Shameful raid
November 24 marks the twenty-year raid of the forces of the Provisional Council of Chechnya on Grozny. The tragic outcome of this raid was the execution of the Dudaevites tanks and the mass capture of Russian tankers, from whom Moscow would later disown. This day is considered to be the beginning of the First Chechen War, which brought nothing but suffering, blood and grief.
Umar Avturkhanov, a former police major from Sukhum, was at the head of the opposition Chechen Dudaev’s opposition forces. At first, he sympathized with the "democrats" of the "United Congress of the Chechen People" who promoted Dudayev to the leadership of the republic, Avturkhanov from 1992, was in irreconcilable opposition to Dudayev and his party. Nadterechny district of Chechnya, where Avturkhanov was the head of the district, became the outpost of anti-Dudayev resistance.
When Moscow decided to clean up Dudayev in 1994, she put on Umar Avturkhanov. At that time, Major General of the Border Troops Yury Koloskov, a personal assistant to another famous Chechen, Ruslan Khasbulatov, was seconded to him as a military adviser. Yury Koloskov told us in an interview why the November raid on Grozny became possible.
"TOMORROW". Yuri Veniaminovich, in November 1994 of the year you were the representative of Ruslan Khasbulatov in the oppositional Dudayev Chechen Interim Council. How is it that Khasbulatov sent you to the anti-Dudai opposition?
Yury KOLOSKOV. I know Khasbulatov still in the Supreme Soviet of Russia. In the government of Alexander Rutskoi, which the Supreme Council chose shortly after Yeltsin’s overthrow, I took the post of assistant Vladislav Achalov, Minister of Defense of Russia. In October, 1993, the year happened shameful for stories of our country, the shooting of the Supreme Council.
After more than half a year, in July 1994, the struggle of the Russian authorities against the regime of Dzhokhar Dudayev, which began to threaten the territorial integrity of the Russian Federation, began to unfold.
At the same time, Ruslan Khasbulatov, who was in Tolstoy-Yurt at that time, created a peacekeeping group. Her task was to resolve the confrontation between Grozny and Moscow.
Khasbulatov created a television studio in Tolstoy-Yurt, published a newspaper called Zhizn. From TV screens and the pages of "Life", Khasbulatov convinced Chechens that their republic could count on a normal life only while being part of Russia. Knowing the mentality of his people and understanding what the military conflict in Moscow and Grozny would lead to, Ruslan Imranovich was negotiating with a number of field commanders. He convinced them that an armed conflict with Russia would not be beneficial to anyone. Except, perhaps, for corrupt government circles and some military people who will make a lot of money in a future war.
Khasbulatov wanted to resolve the Chechen conflict exclusively by peaceful means. Therefore, in the fall of 1994, he sent me to the Nadterechny district of Chechnya. In this area, in the village of Znamenskaya, then housed a center of anti-Dudayev forces. The most famous force was the Provisional Council of the Chechen Republic. He was led by Umar Dzhunitovich Avturkhanov. I was with him and should discuss Khasbulatov's proposals.
"TOMORROW". And how was your first contact with Avturkhanov?
Yuri Koloskov. As soon as I appeared before Avturkhanov and outlined Khasbulatov’s proposals, he declared that "he does not intend to give power to Khasbulatov." To which I replied: in spite of the fact that I have been Khasbulatov’s assistant since 1993, I remain in Znamenskoye in order to help Avturkhanov with my advice as a military man.
Avturkhanov's group was not just an opposition to Dudayev’s center of power, which in Chechnya there were quite a few. It was the centralized force that the Kremlin prepared to eliminate the Dudayev regime. In fact, it was the Russian military base inside Chechnya. Indeed, in the Nadterechny district, Moscow created four battalions commanded by Umar Avturkhanov. Beslan Gantamirov, the mayor of Grozny in the first year of Dudayev’s rule, who went into opposition in April 1993, was appointed Minister of Defense of this center of opposition to the Dudayev regime.
"TOMORROW". Since the Kremlin put Avturkhanov on, he clearly had curators from Moscow. If so, do you know the names of his curators?
Yury KOLOSKOV. The then head of the department of the Federal Counterintelligence Service for Chechnya, Nazir Hapsirokov, was an adviser to Avturkhanov, and a good adviser. Nazir Khazirovich and I understood each other perfectly and then worked well together. Subsequently, as you remember, Hapsirokov was awarded the title Hero of Russia.
And now I will say who advised Yeltsin to put on Avturkhanov and invest in him and his group of forces and means. This man was Sergey Filatov. As a reward for the fact that Filatov was one of the first to join the service of Yeltsin, he was made head of the presidential administration in Russia.
"TOMORROW". In short, on the side of Avturkhanov and Gantamirov there was the "heavy artillery" of the Moscow offices. Do you think they had any chances to overthrow the gangster regime of Dudayev?
Yuri Koloskov. This should be thoughtful and point by point. I personally believe that much has prevented the normal conduct of the operation. For example, when Avturkhanov gathered his commanders for a meeting, for some reason I did not get to these meetings, but remained in the reception room. And before that I flew from Znamensky to Maykop. I had a mission to bring pilots from Maykop to headquarters.
Avturkhanov had three helicopters. I brought to him from Maykop thirty experienced pilots who could drive combat vehicles under combat conditions and provide air support to infantry and tanks. The case ended in the fact that out of thirty pilots at the disposal of Avturkhanov only three remained. The remaining 27 was sent to Moscow for some reason. And the helicopters of the Avturkhanov military group, which they had hoped so much in the Chechen Interim Council, did not take part in it at the time of the offensive operation on Grozny. The ground units of the Provisional Council were left without air cover. Strange fact.
"TOMORROW". And what was the military contingent of the Chechen Interim Council?
Yuri Koloskov. Avturkhanov had three to four battalions of manpower. Their entire composition was recruited from the locals. There was only one drill commander - a sergeant of special forces, and all the other commanders were representatives of the civilian local population, mostly heads of local village councils. And the automata were distributed to this civil public, but no one explained how to use them, how to disassemble them — to assemble them. Absolutely no one. Imagine it?
I tried to teach the battalion of Avturkhanov how to handle the rifle weapons, explained what combat orders are, and so on. After all, shortly before these events, I commanded a border school. Clear. that the handling of small arms, as well as the theory of combat, knew very well, I will say without false modesty. In combat training, I was helped by the only professional military of this contingent — the sergeant of the special forces, of whom I spoke above. I then thought: when we enter Grozny and storm the palace of Dudayev, this sergeant will command a battalion, which will carry out an assault on the separatists' citadel. But my assistant and comrade were killed in the very first minutes of the storming of Grozny.
And about the assault on Grozny. During our personal conversation with Avturkhanov, I said to Umara: the storming of Grozny is a serious operation with field regulations, and there must be an order corresponding to it, and his. I asked Avturkhanov, and who can help me to make this order,
It was always necessary to engage in combat operations on orders. There are also rules for the operation of field units, which require field units to enter into battle only by order. I wanted all these scattered anti-Dudayev forces to fight against Dudayev on orders and under one command.
"TOMORROW. "And what was the peculiarity of this order?
Yuri Koloskov. Before carrying out this operation, it was necessary to assess the enemy forces, the assessment of my forces, in connection with these components of the upcoming operation, I decided that everything related to its preparation should have been military. After that, I called in intelligence agents from the structure of the Avturkhanov forces and asked them to figure out where the enemy’s strongholds are located in Grozny.
And what do you think? None of these battalion scouts knew where the Dudaev strongholds were located and how many Dudayev terrorists were at each point of Grozny’s defense. When I asked Avturkhanov to provide me with people capable of giving me an assessment of the enemy and my own strength, it turned out that nobody had dealt with these extremely important questions before storming Grozny.
I also told Avturkhanov: it was necessary to calculate how many days this operation would last and how many ammunition each fighter of each Avturkhanov battalion would need for its ammunition. And also, how much logistic support is required. And this, believe me, was not done either.
I also said to Umara: it is necessary before each assault on the terrible Grozny to set the task of interacting the battalions with each other. It is necessary to determine the specific tasks of battalion operations in the Chechen capital itself. And in order for this operation to take place “as if by notes”, it was necessary to give it the significance of a national scale.
"TOMORROW". If the operation has a national significance, it means that consultations with top officials in Moscow were required. I wonder what was the reaction of Moscow?
Yuri Koloskov. I did not manage to give our operation state importance. But I was told that a representative of the President of Russia, Alexander Kotenkov, flew by helicopter. Kotenkov is authorized from above to command all my actions on the operation, so the order is not needed.
What can be obtained from this operation, I told the representative of the FGC in Chechnya, the colonel, whose name and surname I will not give. He replied something like this: "Well, let them piss themselves that you are going through something!"
After that, I wanted to leave Chechnya. I got to Maykop, but they sent me back from Maykop ticket offices. But in my mood, everything he saw was very insane.
Somewhere a month before the storming of Grozny, I told Avturkhanov: it is necessary to conduct training of personnel, at least for staff. I said that I am personally ready to conduct them with the personnel of the battalions so that the commanders at least know how to command their units. At the time of the training, three things turned out.
First: no one from the staff knows about training. Second, the Kantemirovskaya tank division suddenly arrived in Chechnya to participate in the liberation of Grozny. The third thing: the division arrived on broken tanks, company commanders, sergeants, and even soldiers constantly drank. I personally escorted Kantemirovs and their tanks from Tolstoy-Yurt to Grozny, I saw everything with my own eyes.
I will return to the topic of supplying the participants of the operation planned by me with a dry ration. After my conversation with Avturkhanov took place, he summoned his deputy for supply, repeating my words with a letter. Nothing was done.
"TOMORROW". Why do you think nothing was done?
Yuri Koloskov. Most likely, everything that was there was plundered. I did not conduct an investigation, but I think that the commanders of the avturkhanov battalions took everything for themselves.
Even before the attack, a large commission arrived in Chechnya with Sergei Stepashin, the head of the Federal Counterintelligence Service. Most of the commission remained in Znamensky. I told them directly: "With such unpreparedness and illiteracy, only one expects us - defeat." Umar Avturkhanov and Salambek Khadzhiev, the immediate head of the operation from the Chechen side, the former minister of the USSR oil industry were present at the conversation. Khadzhiev replied to me that, I say, I was wrong that we, on the contrary, were doomed to victory.
"TOMORROW". One of the shameful symbols of the November storming of Grozny was tankers captured by Dudayev’s soldiers, who were later disowned by Defense Minister Pavel Grachev. Was it possible to prevent the capture of tankers?
Yury KOLOSKOV. Before the attack on Grozny, it was necessary to determine the radio frequencies on which tankers and infantry commanders would communicate among themselves. You understand that the worked out interaction of all types of troops is the basics of all modern wars. I asked Avturkhanov how this was the case, and he asked the high Moscow military authorities to give me the opportunity to check this question.
On it, I talked with some senior lieutenant, from whom I learned a wild thing: the tankers have completely different waves than the Avturkhanov battalions! Then I offered him to draw up a communication scheme, as it is necessary to do in combat conditions. Starley, sorry for the expression, dried up. It turned out that the Moscow military authorities had supplied the contingent with old and completely unsuitable radio stations.
As a result, we got what we got: poorly repaired, or even completely broken tanks with crews of retired military personnel and walkie-talkies, which is the place in the scrap dump. Several combat vehicles at the beginning of the march deviated from the combat order. There, as if nothing had happened, the Chechens climbed, and the cars went in the same “order” to Grozny. From the sides stick barrels of machines. Good "warriors"!
It goes without saying that when these tanks entered Grozny, mobile groups of Mujahideen dispersed around the city shot these tanks with grenade launchers almost point-blank, and took tankers with their bare hands.
I, being a military man, a general, tried to do something. Sitting at the time of the attack on Grozny in the staff car, I perfectly heard on the radio as the militants were talking among themselves, heard their names. He also knew which of them was responsible for which objects in the defense of the capital of Chechnya, how they shot tankmen, how they were taken prisoner.
If reconnaissance had been carried out before the battle, the result of this operation could have been different. I also suggested on the eve of closing the radial roads going around Grozny, putting reinforced units on them. It was within our power, and we would have so completely closed all the ways to Grozny.
As a result of this shameful raid on our part, sixty people were lost. I repeat that on the eve of the morning, Khadzhiyev told me that this operation was "doomed to victory."
"TOMORROW". What would you like to tell about Dzhokhar Dudayev?
Yuri Koloskov. We have to admit that Dzhokhar Dudayev was a good military man. He knew the tactics of warfare well. He fought well in Afghanistan, and that means a lot.
Ruslan Khasbulatov wrote in his memoirs: Dudayev, instead of Chechnya, had to be sent to serve in the General Headquarters of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. According to Khasbulatov, then Dudayev would not become the leader of the separatists. I agree. Dudayev, probably, himself would have preferred to serve in the General Staff. But he was not allowed to do this by the so-called "democrats", whose forces were then outweighed, and who, in fact, wanted a bloody war in Chechnya.
"TOMORROW". At one time I interviewed Ruslan Khasbulatov, and he told me an interesting fact. Long before 1994, Ruslan Imranovich, with a view to transferring Dudayev to the General Staff, sent Commander-in-Chief of the Air Force Pyotr Deinekin to Grozny with an order to transfer Dudayev to Moscow. According to Khasbulatov, Dudayev was ready to depart at his destination. And right away Dudayev was called by a man from Moscow and said: “We sent you, Dzhokhar Musaevich, to Chechnya when necessary, we’ll take you from there. Therefore, ignore all orders except ours! ”
Yuri Koloskov. A very important addition. After the November raid on Grozny, I was struck by an interesting document from the operational department of the FSB, then FGC. This is a note from a department employee. It was written there how Ella Pamfilova and Sergey Yushenkov came for the tankers who were captured by the tankers. The document was especially noted: Dudayev met the representatives of Moscow very well.
By that moment in the history of our country, about which we are talking, even the most devoted colleagues began to turn away from Dudayev. I am not talking about the simple Chechen people, who did not receive anything from Dudayev and his entourage but hunger and poverty. Joharu had to do so that the anger of the Chechens was directed against the "Russian invaders." Thanks to the attack of Avturkhanov’s forces, Joharu succeeded. After all, after this disgraceful raid, Dudayev became "a defender of Chechnya from Russian aggression," his rating in the eyes of the people has grown incredibly. Before that, he was just a dictator who, together with his entourage, plundered all the riches of Chechnya and turned its people into beggars.
By the way, at the time when preparations were under way for the operation to assault Grozny, I contacted residents of Cossack villages located on the outskirts of the Chechen Republic. The Cossacks were ready to help Avturkhanov and Khadzhiev in the storming of Grozny, but their help, so necessary at that moment, was rejected and "rejected" by the high authorities from the federal center. After the assault failed, which was required to prove, the heroes of my story sat down and examined the reasons for their disgraceful defeat. They agreed that it was me who was to blame for everything. Cossacks were present at this “meeting”. They listened - they listened, and then one Cossack turned to Avturkhanov, Khadzhiev and others with the words: "But in vain did you not listen to the Russian general then!"
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