heating of dwellings. The best option is a rural settlement.
- With access to some kind of agriculture ...
- As for the production of agricultural products, then this can be discussed if the situation drags on for years. How many years did the civil war that started after the October Revolution lasted for us? The country was in fever until the year 1924, then it began to improve more or less. This is a long period of history.
If events occurred at the end of winter and early spring, then a certain stock of seed material should be left in order to grow something. It is necessary to grow crops that require minimal effort and money. For Russia, it is potato, forgotten barley, the yield of which is much higher compared to other cereals. These are vegetables that do not require complex care. Suppose the same tomatoes are grown in the middle lane very hard, cucumbers also require a certain care, and carrots and cabbage grow normally. But cabbage has a growing season of almost five months, and potatoes have a 2,5-3 of the month, and if you take the early varieties, even less.
The forest can give mushrooms and berries. In terms of game, when a mob rushes into the forest, resources will be severely undermined. At some time, large bodies of water - lakes, rivers, large reservoirs, coastal areas - can give something. Fish is the easiest and cheapest way to get protein products in nature. But, again, uncontrolled poaching, nets and dynamite, electric fishing rods - the fish will be knocked out.
- The main thing is information, knowledge and culture, and the second is a culture of communication with each other and a culture of interaction ...
- The last 20 years are trying to convince us that man is a wolf to man. Throughout Russia's history, it was the people who determined the existence of the state, starting from the militia of Minin and Pozharsky. Even when Russia lost its statehood in the Time of Troubles, thanks to Minin and Pozharsky, it was restored.
And if, God forbid, what happens, now there will also be Minins and Pozharskys who will restore our statehood.
But we in advance, in peacetime, should already know who you can rely on, and with whom you can not communicate, with whom you can eat a pood of salt, and with whom - no ... The time will come, and there will be no pud of salt. Therefore, now, first of all, the male half of the population must assume responsibility, form a circle of people together with their friends and acquaintances, discuss all these issues, engage in information interchange and mutual education in order to survive in a critical situation.
If we called the team in 70-100 people, it should be structured so that there are doctors, people who own weapons - former and current employees of power structures, so that people with land-use, hunting and fishing skills can get there and accessories.
- Crisis conditions will require answers - increasing interaction between people, vigilance, the role and responsibility of men. A picture of society is being built, different from the one we have today ...
- It requires a society in which a person is no longer a wolf to a person. This is a different type of society and a different type of relationship, where envy is reduced to nothing, where women do not compete with each other in chinchilla coats and gold jewelry. It is a society in which there is nothing superficial, and people live as a good ideal family lives, where loved ones behave naturally and are not hypocritical to each other.
The conversation was conducted by Andrey Fefelov
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