Bloody june
How many times over the past years we all had to listen to both the various "political scientists" and "analysts" and officials of the maxim in the spirit that they say, of course - the collapse of the USSR was a dramatic act, but at least "bloodless."
Although today, at the sight of that bloody nightmare that is going on in Ukraine, the real liberal is hardly going to talk about the "bloodlessness" of the collapse of the USSR.
It is so obvious that the civil war in Ukraine was simply historically programmed in the 1991 year, with the transformation of the Ukrainian SSR into an “independent power”, and in fact is only a manifestation (albeit with a delay of 23) of one of the many processes launched by the Union abolition.
However, the falsity of the thesis about the "bloodless" disintegration of the country was already evident then, at the beginning of the 1990-s, when one after another began to multiply "hot spots" that quickly became fierce local wars.
I want to remind about one such local war now, if only because the events very much resemble what happened and is happening now in Slavyansk, Kramatorsk, Lugansk and other cities of the revolting Novorossia.
As in these cities, in the sultry June 1992, a bloody nightmare reigned in the city of Tskhinval. The streets of the city were engulfed in flames, constant rocket and artillery shelling destroyed his houses and killed people who already suffered from lack of food, medicine and even drinking water. And their relatives, who had been killed numerously, had to hastily bury themselves right under the windows of their houses ... But the most terrible thing for the residents of the city was that there was no hope of salvation. And for the author of these lines in those days, the reproach, not expressed, but felt almost in every glance - “Russians, why did you betray us ?!”.
- Excuse me, - the young reader will be surprised, - what is the author about? After all, everyone knows that the attack of Georgian troops on Tskhinval took place in August 2008, this war was so called “08.08.08”., What's the point about June 1992 of the year ?!
Alas, the bloody events of August 2008 were only the last in time, but not the first tragedy of Tskhinval and the whole of South Ossetia. So, the reasoning that Western journalists and political scientists and their Russian “liberal” colleagues love so much looks naive: did Russian troops enter South Ossetia after the attack on Tskhinval 8 on August 2008, or began their advance the day before? Because it all started a lot, a lot before ...
By June 1992, Tskhinval already had the unfortunate glory of the “long-term hot spot” as the capital of the “unrecognized republic”, and even the name of the city itself was subject to confrontation. The last is no joke. Because since 1961, in the framework of the “dethronement of the personality cult of Stalin,” the city, formerly called Staliniry, was renamed Tskhinvali - and with that name it was listed on world maps, and the USSR, and of course, the Georgian SSR, which entered as the center of the South Ossetian Autonomous Region. However, the Ossetian part of the population of both the city and the region, even in Soviet times, still in everyday life preferred to call it Tskhinval (as, by the way, it was officially called during the Russian Empire).
But this letter “and” in the ending was not a trifle at all. Georgian scholars, including during the years of “proletarian internationalism” and “Leninist“ national policy ”, went out of their way to prove that, according to Old Kartvelski (Tukhinvali’s self-name of Georgians), Tskhinvali is“ a city of hornbeam ”, therefore, it’s Georgian city. Their Ossetian colleagues argued with no less zeal that the very word Tskhinval has Old Alan (Alans - the ancestors of the Ossetians) roots, and means "supreme dwelling".
After the collapse of the USSR, Russian officials still used the Georgian form of naming the city. Up until 26 in August, 2008, when Russian President Dmitry Medvedev for the first time in his statement called the capital of South Ossetia Tskhinval, and announced the recognition of the independence of the republic.
It would seem that all this funny things associated with the well-known and aggravated national pride of the Caucasian peoples. Moreover, in those periods when Georgians and Ossetians lived as part of the Russian Empire or the USSR, in general, the relations between them never had an antagonistic character, as evidenced, by the way, by the abundance of mixed marriages.
But the collapse of the Russian Empire in 1917-1918gg. led to violent inter-ethnic confrontation, and the newly-minted Georgian Democratic Republic had to pacify its Ossetian nationals several times weapons. Those, as if in spite of her, almost all of them began to support the Bolsheviks (although, probably, few of them had an idea of “Marxism-Leninism” and “class struggle”). However, probably, if White would have won in the Civil War, the Ossetians would support Denikin's Volunteer Army with equal zeal - the good, the Georgian authorities were with knives with it.
In the Soviet period stories everything seemed to be relatively good in Georgian-Ossetian relations, but the very first waves of Gorbachev's “perestroika” at the end of the twentieth century 80-hgg of the twentieth century were awakened not so much by “creative processes” as by all possible nationalistic ambitions. Moreover, Georgian society began to raise the issue of secession from the USSR rather sharply - by the way, when the republic was not led by the militant "national democrat" Zviad Gamsakhurdia, and the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Socialist Republic Comrade Gumbaridze. By the way, the former head of the republican KGB - these were the games that brought up personnel by the end of 80's! The aspirations of the Ossetians, who also began a “national awakening”, were much more modest - to raise the status of South Ossetia from the autonomous region to an autonomous republic, again, as part of the Georgian SSR.
This caused fierce indignation among Georgian communists, Georgian anti-communists, and since 1988-1989, many thousands of “peace marches” began to take place regularly from Tbilisi to Tskhinvali, usually accompanied by pogroms and fights.
In the fall of 1990, after the first democratic elections in the Georgian SSR, Zviad Gamsakhurdia and his comrades officially came to power, who did not hide their goals of secession from the USSR of Georgia, and the elimination of all autonomies in it (though for Abkhazians, then Zviad vaguely promised to make an exception) . And then the South Ossetia Regional Council decided to proclaim the South Ossetian Soviet Socialist Republic within the USSR. In response, December 10 1990, the Supreme Council of Georgia decided to completely liquidate the South Ossetian autonomy. Since then, the term “South Ossetia” has been absent in principle in the Georgian political lexicon. Gamsakhurdia dubbed South Ossetia "Samachablo" - i.e. area princes Machabeli. Indeed, once the representatives of this princely family several times appealed to Nikolai I with a request to transfer them as serfs of the Yugoset peasants, to which, however, a royal refusal followed. Since the times of Shevardnadze, the princes have somehow been forgotten, and the Georgian officialdom usually speaks of the "Tskhinvali region", or part of the province of Shida (internal) -Kartli. This practice continues to this day - therefore, all the promises of the same Saakashvili (and his successors as well) to give the Ossetians the “widest autonomy” were initially perceived as blatant lies: what kind of autonomy is there if even the right to self-name is not recognized by South Ossetia!
A Georgian "Democrats" sample 1990gg. they did not hesitate to implement their rulings in relation to the Ossetian autonomy (not to mention the "independence"). On the night of 5 on 6 in January of 1991, units of the Georgian Ministry of Internal Affairs led by the general (the Soviet Ministry of Internal Affairs, by the way) Kwantaliani, Gamsakhurdia’s “military commandant” of the city, invaded Tskhinvali. True, most of the Georgian “militiamen” consisted of a motley nationalist public, who only recently wore gray pea jackets with epaulets, and was more prone to robbery than to the “restoration of territorial integrity”. Therefore, after three days of fighting, poorly armed militiamen and Ossetian militiamen threw in uninvited guests from the city. But after that, the conflict spread to the entire territory of South Ossetia - self-defense detachments began to form on both sides. Armed clashes swept the whole of South Ossetia - and they were fiercely, frankly, on both sides. But it is necessary to make a mandatory clarification - if the Ossetians and the local Georgian militia still somehow agreed with each other (long-standing neighbors and sometimes even kinship ties affected) to avoid overt atrocities, then those who came from other regions of Georgia to the "Ossetian front" of the formation, such restraining levers did not have. On the contrary, as “official”, that is, belonging to the National Guard created by Georgia, and even more so “volunteer” (“The Society of Elijah the Just”, “White George”, “White Eagle” and, of course, the legendary “Mkhedrioni”) formations were often frank gangs recruited from the relevant elements, only slightly covered by one or another “ideological” slogans. Actually, they account for the lion's share of atrocities and robberies - which, of course, does not remove responsibility from the nationalist politicians who inspired and sent them to the “feats”.
But, if everything is clear with the latter, the position of Moscow looked rather ridiculous. And both the Union Center, led by Gorbachev, and the Russian "democracy", which launched a fierce struggle against it. It would seem that the sympathies of the Center should have been on the side of the Ossetians - after all, they were in favor of preserving the Union! However, Ossetian deputies from Moscow were stunned, pointing out that the decision they had made on the establishment of the South-Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic within the USSR was “unconstitutional. But the Georgian Supreme Council did not follow any protests regarding the abolition of autonomy, or over the actual unleashed war.
True, later, parts of the USSR Interior Ministry troops were nevertheless introduced into South Ossetia to ensure the supply of Tskhinval, which turned out to be practically complete blockade (in addition, the Union of Power Engineers of Georgia turned off electricity to most regions of South Ossetia in February). At the same time, Gamsakhurdia declared that Georgia had been subjected to the “imperial aggression of Moscow” and declared the USSR an “economic blockade”. (Which, however, first of all struck Georgia itself). But this trick of Zviadu got away with it. Moreover, almost at the same time, he appealed to the command of the troops of the Zakvkaz district - with a request to disarm his political rivals from Mkhedrioni, headed by professor and “thief in law” Jaba Ioseliani. This was done by the special forces of ZakVO, which Gamsakhurdia continued to call “the occupying forces”. A criminal professor went to the Tbilisi prison - Zviad was also sent there by the leader of South Ossetia, Torez Kulumbegov, inviting him, allegedly, "for negotiations." Official Moscow reacted to this philosophically. Moreover, when Georgia began to create the National Guard, Moscow not only did not rebel - on the contrary, the USSR Ministry of Defense, through the remaining network of military registration and enlistment offices, began to provide conscription to the National Guard! This, by the way, after Georgia officially boycotted the referendum on the preservation of the Soviet Union, and then, on April 1991 of the year 9, declared independence from the USSR! At the same time, a referendum was held in South Ossetia and 1991% voted for the Union.
Of course, at the same time, the Russian "democratic" public perceived the Ossetians as "communists and reactionaries," and the Georgian side as fighters against the "totalitarian empire." True, Zviad’s antics soon began to embarrass even Russian “democrats” - especially when he began to persecute his former friends in the “national-democratic” camp. And, moreover, (which the Moscow “public” perceived painfully), representatives of the Georgian intelligentsia, who in one way or another expressed disagreement with the Zviadist regime.
As a result, when in December 1991 - January 1992gg. as a result of the “people's democratic revolution”, Gamsakhurdia was overthrown, the Kremlin was also delighted (where Boris Yeltsin had already managed to accommodate, having got rid of Gorbachev at the cost of the Bialowieza Accords) and the “democratic public” of Russia, and even Ossetians! The latter because the revolutionaries released Kulumbegov with Ioseliani from prison, and the latter also became one of the leaders of “new democratic” Georgia. And during his time in jail, for various reasons scolding Zviad, he, in particular, spoke in favor of a more “flexible” solution to the Ossetian issue. Well, when Eduard Shevardnadze became the head of Georgia - the favorite of both the Russian and international “progressive public”, there was no limit to jubilation.
Although for South Ossetia it was just that even more terrible trials began than before. The new Georgian government was not going to make any concessions to the Ossetians. As a result of January 19 1992, a referendum was held in the republic, in which 98% of the participants spoke in favor of independence from Georgia and for joining Russia. As a result, hostilities flared up again in late February and early March 1992. Moreover, while supporters of Gamsakhurdia and the State Council, headed by Shevardnadze, were still at war with each other in Western Georgia, in South Ossetia they spoke in a united front. Georgian formations took control of the Znauri district in the south-west of the republic, the Leningorsky (renamed Akhalgori) in the east. Georgian villages to the south-west, south and east of Tskhinval from the very beginning of the conflict remained outside the control of the Ossetians. But most importantly, a group of Georgian villages, the largest of which was Tamarasheni, were located along the road connecting Tskhinval with Dzhava (the second largest city of the republic), and in fact, with the outside world.
The only road from Tskhinval to Java was the so-called. "Bypass" primer, Zar road. They called her “dear life” - according to her, although with great difficulty, food and medicine came to the city, wounded and refugees were taken out, and “death road” - because she was under constant Georgian rocket and artillery fire. The Georgian sabotage and terrorist groups also operated here. One of these 20 in May 1992, a column of refugees from Tskhinval was shot, 36 people died from the age from 11 to 76 years.
Eduard Shevardnadze, so as not to embarrass the “progressive public” in love with him, and this and other similar actions diligently distanced himself. He very successfully persuaded everyone to believe in his peace-lovingness, and he blamed the war in South Ossetia and the atrocities associated with it now on "Zviadists", then on some "uncontrollable formations", then in general on the machinations of some "dark forces that do not want peace ".
And under these conversations he achieved at the end of April Boris Yeltsin, with whom he had extremely friendly relations, the withdrawal of Internal Troops from South Ossetia - which were at least some kind of insurance for Ossetians that they would not be simply annihilated. On the wall of one of the temporary barracks, one of the outgoing Russian military wrote: “You were sold again!”. True, the officers of the group nevertheless handed over part of the weapons and ammunition to representatives of the “legitimate authority of South Ossetia”. And what - here is the Supreme Council elected by the people, here is the government, they should also rely something when dividing allied property ... In the conditions of the general chaos that covered the “post-Soviet space”, such explanations were considered quite logical - and, most likely, to this question in Moscow, no one did not delve.
Also, as I personally heard, the commander of the Internal Troops, Colonel-General Vasily Savvin did not force the withdrawal of the helicopter unit from under Tskhinvali - it seems to be at your own peril and risk. A helicopter pad (loudly called an “airfield”) is supposed to be guarded, especially if military helicopters are — so some of our military personnel (they later, in official documents, for some reason will be called engineering battalion) still under Tskhinval. These months, from April to July, these helicopters, their crews and “engineer-sappers” made the most of their modest forces in order to provide for the care and removal of numerous wounded and sick people, as well as refugees, for food and medicine. order of Moscow (not to mention the "supreme commander in chief", as Boris Nikolayevich loved himself to dignify). And under the constant shelling of the so-called "unknown formations." Needless to say, this feat was not rewarded in any way - on the contrary, it was completely forgotten.
By June, the situation for Tskhinvali had finally become critical. In fact, only the courage of the despair of his defenders, who had nowhere to retreat and who could not count on mercy, kept him from falling. As well as the lack of a unified and competent military command from the Georgian side, the almost complete absence of even a semblance of discipline, the constant clarification of relations both between the commanders and the fighters of individual detachments. Yet a clear military advantage was on their side.
Meanwhile, the further development of events in the Georgian scenario threatened with complications already in Russia itself. First, Moscow’s de facto encouragement of Georgian actions against Tskhinval was extremely outraged by residents of North Ossetia, a region traditionally the most loyal to Russia in the North Caucasus. On a case-by-case basis, the North Ossetians, for a long time, were heading to fight on the side of the southern brethren, and the republic’s government also provided the southerners with all possible humanitarian assistance. But Moscow regularly demanded “an end to interference in the internal affairs of independent Georgia,” which began to infuriate the traditionally pro-Russian Ossetians.
By June 9, the ring of the Georgian blockade almost completely closed around Tskhinval, the Georgians occupied all the heights dominating the city, and tried to force the Liakhva river, transferring the battle to the city streets. At the same time in Vladikavkaz there was an explosion of popular indignation. Military depots with small arms, ammunition and 12-th self-propelled units were captured - everything captured immediately, through the Roki tunnel was sent to South Ossetia. In response, the Russian military prosecutor’s office arrested Tedeeva, head of the South Ossetian government, but realizing that in the current situation it was like putting out kerosene with a fire, he soon released him.
Meanwhile, the Confederation of Mountain Peoples of the Caucasus (CGIC) announced its readiness to help the South Ossetians, “if Moscow intends to betray them”. This, in principle, a public organization, then, at the beginning of 90, was a very impressive force - especially against the background of the complete impotence of the official Russian authorities. As time later showed, most of the leaders and activists of this Confederation in fact were not as anti-Russian as many in Moscow believed. Well, except, of course, representatives of Dudayev Chechnya.
But then the leaders of the KGNK reasonably reasoned that the Yeltsin leadership could not break through with normal arguments — and on June X the “front line” Confederation militia headed by Musa (aka Yuri) Shanibov arrived in Vladikavkaz. Shanibov announced that Tskhinvali was going to help, right there (right there would be such efficiency in Moscow for a good cause!) Police special forces were sent to Vladikavkaz. The armed clash was avoided only thanks to the personal intervention of the North Ossetian President Akhsarbek Galazov. Meanwhile, with a different outcome, this incident could not only blow up North Ossetia and respond in other North Caucasian republics - no doubt the leader of rebellious Chechnya, Dudayev, who did not hide his plans to rebel against Russia throughout the North Caucasus, would not fail to take advantage of them. All this summer he had been voyaging over these republics (with the full connivance of Moscow), called for a “struggle for freedom” and then cursed at one or another region: “They are pigs. Not ready for revolution! ”
The situation became tense in Moscow, in particular, in the Supreme Council, where doubts about the “democratic character” of Georgian actions towards South Ossetia had long been expressed. In early June, Vice-President Alexander Rutskoi suggested that Boris Yeltsin send the North Ossetian National Guard to South Ossetia. Surprisingly, Yeltsin was outraged not by the fact that one of the Russian republics had his own (illegal) National Guard, but by a proposal to intervene in the affairs of the old comrade of the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee Shevardnadze.
However, as Alexander Rutskoi tells in his memoirs, chance helped. 15 June1992, Boris Yeltsin departed on his first state visit to the USA, and happy with that, did not leave any instructions on the South Ossetian issue. Rutskoi immediately contacted the Deputy Minister of Defense, Colonel-General Kondratyev, and asked him to visit Tskhinval and find out the situation for himself. Kondratiev returned from Tskhinval in a frenzy - he personally saw the shooting of the city, and the shells and missiles were also torn at the Russian “airfield”. Rutskoi contacted Shevardnadze and heard the narration on duty: “the troops that are storming Tskhinval are not Georgian army”. Kondratyev, it seems, was outraged by this statement no less than Rutsky, so he readily executed an instruction to attack with helicopters on all the forces that were shelling the city.
The order was executed, and in the words of Rutsky, “immediately a call came from Tbilisi, and Shevardnadze, in a raised voice, said that I was interfering in the internal affairs of a sovereign state.” In response, Rutskoi instructed Kondratyev to repeat the strike once again, and as Shevardnadze himself later asserted, promised to raise the air regiment and bomb Tbilisi this time.
Shevardnadze tried to play the situation in three directions at once. First, on June 20, he turned to the UN with a complaint of "aggression" and "imperial claims" of Russia. In addition, on the same day, Georgian forces attempted to break through to the left bank of Liakhva, and they were beaten off literally from their last strength. Well, of course, Eduard Amvrosiyevich hurried to complain to Boris Nikolayevich about the “arbitrariness” of his vice president and generals.
But even then Yeltsin realized that the matter had gone too far. He was still very unsteadily sitting on the Kremlin throne, while economic reforms have so far caused only massive impoverishment, and, accordingly, discontent of the population. And the voucher privatization still lay ahead ... Yeltsin also didn’t have a reliable punitive apparatus, and he was even more afraid to anger generals who, for obvious reasons, did not like Shevardnadze, to put it mildly. There was no direct conflict in this situation with both Rutsky and the Supreme Soviet, and even against the background of the prospects for large-scale indignation of the North Caucasus.
And as a result of June 24, Yeltsin and Shevardnadze signed agreements on the principles of the peaceful settlement of the Georgian-Ossetian conflict in Dagomys. Strictly speaking, it was in fact an armistice agreement - but it implied the deployment of peacekeeping forces from the Russian, Georgian and Ossetian battalions in the region and the creation of a Mixed Control Commission, which was to observe this truce.
On paper, almost all the good wishes contained in these agreements remained - on the economic recovery of the region, on the prevention of an economic blockade or the threat of such, on the disarmament of militias, the mutual return of refugees, etc. And the cease-fire did not come at once - right up until July 13 the Georgians continued rocket-artillery shelling of the city, and its assault groups tried to occupy its outskirts. Only with the advent of 14 in July of Russian peacekeepers did a fragile truce come.
But, most importantly, despite the name of the document, it said nothing about how to solve this conflict in principle. After all, the Ossetian side, after all the sacrifices suffered (only Ossetian villages were destroyed 117), in principle, refused to be part of Georgia. And Georgia, in turn, did not want to hear even the phrase “South Ossetia”. Therefore, a new war was sooner or later inevitable, which happened in August 2008 of the year. And only the Russian military presence, maintained in the region, gives guarantees for not resuming hostilities in the future.
In the context of the above, one of the latest statements by the militia commander of Slavyansk, Igor Strelkov, is particularly acute: “I was silent for a long time about“ helping Russia ”. Because I understand everything - and the nuances of "big politics", compared to which Slavyansk is just a tiny spot on the tablecloth of History, and the tremendous risks that Russia must take to help us with armed force, and a lot of other factors taken into account and unaccounted for. I don’t understand one thing: why was it possible, at the risk of everything, to save several tens of thousands of Ossetian Kudarans whom I respected, immediately rushing to help them, despite everything, but already for months “pull the bagpipes” with the urgently needed help of the Russians? ”
Indeed, it turns out that even Russia, led by the mediocre and unscrupulous Yeltsin, who was in a half-life in the 1992 year, could still help the Ossetian people and force them to stop the war against it. Moreover, it will be a shame for today's, incomparably stronger Russia, if it allows Bandera's rabble to continue to exterminate with impunity literally under the noses of thousands of Russian people.
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