What ended the campaign in power of the fighting generals, "Afghans"
On the morning of December 25, 1979 of the year, Soviet paratroopers crossed the induced pontoon bridge across the border river Amu Darya. They were assigned the task of seizing the high-mountain Salang pass on the Termez-Kabul road in order to ensure the unimpeded passage of Soviet troops to Afghanistan.
On the same day, the transfer of units to the airfields of Kabul and Bagram began. So began the Afghan war, which lasted until the 1989 year. True, officially it was then called the introduction of a limited contingent of Soviet troops into the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (DRA) in order to overthrow Hafizullah Amin and replace him with a more loyal USSR leader.
Then, in the USSR, they learned what the terrible military term "200 cargo" means. In the zinc coffins, the remains of our soldiers and officers returned to their homeland in the Black Tulip, about which Alexander Rosenbaum sings with such pain.
In this war for 9 years, 1 a month and 19 days, 14 453 of Soviet servicemen died. Of these, 9 511 were killed in battles, 2386 died from wounds, the rest from other diseases. 417 Soviet military personnel went missing or were captured. 119 soldiers and officers of the Soviet army managed to free from captivity.
Some officers who fought back then in Afghanistan with dukhmans later became brilliant politicians whose names Russia still remembers. Without pursuing the goal of assessing political achievements or failures, today we simply recall them - combat generals: Shpak, Rokhlin, Lebed, Gromov, Rutskoi, Grachev ...
It happened story of our country, that after a few years, some of them already on the territory of Russia - in Chechnya - were confronted by another "Afghan" - their former combat comrade Dzhokhar Dudayev, who is now called a "rebellious general." However, almost all of them at the beginning of 1990-x were on opposite sides of the barricades.
General Georgy Shpak
It was under his command that the first 25 of December 1979 of the year paratroopers of the 350 Guards Parachute Regiment landed on the Kabul airfield. During the war in Afghanistan, he was Chief of Staff - Deputy Commander of the Airborne Division, Commander of the 76 Guards Airborne Division. After Afghanistan took part in the hostilities in Yugoslavia and in Chechnya.In September, 2003 left military service and went into politics. He joined the patriotic bloc, which later became the Rodina party, which remained in October 2004 until October.
In December, 2003 was elected a deputy to the Federal Assembly of Russia - Deputy Chairman of the Committee on Defense. From 2004 to 2008, he led the Ryazan Region.
After the end of the term of the governorship, he does not take an active part in the political life of the country, but transfers his experience to the younger generation - not only to young paratroopers, but (according to him) to his three grandchildren.
His son, Oleg Shpak, a guard lieutenant, died in Chechnya in 1995. Daughter Elena - Colonel of Medical Service, works in the military hospital named after Burdenko.
General Lev Rokhlin
Lev Rokhlin served in Afghanistan in 1982 — 1984. First, as commander of a motorized rifle regiment. In the opinion of the command, a military operation was shot for an unsuccessful one, then reinstated. He was wounded twice.In 1994-1995 he fought in Chechnya and was presented for the title of Hero of the Russian Federation, but refused to accept this title, saying that "he has no moral right to receive this award for military operations in the territory of his own country."
In 1995, Rokhlin went into politics from the Our Home Russia movement (NDR), in January 1996 became the chairman of the State Duma’s defense committee, but after a year and a half, he unexpectedly left the NDR faction and created his own political "Support Movement army, defense industry and military science. " He is considered one of the most active opposition leaders of 1997-1998, opposed to Boris Yeltsin.
In late May, 1998 was dismissed from the post of chairman of the defense committee. A few days later - on the night of July 3 - he was found murdered at his own summer cottage in the village of Klokovo near Moscow.
On charges of murder, his wife Tamara Rokhlin was detained. At first, she confessed that she had killed her husband, but then she refused her testimony, stating that she had slandered herself in a state of shock. This whole tragic history was followed by the whole country.
General Dzhokhar Dudayev
In the days of the USSR - Major General aviation. In 1986-1987 he took part in hostilities in Afghanistan, although he subsequently denied that he fought against the Islamists in this country.However, according to official information, on a heavy bomber, Dudayev personally made combat missions to the western regions of Afghanistan, introducing the technique of "carpet bombing" of enemy positions.
In 1991, he retired and led the so-called national liberation movement of 1990, which, in fact, provoked the First Chechen War.
It is considered the first president of the unrecognized Chechen Republic of Ichkeria (CRI). From the beginning of the 1990s, at a time when Chechen separatists were fighting for the creation of an independent republic, Russia experienced a whole series of terrible terrorist acts.
The hunt for the rebellious Chechen president was conducted throughout the First Chechen War. At least three attempts at assassination of Dudayev are known. The fact that he really killed, it became known in April 1996 year. According to one version, the village of Gekhi-Chu, where Dudayev was killed, was imposed on Russian special forces.
On a signal from an airplane that had spotted a radio beam from Dudayev’s satellite phone, an anti-tank radio-controlled rocket was fired at a rebel general’s car. However, the version of the air strikes on the rebellious general’s car was most prevalent. However, all the details of the operation for a long time will be classified.
General Alexander Rutskoi
Hero of the Soviet Union. In the period from 1985 to 1988, the year in Afghanistan commanded a separate aviation assault regiment, made 485 sorties on the Su-25 attack aircraft. In 1986-m was shot down and miraculously survived. After treatment and short service in Lipetsk, he returned to Afghanistan.In 1988, he was again shot down, five days left from persecution, was captured by the Afghan mojahedin. Then, Soviet diplomats exchanged him for a citizen of Pakistan accused in the USSR of spying. According to other sources, Rutskoi was bought out.
At the beginning of 1990, I went to politics: from 1991 to 1993, the first and last vice-president of the Russian Federation. He sharply criticized the program of the so-called shock therapy according to Gaidar and the Belovezhskaya Agreement. Conflicted with President Yeltsin.
“Nobody wanted to leave,” says Rutskoi today. But this is not about Afghanistan. So he described the events of October 1993, in which he played one of the key roles.
They still have not been given an unambiguous historical interpretation. Some call these events the "October putsch", others - "the execution of parliament", and others - the "constitutional crisis." Time will judge.
From 1996 to 2000, Rutskoi was governor of the Kursk region. He currently lives in the suburban town of Odintsovo, is the chairman of the board of directors of a cement plant in the Voronezh region.
General Alexander Lebed
In the fighting in Afghanistan took part in 1981 — 1982. There he commanded the first battalion of the 345-th separate parachute regiment. During the war he was contused.In July, 1990, for the first time, Alexander Lebed was confronted with politics: he was elected to the Central Committee of the RSFSR Communist Party. In 1991, during the coup, his paratroopers guarded the White House - the headquarters of the Democrats. It was then, as he himself said, that the whole country recognized his "naturally affectionate physiognomy".
But truly Lebed became a legend in Transnistria. There he acted decisively and with the help of military force stopped the war.
His phrase “The end of the war”, told by 1996 in the summer, will go down in history after General Alexander Lebed and Aslan Maskhadov signed the Khasavyurt peace in Chechnya.
In the first round of the presidential election of 1996, almost 15 percent of voters voted for General Lebed - more than 11 million people. This was the third result - after Boris Yeltsin and Gennady Zyuganov.
Lebed calls on his supporters in the second round to vote for Yeltsin, and he wins. But for the Moscow elite, he could not become his. Although, according to the pre-election agreement, he received the post of Secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation "with special powers" and became an assistant to the President of the Russian Federation on national security.
After a conflict with Interior Minister Kulikov in October 1996, the year was dismissed.
From June 1998 of the year - the governor (the people called him the "governor-general") of the Krasnoyarsk Territory. Often he made loud statements on the situation in the Krasnoyarsk Territory and not only.
20 April 2002, he turned 52, and a few days later - 28 April - Russia lost its Swan.
He, the staff of his administration and several representatives of the press - including the operator of the Krasnoyarsk Vesti - perished in the crash of the Mi-8 helicopter near Lake Oyskoe on the Buybinsky Pass (Krasnoyarsk Territory), where he and his administration staff flew to the opening of the new ski slopes.
There was talk that the death of the irreconcilable and often harsh "governor-general" was not an accident. Thousands of people sincerely mourned. However, according to the findings of the state commission, the cause of the catastrophe was “the unsatisfactory crew preparation for the flight”.
Not only the events of those years, but also popularly loved films about “national peculiarities” (hunting, fishing and politics), whose main character - General Mikhalych performed by Alexei Buldakov - looks like Alexander Lebed like two drops of water, will surely remind him of it.
General Pavel Grachev
Took part in hostilities in Afghanistan from 1981 to 1982 for the year as commander of the 345 Guards separate parachute regiment. Then he was sent there again as the commander of the 103 Guards Airborne Division.For successfully carried out the strategically important operation "Magistral" Grachev was awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union.
After returning from Afghanistan, he continued service in the Armed Forces. From December 30, 1990 was commander of the USSR Airborne Forces.
In August 1991, when the coup began, he executed the order of the GKChP committee on the introduction of troops into Moscow. However, the very next day he sided with Boris Yeltsin. It was by his order that the General Lebed, who were at the disposal of General Lebed, were sent for protection to the White House Tanks and personnel.
In the following years, Pavel Grachev held senior positions in the Ministry of Defense system. In May, 1992 was appointed Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation and held this position until 1996.
His work in this post has often been criticized. Grachev was even suspected of involvement in the murder of Dmitry Kholodov, a Moskovsky Komsomolets journalist, in October 1994. The accused officers were paratroopers, Grachev acted as a witness. As a result, the court acquitted all defendants. The crime remained unsolved.
General Grachev passed away on September 23 of the year 2012. Shortly after his death, the film "Pavel Grachev. I want to tell everything" was released on the Russia 24 TV channel. This is a miraculously preserved record of General Grachev’s large and frank interview in which he talks about all the tragic events of modern Russian history in which he took direct part.
General Boris Gromov
During the war in Afghanistan, he was awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union for the successful conduct of Operation Highway. He was the last commander of the 40-th army. It was he who led the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan.15 February 1989 of the year (according to the official version) was the last Soviet soldier to cross the border of the two countries along the Friendship Bridge, although in Afghanistan Soviet military personnel and border guard units remained in captivity.
In politics, Boris Gromov went in December 1995 of the year: then he stood for election to the State Duma of the II convocation from the association "My Fatherland". Subsequently became the governor of the Moscow region. Boris Gromov led the Moscow region for almost 12 years: from 2000 to 2012. Then he became a senator, and more recently, a State Duma deputy from United Russia.
In an interview with the media, he often recalled those ambiguous events of the late Soviet period. So, in an interview with Vesti of the Week, General Gromov admitted in 2004, that "we did not take into account the experience of the Afghan war."
“Basically, this experience was remembered, unfortunately. Because, from my point of view, the most important result of the experience of the war in Afghanistan is not to start a war. But the political component of this experience went into oblivion. And repetition happened in Chechnya.” said then General Gromov.
In February, 2009, when the 20 anniversary of the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan was celebrated in Russia, in an interview with Vesti, Boris Gromov admitted: "The introduction of troops into Afghanistan was a mistake":
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