Ghazni battalion - Kotya67 — LiveJournal. Kapchagay battalion Commander of the 177th special forces company
Second Muslim Battalion
Formation of the 177th separate special forces detachment
Kerimbaev Boris Tukenovich
Commander of the 177th separate special forces detachment in 1981-1983
Following the results of the Sino-Vietnamese War in February - March 1979, in January 1980, on the basis of the 22nd Special Forces Special Forces, the 177th separate special forces detachment was created
(177th ooSpN). For this task, 300 soldiers of Uighur nationality (indigenous to the XUAR of China) are selected from among the military construction units of the Moscow Military District. Turkic-speaking graduates of combined arms schools are selected for officer positions in the 177th Special Forces Command School, mainly the Almaty Combined Arms Command School named after Konev
(up to 70%) by nationality - Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, Uzbeks, Turkmens.
An accelerated Chinese language course was introduced for the officers of the detachment.
...Somewhere in September '81, they announced that we would take the autumn test to the Moscow commission, and that in addition to combat training subjects, they would also test knowledge of the Chinese language. A Chinese language instructor arrived from the district intelligence department and we quickly began to study it, that is, Chinese. The topic is the interrogation of a prisoner of war. They wrote down Chinese words in Russian letters and learned them by heart. So, learning Chinese in a month is not a myth, at least for us military men, we can. But it didn’t last long, after two weeks the language study was canceled...
- "Kara Major's Detachment." Zhantasov Amangeldy. Memoirs of an officer of the 177th Special Forces
Captain Kerimbaev Boris Tukenovich, a graduate of the Tashkent General Arms School, who served in command positions in reconnaissance units of motorized rifle troops, was appointed commander of the detachment.
In connection with the selection of personnel on a national basis, the 177th special forces unit at that time among the military would be called the 2nd Muslim battalion, in association with the 154th special forces unit (1st formation), which participated in the Assault on Amin’s palace, personnel which was recruited from Uzbeks, Tajiks and Turkmens and which was unofficially called the Muslim Battalion.
Like the 154th special forces unit (1st formation), the 177th special forces unit will be a combined battalion of 6 companies. In the history of special forces of the USSR Armed Forces, both detachments will be the first formations in terms of the uniqueness of their composition.
The consolidation of the battalions consisted in the fact that the usual staff of a separate special-purpose battalion, consisting of three reconnaissance companies, additionally included (consolidated) three more companies - a grenade launcher, an engineer-flamethrower (engineer-mortar) and a transport company. Also, in addition to the indicated companies, separate platoons/groups were added to the battalion staff - an anti-aircraft artillery group, a repair platoon, a headquarters security group and a medical platoon. There were no similar units of their own for functional tasks, equipment and weapons in the staff of the special forces brigades, so the recruitment of military personnel and the supply of military equipment to additional units was carried out from other military units belonging to various branches of the military. The purpose of such a change in the organizational structure of the battalion was to increase the firepower of the units and increase the autonomy of the battalion during combat operations.
By the end of January 1980, the recruitment of the 177th Special Forces was completed and combat training began according to the special forces training program. In April 1980, the GRU General Staff commission conducted the first inspection of the 177th special forces unit.
In May 1980, a comprehensive inspection was carried out during a forced march to the regional training ground of the SAVO ground forces in the village. Otar, Zhambyl region of the Kazakh SSR, with a squad exercise (battalion tactical exercise/BTU).
By the spring of 1981, the time had come for conscripts to be transferred to the reserve. There was a need for a new set. Mostly warriors of Uyghur nationality left. With the new recruitment of the 177th Special Forces, the requirements for Uyghur nationality were no longer required due to the changed international situation. Priority in recruitment was made according to the nationalities of Central Asia (Kazakhs, Uzbeks, Tajiks, Kyrgyz). With this choice, the GRU GSh changed the intended combat mission for the 177th Special Forces. Having completed the unit, we again began combat coordination. The 177th special forces unit was being prepared to be sent to Afghanistan.
In September 1981, the 177th special forces passed a test on combat and political training by the GRU General Staff commission.
Participation in the Afghan War of the 177th Special Forces
Organizational and staffing structure of the 177th separate special forces detachment for the summer of 1982.
On October 29, 1981, the 177th special forces unit (military unit 43151), created on the basis of the 22nd special forces unit, was introduced into Afghanistan and redeployed to the vicinity of the city of Meimen, Faryab province. From that moment on, the 22nd Special Operations Brigade formally began its participation in the Afghan War.
The combat activity of the 177th special forces unit was limited to reconnaissance searches, ambush operations and participation in open combat in the area of location. In January 1982, the detachment participated in a military operation near the village of Darzob, then garrisoned it for four months, conducting reconnaissance and search raids.
In May 1982, the detachment returned to Maymene.
Organizational structure of the battalion
Since February 1984, the 177th special forces unit was redeployed to Ghazni. In March 1985, he was transferred from the 22nd ObrSpN to the 15th ObrSpN[
177th separate special forces detachment of the GRU General Staff was formed in January 1981 on the basis of the 22nd GRU special forces brigade, stationed in the city of Kapchagai (Kazakh SSR).
After intensive training, on October 29, 1981, the detachment was sent to the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan, with a location in the city of Maymen (Faryab province), conducting reconnaissance searches and combat operations in the area of location. In January 1982, the detachment participated in a military operation near the village of Darzob, then garrisoned it for four months, conducting reconnaissance and search raids.
In May 1982 they returned to Maymene. At the end of May 1982, the detachment handed over Meimene to a motorized maneuver group of border guards and went to the Panjshir gorge, which had just been liberated by Soviet troops. Here the detachment performed partly a military-political task: it was necessary to refute the promise of the head of the opposition forces, Ahmad Shah Massoud, that in a month not a single Soviet soldier would be in the gorge. The detachment held out for eight months, although during this time it suffered heavy losses in military and special operations - about 40 people were killed. The special forces left only after a truce was concluded with Ahmad Shah Massoud.
Upon withdrawal from Panjshir, the detachment was stationed in the city of Gulbahor (Parvan province), conducting special operations in the city and its environs. Units of the detachment carried out combat missions in the Salang pass and near Kabul, defended Jalalabad and cleared the Bagram valley. Since 1984, the detachment fought in the province of Ghazni, participating in the creation of the “Curtain” zone. In May 1988, he was transferred to Kabul, where, together with the 668th Special Operations Forces and the 459th Kabul Special Forces Company, he carried out combat missions to cover Kabul and the surrounding areas. These units were among the last to leave Afghanistan in February 1989.
In combat operations in the DRA it was officially called: the 2nd separate motorized rifle battalion.
Losses - 159 people. 
Karen Tariverdiev. Winter in Ghazni
177 ooSpN began its formation in January 1980 on the basis of 22 obrSpN in the city of Kapchagai near Almaty. When forming, the same principle was used as when forming musbat. The first commander of the detachment is Major B. T. Kerimbaev. The detachment was introduced into the DRA in October 1981. Just like the 154th detachment, until 1984, it was guarding the entrance to the Panjshir gorge in the area of the settlement. Roc. In 1984, the detachment was transferred to Ghazni and began performing special tasks in its area of responsibility. The area where the detachment fought was highland. This left a certain imprint on the tactics of the detachment. The range of action of the detachment's reconnaissance organs operating on armor was no more than 40-50 kilometers. To work at a greater distance from the security forces, groups and detachments were transported by helicopter. The detachment used both the tactics of raids on individual warehouses and the tactics of capturing base areas. Search and ambush operations were also widely used. The detachment was withdrawn to the Union in 1989, and became part of the 2nd Special Operations Brigade of the Leningrad Military District. Stationed in the Murmansk region. In 1992 it was short-circuited, but soon re-staffed.
Local features
Our 177th separate special forces detachment arrived in the province of Ghazni in the spring of 1984. Prior to this, the place of its permanent deployment was the city of Rukha, where the battalion’s combat activities had little connection with its direct purpose - the fight against caravans. Having settled in a new location, the battalion began to carry out its main tasks. However, by the winter of 1984-85. combat activities were almost completely curtailed. This happened due to local climatic conditions for which we were simply not prepared. The fact is that the province of Ghazni is a high mountain plateau, surrounded on three sides by mountain ranges. Moreover, the height of the plateau in the Baltic system of heights was about 2 thousand meters, and the point of permanent deployment itself was at around 2,197 meters. Therefore, our climate was cold, there was often loose snow, and when the snow melted on rare warm days, the area instantly turned into an impassable swamp.Under these conditions, our armored group simply sat up to its belly in mud and moving away from the PPD to any significant distance was more than problematic for it. It goes without saying that the “spiritual” automobile equipment - and the main part of the caravan routes passing through our zone of responsibility were automobiles - was also stationed in villages or holed up in Pakistan, and the caravan routes were empty. At that time we did not have reliable information about the presence of warehouses with weapons and ammunition somewhere in our province.
Therefore, the entire combat activity of the detachment was reduced to flying over the area from the air by inspection groups, and rare trips to search and destroy warehouses, as a rule, did not lead to anything concrete, and they were carried out rather reluctantly.
In other words, we spent January-February 1985 in a state of a kind of “peaceful respite,” and only from mid-March did we move on to more or less meaningful military operations.
As part of the brigade
During the summer and autumn of 1985, almost the entire officer corps in the detachment was replaced, including the battalion commander and all his deputies. Before serving in Afghanistan, the bulk of the detachment's officers did not, with rare exceptions, have the slightest idea about the specifics of the actions of special forces. As I mentioned above, before the redeployment to Ghazni, the battalion was not used for its intended purpose, and therefore was staffed mainly by officers who came from the infantry with the appropriate level of training and tactical thinking. Starting in the spring of 1985, “pure special forces” finally began to join the battalion, most of whom had experience serving in special forces units located both on the territory of the Soviet Union itself, and in Germany, Czechoslovakia, and even Mongolia.The situation with the command staff changed dramatically for the better, and things went uphill for the detachment. We managed to approach the next winter much more prepared, and the winter of 1985-86. was sharply different from the previous one.
A big role in this, in my opinion, was played by the fact that the detachment ceased to be separate, but was included in the 15th special forces brigade, the headquarters of which was formed in Jalalabad under the command of Colonel Babushkin. This reorganization benefited us and gave our actions greater meaning. In addition to organizational changes, a big role was played by the fact that by the fall of 1985 we managed to establish excellent cooperation with the 239 mixed helicopter squadron (12 Mi-8 transport helicopters and 8 Mi-24 fire support helicopters), the airfield of which was located on the outskirts of the city of Ghazni. This immediately had the most favorable effect on all our actions. We stopped being tightly tied to our own armored group, and the radius of our actions increased to 150-180 kilometers.
In the conditions of our very rugged terrain and the extreme density of mining, which was used by the “spirits” in our area, the march of the “armor” even 50-60 kilometers from the PPD could be safely equated to a feat. Moreover, these unfortunate half hundred kilometers of “armor” sometimes covered in 6-8 hours, or even more. It was possible to develop normal speed only in one place - on the Kabul-Kandahar highway - but there was nothing for us to do there. When escorting army columns to the south, tankers and motorized riflemen “swept out” the villages along the road so much that there was nothing left for us. So, in these conditions, good relations with the “air” were simply necessary for us.
A source of information
Our second achievement in preparing for winter was that through the efforts of our intelligence chief, senior lieutenant Igor Yashchishin, and the commander of the third company, captain Pavel Bekoev, we managed to find an extremely valuable source of information. It became the operational intelligence group "Urgun". Unfortunately, I forgot the names of the GRU officers who worked in it at that time, but their information was always so reliable that we almost never returned empty if we flew out to implement it. This group of three or four officers was sitting many hundreds of kilometers from the nearest Soviet units in extremely poor conditions. But it worked in a way never dreamed of, for example, the OAGr “Klen”, which worked in Ghazni itself in conditions of complete comfort. We also often contacted Klen, especially since it was just a stone’s throw away from us, but in my memory we were able to implement their information only a few times in two years.From the beginning of December 1985, for six months, all our main successes were associated with the Urgun province and, accordingly, with the information that local agents provided us. And this despite the fact that our “armor” could not reach the Urgun Gorge, as they say “by definition.”
In that area, located in close proximity to the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, in nine years of war, in my opinion, an army operation has never reached, not to mention our insignificant (by infantry standards) armored group of seven or eight infantry fighting vehicles and Armored personnel carrier. As a rule, we did not display a larger number of combat vehicles at once.
Therefore, we can rightfully say that we owed our successes during this period of the war to the agents from Urgun and the helicopter pilots from Ghazni.
December "strife"
Throughout December 1985, our reconnaissance groups quite successfully beat the “spiritual” caravans on Urgun. Particularly effective were the ambushes in the gorge north of the city of Urgun, which were carried out by the 1st company under the command of Captain Stepanov, and the ambush of the 3rd company of Captain Bekoev in the area of the Gumalkalai fortress - the farthest point in terms of distance where our helicopters could fly.In the first case, we captured about 60 small arms, several recoilless rifles and DShK. We also captured a ZIL-130, stuffed with artillery shells and rocket launchers, as they say, to the brim. But the ammunition had to be detonated, because not a single helicopter could lift them on board in such quantities.
And in the area of the Gumalkalai fortress, in addition to all other good things, they managed to capture several Chinese Strela MANPADS, which, at that time, was considered an outstanding result in itself. Subsequently, the agents said that in that ambush, an American adviser who was illegally heading to Afghanistan was also shot, but, unfortunately, in the darkness and confusion, his corpse was not identified at the site of the ambush and no documents were found in this regard. Therefore, this serious success of the 3rd company was not counted.
In January, the Urgun passes, as nature intended, were completely covered with snow and the movement of caravans stopped. Conducting ambushes became useless, but there could be no talk of stopping combat activities, as was the case a year ago.
Under these conditions, it was urgent to find new ways to combat “spirits” or, as they are called today, “militants.” At this moment, our new advantages came into play - the availability of accurate information about the enemy and smooth interaction with helicopter pilots.
Preparing for the campaign against Urgun
In February 1986, I replaced our intelligence chief Igor Yashchishin, who was on vacation. In this regard, I had the opportunity to be directly involved in the planning and implementation of the operation that I am about to talk about.In the Urgun Mountains, the militants felt like full-fledged masters. Our units were not in that area; the Afghan army and Tsaranda, if they were stationed somewhere there, behaved extremely quietly and did not go into the mountains. Closer to us in this area was the Gardez 56th Airborne Assault Brigade, but, in my opinion, they were little concerned about this zone.
So the spirits had peace, quiet and God's grace. Our agents somehow miraculously managed to draw up a detailed map of the location of the gangs in this area and determine where their warehouses with weapons and ammunition were located. Moreover, when I saw this map, I couldn’t believe my eyes and decided 5 that the scouts were greatly exaggerating. Next to each icon, C; indicating the location of the warehouse, such numbers were put down that my eyes just popped out of my head in surprise.
If in the province of Ghazni, in which we also sometimes dealt with caches of weapons, the number of guns did not exceed 10-15, and we considered them worthy of attention, then the Urgun warehouses had numbers that were an order of magnitude larger. As it turned out later, this was indeed the case. True, the number of security detachments also made an impression - sixty, eighty, sometimes more than a hundred people.
The warehouses themselves, according to the information we received, were located outside populated areas, which was convenient for us, but, as a rule, they were located in tactical proximity to them. Therefore, it could be assumed that large spiritual detachments were stationed in nearby villages for the winter, ready to quickly provide assistance to the warehouse security detachments.
We spent quite some time thinking about how we could neutralize them. This question was serious, because the use of an armored group, for the reasons described above, was excluded, and, as we know, the approach of enemy reserves cannot be prevented by one bomb attack. Moreover, in this part of Afghanistan the mountains are entirely forested, and coniferous, and therefore do not fall in the winter, and this circumstance greatly limited the possibility of observing movements on the ground from the air.
However, this issue was resolved on its own and in a way that was most unexpected for us. At the beginning of February, we received information that, on the orders of the local leader (his name has slipped out of my memory), most of the spiritual detachments left the mountains for Pakistan, supposedly for retraining.
Of course, the risk was great, and we did not have enough confidence in the reliability of the information, but our battalion commander, Major Popovich, decided to take a risk. The commander of the third company, Pavel Bekoev, also played an important role in his decision.
Popovich trusted the experience of Bekoev, who by that time had served in Afghanistan for the second term, i.e., had fought for more than three years. When talking about the combat activities of our detachment in the winter of 1985-86, one cannot ignore the peculiarities of his personality.
Pasha Bekoev
Before becoming the commander of our third company, Bekoev successfully commanded a group in the Jalalabad battalion, and then served as deputy company commander there. In our battalion he didn’t really go down well with the court because of his absurd character, but it was impossible to take away his fighting qualities.However, he had one very serious drawback - he constantly unnecessarily risked both himself and his people. In addition, he did not always bother to inform others about his plans. That is, in part he was a kind of “anarchist” and did not pay due attention to issues of organizing interaction. Such disorganization often led to sad consequences. Perhaps it was due to the fact that Bekoev was a “jacket” - that is, he did not graduate from a normal officer school, but became a lieutenant at the military department (if I’m not mistaken) of the Orzhdonikidze Radio Institute.
Once, while combing a village at night, without enemy opposition, an emergency occurred in his company. A very nervous young machine gunner in the dark did not understand the situation and shot a radio operator from the communications group assigned to Bekoev at point-blank range. Then it was considered an absurd accident.
A month later, Bekoev received some “leftist” information about the location of an ammunition depot north of Ghazni. Having reported this only to the battalion commander, he alerted his company and rushed to the area of upcoming hostilities, without informing either the battalion headquarters or even the operational duty officer about where he would be located. As a result, the reserve armored group was not prepared in a timely manner. The helicopter pilots also knew nothing about this, since the third company drove off on its own “armor.” Bekoev considered it unnecessary to check the information received.
According to the law of meanness, one of his reconnaissance groups was ambushed and shot at point-blank range from a distance of ten to fifteen meters from a green gun. This ambush was unlikely to have been prepared in advance. Most likely, when moving to the supposed location of the warehouse, the group was discovered by the “spirits” earlier than they themselves were able to detect the enemy, and since the “spirits” knew the area better than we did, they managed to prepare faster than Bekoev. They did not manage to provide timely assistance to the third company, since no one was prepared for such a turn of events.
By the time the hastily assembled reserve finally found the place where Bekoev’s company was stuck, the battle had already ended, and the “spirits” calmly left, considering their job done. This incident cost the third company six killed and one seriously wounded. Plus, the reserve armor, rushing to help without any precautions, lost one armored personnel carrier to mines. I must say that before this day we had never suffered such losses.
But Bekoev got away with this incident too. The battalion commander continued to favor him, and on the issue of conducting a series of raids on the Urgun warehouses, the voice of the commander of the third company carried great weight. However, by this time Captain Bekoev had managed to carry out several successful raids and ambushes, and one could hope that the story of the seven lost scouts had taught him a lot.
An object
A weapons and ammunition warehouse located in the mountains about sixty kilometers southwest of Gardez was chosen as the primary target. From Ghazni to the target the distance was twice as great and we expected to use the Gardez airfield as a jump airfield. Or like a waiting airfield, so to speak.According to our plan, the transport helicopters, having landed our detachment in the warehouse area, were not supposed to return to their airfield in Ghazni, but were supposed to land in Gardez. Thus, within fifteen to twenty minutes they could return to the raid area and evacuate us from there. The warehouse was located near the village of Loy-Mana, which could well contain spiritual reserves.
According to our information, the number of guards was reduced from sixty people to fifteen. Moreover, it was reduced precisely in connection with the notorious retraining. However, no one could guarantee that in the near future it would not be brought back to its original composition.
Combat composition and plan
The 239th helicopter squadron could only allocate us six Mi-8mts for this operation. The number of helicopters determined our combat strength - 60 people, ten on each side.The entire operation took no more than one hour from the moment the detachment landed. We hoped that during this time the “spirits” would not have time to gather and pull up enough strength to successfully fight us. The landing was supposed to take place on a flat area at the foot of the mountains, which was located in close proximity to the warehouse. The pilots had doubts about its suitability, since the aerial photography of the area we ordered could not tell us anything worthwhile. The entire area of upcoming operations was heavily covered with snow, so the aerial photograph was of little use for normal work. We expected that the snow cover would not exceed 10-15 cm and would not complicate our actions too much. However, in reality it was about 50 cm and greatly influenced our actions at the final stage of the operation.
It was planned to suppress possible fire from anti-aircraft weapons (DShK and ZGU) from the air, but still we pinned our greatest hopes on the surprise of the attack and the transience of the battle.
As far as I know, the brigade headquarters agreed with the headquarters of the 40th Army that if we got into serious trouble, the 56th infantry brigade in full force would move to our aid.
But this issue was no longer within my competence, and I do not know for certain whether such an agreement was reached or not. In any case, we didn’t have to bring in paratroopers, and thank God. In an unfavorable development of events, we would have to remain surrounded for at least 10-12 hours, and this was fraught with unpredictable losses on our part.
The intelligence group placed at our disposal an Afghan guide who knew the terrain and the location of the firing points. It must be said that he earned his reward in full, which usually rarely happened with guides.
Raid
The raid took place on February 14. At the first stage, everything went according to plan. The security did not expect an attack, the anti-aircraft weapons were not prepared to immediately open fire, and after a short bomb attack by the Su-25 and Mi-24, all six “eights” successfully landed us on the landing site.We had to jump from a hovering position from a height of a meter and a half, maybe a little more, but the deep snow helped us here. In addition, the landing site was hidden from the “spirits” by a dense snow cover raised by the helicopters’ rotors. We found ourselves on a small area a few tens of meters from the foot of the mountains. At first, no one fired at us, and the detachment managed to climb to the supposed location of the warehouse in a fairly organized manner.
On site it turned out that the warehouse area consisted of several single buildings scattered in complete disorder over a limited area. We managed to capture all of them quite quickly and without losses, except one.
The capture method was extremely simple: the support subgroup opened hurricane fire on the houses from a distance of 30-50 meters and, under its cover, two or three scouts approached the houses. As soon as they took a safe position in the “dead zone” near the walls, the fire on the windows and doors stopped, the attack subgroup got up from the ground and threw grenades at the house through the window. This impact on the enemy was quite enough to completely suppress resistance.
The only alarming thing was that we could not find anything particularly significant inside these buildings, and it began to seem to me that there was no large warehouse here, all this was the gunner’s invention and we had started this whole operation in vain. True, the gunner warned us in advance that he did not know exactly where the main warehouse was located, since he had been in the area where it was located, but not specifically in the warehouse.
But we were very lucky here. A young guy, about fifteen years old, tried to escape from one house. He had no weapons, and with the help of Ensign Verbitsky, I managed to quickly catch him. The language does not dare to call it a valuable “spirit” - so, some kind of “little soul”. The boy was very frightened, and after a couple of preventative slaps, he immediately agreed to take us to the desired warehouse.
Hooray! Stock!
It turned out that the main storage facility was a strange-looking structure of three walls on the reverse slope of a large hill. I call this slope reverse because it was such in relation to the place of our landing and the starting line for the attack. Our main forces simply slipped past it, without attaching much importance to this structure. As I already said, the structure had only three walls, and the mountain served as the back wall. That is, the house was buried inside the rock so that only something like a dressing room stuck out.Initially, a squad of soldiers from Captain Bekoev’s company remained near him, and everyone else ran past. This building was the only place from which we received resistance. It was partially suppressed only after one of the soldiers, apparently remembering Comrade Sukhov from the film “White Sun of the Desert,” climbed onto the roof and lowered several grenades inside through the chimney pipe.
Having burst into the “dressing room”, we realized that we were in some kind of artificially made cave, because a small crooked corridor led deep into the mountain. Behind the corridor there was another room, where the “spirits” from the “dressing room” went.
Bowling in the dark
It turned out to be very difficult to smoke them out of there, because they were actively shelling the exit from the corridor. Taking advantage of the fact that the corridor was not straight, but had a turn behind which we could be in relative safety, we began to roll hand grenades into the far cave. And not to throw them, but to roll them up - you stick your hand out around the corner, roll it along the floor, and back.Judging by the echoing sound of the explosions, the cave was of impressive size. Soon, someone noticed that the defenders had stopped firing at the exit from the corridor, and several soldiers carefully entered the cave. There were no “spirits” in it, and in the back wall we found the entrance to another corridor, which led even further into the depths of the mountain. The soldier who thrust himself into this next corridor immediately came under a machine gun fire fired almost at point-blank range. The fact that he remained safe and sound is luck of the highest category. We were again forced to go bowling, but soon stopped this activity: the “spirits,” apparently, had nowhere to retreat and they settled down firmly in that corridor. We never found out what was built there or dug further, because we were unable to advance further. However, as subsequent events showed, there was no need for this.
We didn’t expect to have to fight in caves, so no one had a basic flashlight with them. All the fuss described above took place in the light of lit matches or lighters (by the way, this circumstance became a positive experience for us for the future: subsequently we strictly ensured that the groups had several working “mouse-eye” flashlights). Someone thought of using a signal squib with a torch as a lighting device.
Cave of modern Ali Baba
And that’s when a cold sweat broke out on us, at least it definitely broke out on me. It turned out that we were playing bowling with hand grenades in the explosives and military warehouse. The cave we captured was literally filled with shelves with two-kilogram packages of American-made plastid. And there was at least several tons of it there. In addition, directed-action Claymore anti-personnel mines, several dozen Italian TS-6.1 anti-tank mines and similar “trifles” were piled up in disorder in the corners. However, if the plastid had detonated, then the presence or absence of other mines would no longer matter. It immediately became clear to us why the defenders retreated deep into the mountain so quickly.It must be said that the “spirits” decided to answer us in kind and rolled several grenades in our direction, but it was inconvenient for them to do this, and the grenades exploded around the corner of the second corridor. One of our machine gunners remained in the corridor to block the militants, and we began feverishly dragging our trophies into the light of God.
At first we tried to pull out the plastid, but quickly realized that we couldn’t take it with us in such quantities. Therefore, they took only small arms, several copies of mines as samples, and any other little thing that seemed useful. For example, we managed to obtain two Chinese-made shortwave radio stations. Subsequently, signalmen claimed that these radio stations had at least 5 thousand kilometers of communication range, and the range width was one and a half times greater than our radio stations. We sent them “up” for study. But there were some oddities.
Antifreeze is poison
Personally, an almost anecdotal incident happened to me in this cave. With, to put it mildly, insufficient lighting, I discovered some rather heavy box, on which skulls and crossbones with some warning signs in English were drawn on all sides, and four hefty bottles were gurgling inside. I didn’t have time to figure out what exactly was written there, but at that time there were many rumors circulating in Afghanistan about the enemy’s readiness to use chemical weapons against us. So I grabbed this box in the confusion with the hope of a high reward.When I got out, it turned out that our affairs were taking an unhealthy turn - the enemy nevertheless managed to organize and took a dominant position in relation to us. That is, he straddled or began to straddle the tactical ridge above us. From the very beginning we were afraid of such a development of events, but we still could not prevent it due to the small number of our detachment.
At first the fire was not very dense and targeted, but the “spirits” quickly increased the rate of fire. They were adding more firing points every minute. And with this box in my hands, it was not very convenient for me to hide from bullets, but I stubbornly did not want to throw it away. In the end, it turned out that it says “ANTIFREEZE”. It’s easy to imagine how I swore when I discovered why exactly I was risking my life. This became clear, however, already in our PPD after returning from the operation. The only thing I managed to do to make my life easier in the fight against this box was that I forced that damned non-freezing liquid to be carried by that same “little soul” who at that moment was ready to carry anything just to stay alive. However, no one was going to shoot him, and the antifreeze eventually went to our deputy commander, who was very pleased with this circumstance.
The bet on surprise paid off
The bet on the surprise of the attack fully justified itself. At the very beginning of the battle, Bekoev’s company, which formed the backbone of the detachment, slipped through, as I already said, the main storage facility, climbed higher up the slope and captured a mountain gun at a prepared firing position. The gun was most carefully camouflaged from observation from the air and turned towards the very site that we used for landing. During the first bomb attack, this position was not damaged at all. However, when the 3rd company reached it, it turned out that there was no crew at the position. One can imagine what our operation could have turned into if the crew of the gun had been ready to open fire at the moment the helicopters hovered to drop off the detachment. In addition, Bekoev’s soldiers also destroyed the ZGU crew, who were able to run to their anti-aircraft installation, but did not have time to open fire. I am absolutely sure that the site where we landed was targeted in advance, and if the crews had managed to take their places on time according to the combat schedule, we would have had more than a hard time. In this regard, Pavel Bekoev, who most of all counted on the success of surprise and was firmly convinced that we would be able to suppress the enemy before he had time to turn around for battle, turned out to be absolutely right. ^When time costs life
Unfortunately, we spent too much time finding the warehouse and flushing out the guards. In the end, we realized that we could deal with the “spirits” much simpler than trying to penetrate deep into the cave: we just need to place a charge set to non-removable directly on the rack with the plastid. Our sappers quickly created this charge from captured plastic and gave it a half-hour slowdown. What exactly happened as a result of the explosion of several tons of plastic in a cave can be imagined without additional explanation.However, all this took time, and the operation dragged on for almost half an hour longer than planned. Therefore, despite the most active air support that we were provided by the pairs of Mi-24s that replaced each other above us, there were still some losses.
The most vulnerable point of our plan was that we had to evacuate from the same place where we landed. There was simply no other helicopter landing site nearby. The “spirits,” who were also well versed in military affairs, quickly realized this and tried to take advantage of this circumstance to their maximum benefit. Even before the military transport helicopters arrived for us, the “spirits” who had arrived managed to organize very effective fire from a recoilless rifle, the position of which we could not determine in any way. Perhaps this position was prepared in advance, but we missed it during the first, most favorable phase of the battle for us. But perhaps the enemy’s reserve detachment brought this recoilless weapon with them - fortunately it does not weigh that much. Be that as it may, she caused us a lot of trouble. Because of this, the G8s were unable to land for a long time. A helicopter on the ground makes an ideal target for shooting. While we were losing time, the enemy intensified the fire of their small arms.
The recoilless attack was eventually suppressed by the fire support helicopters, but after completing the combat mission we had to retreat to the G8s through completely fire-raised terrain. Moreover, the snow cover at the evacuation site was about 50 centimeters. This circumstance made our movement very difficult. Especially considering that we were leaving heavily laden with our trophies.
All this cost us two seriously wounded soldiers, and the doctors managed to save the life of one of them only by a miracle. Both of them were injured literally right next to the helicopter ramps. And the helicopter hulls were quite heavily riddled, although
There were no casualties among the helicopter crews. However, this operation was considered successful and became one of the most beautiful operations our detachment carried out that winter.
In a trap
Several times we followed a similar pattern of attacking weapons and ammunition depots, and did so not without success. But in the end, the brigade command and army headquarters (represented by the deputy chief of staff of the 40th Army, Colonel Simonov, who was responsible for our actions) considered that the success of our raids on the Urgun warehouses was, as they say, “on the razor’s edge” every time and stopped such our activities.The reason for this was the fact that during the next such raid, due to an error by the Afghan gunner, we landed at a great distance from the next warehouse and were forced to comb the gorge to a depth of five kilometers from the landing site. We found and captured the warehouse, but enemy reserves managed to block our escape route to the plain. An extremely dangerous situation was created in which our entire detachment of eighty people was practically cut off from the evacuation site. According to the law of meanness, on this day we were assigned several helicopters from the Kabul Helicopter Regiment, which were not trained to fly in high altitude conditions. In order to make it easier for us to break through to the plain, we asked the pilots to sit on our ridge and rid us of trophies - and, as usual when operating in the Urgun Mountains, there were quite a lot of them. One of the crews of the Kabul Mi-8 managed to land at an altitude of about 3000 meters and load our trophies, but when trying to take off, due to a pilot error, he lost control and crashed into the gorge. Moreover, he fell extremely unsuccessfully. When I saw it, the helicopter was lying on its right side with a broken propeller, pinched by two huge boulders. Fortunately, no one was seriously injured - the fall resulted in several lacerations and bruises for the crew members and several of our scouts on board. But it was reported “to the top” that the helicopter was shot down by air defense fire.
This was done, I believe, in order to beautifully justify the loss of the combat vehicle. As a result of all this diplomacy, we, being in a critical situation, were almost left without air support, because the army air force headquarters was simply afraid of new losses and banned flights in the area.
However, our native 239 helicopter squadron, whose pilots could really fly even on a broom, even on a broom, and carry out takeoff and landing in the most conceivable and inconceivable conditions, took a risk and still managed to land their machines for our evacuation. Not the least role, I think, was played here by the fact that many of the pilots were connected with us - those who remained surrounded in the mountains - by elementary male friendship, and therefore they could not do otherwise. In a word, we managed to safely get out of this gorge and even bring all our trophies with us.
"Dizziness from success"
But after this incident, all our plans to strike the enemy in the area southeast of Ghazni invariably ran into a ban from higher command. Unfortunately, these prohibitions could not protect us from heavy losses, although we did run into things where we least expected it.The overestimation of our capabilities caused by the victories at Urgun also played an important role in one of our most unsuccessful operations that winter. It’s just that our sense of danger and the necessary respect for the enemy have dulled to some extent, and here again the personality and character traits of Pavel Bekoev came to the fore.
On March 18, 1986, the battalion headquarters received information that in the village of Sakhibkhan, located about 60 kilometers south of Ghazni, there was a small gang of “spirits” accompanying the French adviser. I still don’t know whether there were advisers from France in Afghanistan or all these were just rumors, but on that day such information acted on Bekoev like a red rag on a bull. The battalion commander, Major Popovich, was away that day and his duties were performed by his deputy, Major Fedor Niniku.
I don’t know what happened at the battalion headquarters that day, since the head of intelligence, senior lieutenant Yashchyshyn, was in his place by this time. Accordingly, I returned to my native first company of our battalion, commanded by Captain Stepanov.
The village of Sahibkhan was located on the territory of the province of Ghazni, that is, it was not separated from our border control point by mountain ranges impassable for vehicles. This probably played a fatal role in the planning, or rather, any lack of planning of this operation.
Around noon, Bekoev’s company was alerted and loaded into helicopters. Moreover, she loaded up lightly - without taking with her any heavy weapons, or a sufficient amount of ammunition, or even warm clothes in case she had to spend the night in the field. Let me remind you that even in March there was snow here, and the temperature remained below zero at night.
It was believed that the entire raid would take no more than two hours, the day was relatively warm, and it seemed unnecessary to stock up on anything in case of unforeseen circumstances.
By that time, after the successful raids on Urgun, in which Pavel Bekoev took the most direct, and often the main part, his authority with the command of our battalion was indisputable. In any case, Major Niniku could hardly restrain him, although he was nominally listed as deputy battalion commander, and Bekoev was still only the commander of one of the companies.
Our first company was also alerted and received an order to move to the Sakhibkhan area with a combined armored group of five BMP-2s and two BTR-70s assigned to us from the second company. Our task was to get to the combat area of the third company and pick it up from there after completing the combat mission.
Formally, the combat order stated that we should support Bekoev with fire if such a need arises, but no one attached any importance to this point. In any case, Bekoev put his company on helicopters and flew away long before our combat vehicles left the park. So no interaction was organized between the companies. In any case, our “armor” could arrive in the combat area no earlier than three hours after the third company had already begun the battle.
In addition, unlike the raids on Urgun warehouses, the third company initially entered a populated area, which we carefully avoided in Urgun, and at that time we had no experience in conducting combat operations on the streets of a relatively large village.
Under fire
At approximately 3 p.m., Bekoev’s company, which had been unsuccessfully combing the village for two and a half hours, inside which it initially had not been offered the slightest resistance, reached its outskirts, opposite from the landing site. There was a large fortress there, one side facing the last street of the village. No longer expecting to find the enemy and considering his flight to be fruitless, Bekoev managed to request that he be evacuated by helicopters, since there was still daylight left, and our “armor” was still churning through deep mud at a snail’s pace just barely approaching the target. Captain Stepanov, who commanded the armored group, even managed to assume that any minute there would be a command to return to the PPD, and we had not even managed to appear in the vicinity of Sakhibkhan. This circumstance, I remember, irritated him greatly.And at that moment, fire was opened from the fortress on Bekoev’s company. The dead and wounded immediately appeared. Having heard about this on the air, the “armor” increased its speed to maximum, but arrived in the battle area almost like a no-brainer.
The third company lay in some kind of ditch on the outskirts of the village, firing indiscriminately at the fortress from small arms. The distance between this ditch and the near wall of the fortress was about 50-70 meters. Therefore, several Mi-24s circling in the air could not properly support the company with fire for fear of hitting their own.
The nominal commander of the detachment, Major Niniku, stubbornly did not give the command to move further away in order to allow the helicopter pilots to raze the fortress to the ground.
Our “armor” turned into a chain, and we dismounted. At the same time, it turned out that we turned around strictly in the rear of the third company, and also could not use all our firepower for the same reason as the helicopter pilots.
Naturally, the “spirits” from the fortress fired at us too. As a result, the infantry combat formations of the first and third companies were mixed up with each other, and all reasonable fire control was lost. The Mi-24s continued to circle above us, occasionally firing volleys of NURS, but, by and large, it was shooting to clear their conscience, because no one gave them any target designation, and they themselves would figure out the turmoil that was happening below them on the ground, were unable to.
Death of an Adventurer
Bekoev, who was not used to retreating and whose personal courage often came to the detriment of the common cause, nevertheless decided to storm the fortress. Abandoning control of the company to the mercy of fate, he crept to the nearest wall and climbed inside through the gap. He was followed by one soldier from his company and captain Oleg Sevalnev, who was the commander of the third platoon of our first company. However, after the companies were mixed, Sevalnev climbed into the fortress together with Bekoev, despite the fact that his platoon, like the entire first company, had the task primarily of covering the actions of the third company and providing it with fire support, and not participating in any way in unplanned assault.To some extent, Captain Sevalnev is justified by the fact that any day now we were expecting an order to appoint him to the position of Bekoev’s deputy, and he followed him as his new commander. Subsequently, the soldiers of the third company next to them said that Bekoev shouted to Sevalnev: “Oleg, let's go! The two of us will strangle them there with our bare hands!”
Bekoev climbed onto the roof of the fortress and ran along it. The "spirits" opened fire at the sound of footsteps through the adobe ceiling and wounded him in the thigh. Bekoev fell into the courtyard and was finished off by machine-gun fire from the window. Sevalnev managed to jump down, but he did not have time to help Bekoev, because he was immediately shot in the back. The soldier who dropped into the fortress with them managed to get out and report the death of both officers.
From that moment on, our main task was the operation to extract their corpses from the fortress. I talk about this with pain in my soul, because Oleg Sevalnev was my best friend, although I cannot justify his actions in that battle even after so many years. Unfortunately, he succumbed to Bekoev’s adventurism, and this led to his unjustified death.
A mess that produces corpses
Our disorganization that day led to tragic consequences. Already on the retreat from the outskirts of the village, when the corpses of Bekoev and Sevalnev were removed from the Sahib-Khan fortress, and the fortress itself was destroyed to the ground with all those who tried to defend it, one of our infantry fighting vehicles opened fire on the flank of a moving group of several people . In the gathering twilight they were considered to be the enemy trying to reach our rear. When we managed to figure out that these were not “spirits”, but our own squad, leaving the village on the outskirts, one soldier was killed and several more were wounded.In the ensuing darkness, the pilots of our squadron managed to land several helicopters, which took away the dead, wounded and some of the surviving soldiers and officers of the third company who happened to be nearby.
But the battle didn’t end there for us. During the time that our “armor” fought so unsuccessfully on the outskirts of Sakhibkhan, the “spirits” managed to lay mines on our retreat route. A very good place was chosen for this - the only gap in a long riverbed, reminiscent of an anti-tank ditch. There was no other passage through this channel, and we had difficulty finding this passage on the way to Sahibkhan. Now, in the darkness, the enemy managed to plant anti-tank mines there. There were no dogs or sappers with us (another indicator of our unpreparedness for that operation - usually such things were foreseen in advance), so we had to force this obstacle at random.
As a result, the lead infantry fighting vehicle exploded. Several people, including the battalion intelligence chief, Igor Yashchyshin, received severe concussions. Two of them - Yashchishin himself and my platoon commander, Sergeant Alyshanov - subsequently became disabled precisely as a result of traumatic brain injuries received at that moment.
To top off all our troubles, after the lead vehicle was blown up, the trailing infantry fighting vehicle lost its track and stopped. Thus, our entire armored group found itself tightly locked on a narrow piece of land for several hours. Moreover, the cars stood strictly one after the other, and not one of them could move a meter. Of course, this did not go unnoticed by the enemy, and we were soon subjected to mortar fire, which was quickly joined by a recoilless rifle. The night was cloudy, and the helicopters could not provide us with any support.
Fortunately, the shelling was extremely inaccurate, and we did not suffer any new losses in this phase of the battle. Only at dawn we managed to get out onto the Kandahar Highway, along which, more or less normally, we got to our border control point.
The result of headlessness
Having again replaced Yashchishin as chief of intelligence, this time due to his serious injury, I was forced to start counting our losses.They amounted to four people killed (among them two officers - Bekoev and Sevalnev), twenty-nine people were injured of varying degrees of severity. The BMP-2 that was blown up was lost forever, although we managed to drag its remains to the police station.
Such was the price of our arrogance and the disrespect we showed towards the enemy. The lesson turned out to be bitter, but the right conclusions were drawn from it.
As far as I can remember, our battalion headquarters no longer allowed itself such liberties when planning operations, and we subsequently no longer suffered such losses.
Directorate of the 15th separate special forces brigade (1st separate motorized rifle brigade - “Jalalabad”)
Location: Jalalabad, Nangarhar province.
Time spent in Afghanistan: March 1985 – May 1988.
Directorate of the 22nd separate special forces brigade (2nd separate motorized rifle brigade - “Kandahar”)
154th separate special forces detachment (“Jalalabad”) (1st separate motorized rifle battalion)
In pursuance of General Staff Directive No. 314/2/0061 of April 26, 1979, Commander Turkvo No. 21/00755 of May 4, 1979 included a separate special forces detachment of 538 people in the staff of the 15th Special Forces Regiment. Directive of the General Staff of the USSR Armed Forces No. 4/372-NSh of October 21, 1981 - 154th Special Forces. An annual holiday was determined - April 26 by General Staff Directive No. 314/2/0061.
Time spent in Afghanistan: November 1979 – May 1988.
Locations: Bagram-Kabul, Akcha-Aybak, Jalalabad, Nangarhar province.
Commanders:
Major Kholbaev Kh. T.;
Major Kostenko;
Major Stoderevsky I.Yu. (10.1981–10.1983);
Major Oleksenko V.I. (10.1983–02.1984);
Major Portnyagin V.P. (02.1984–10.1984);
Captain, Major A.M. Dementyev (10.1984–08.1984);
Captain Abzalimov R.K. (08.1985–10.1986);
Major, Lieutenant Colonel Giluch V.P. (10.1986–11.1987);
Major Vorobiev V.F. (11.1987–05.1988).
Squad structure:
Detachment headquarters;
1st special forces company on BMP-1 (6 groups);
2nd special purpose company on BTR-60pb (6 groups);
3rd special purpose company on BTR-60pb (6 groups);
The 4th heavy weapons company consisted of an AGS-17 platoon, an RPO “Lynx” platoon, and an engineer platoon;
Communications platoon;
Platoon of ZSU "Shilka" (4 "Shilka");
Automobile platoon;
Material support platoon.
177th separate special forces detachment (“Ghazni”) (2nd separate motorized rifle battalion)
Formed in February 1980 from the troops of the North Caucasian Military District and the Moscow Military District in the city of Kapchagay.
Location: Ghazni, since May 1988 - Kabul.
Time spent in Afghanistan: September 1981 – February 1989.
Commanders:
Captain, Major Kerimbaev B.T. (10.1981–10.1983);
Lieutenant Colonel V.V. Kvachkov (10.1983–02.1984);
Lieutenant Colonel V.A. Gryaznov (02.1984–05.1984);
Captain Kastykpaev B.M. (05.1984–11.1984);
Major Yudaev V.V. (11.1984–07.1985);
Major Popovich A.M. (07.1985–10.1986);
Major, Lieutenant Colonel Blazhko A.A. (10.1986–02.1989) .
173rd separate special forces detachment (3rd separate motorized rifle battalion - “Kandahar”)
Location: Kandahar.
Time spent in Afghanistan: February 1984 – August 1986.
Commanders:
Major Rudykh G.L. (02.1984–08.1984);
Captain Syulgin A.V. (08.1984–11.1984);
Captain, Major Mursalov T.Ya. (11.1984–03.1986);
Captain, Major Bohan S.K. (03.1986–06.1987);
Major, Lieutenant Colonel V.A. Goratenkov (06.1987–06.1988);
Captain Breslavsky S.V. (06.1988–08.1988).
The structure of the detachment in March 1980:
Squad management;
Separate communication group;
Anti-aircraft artillery group (four Shilkas);
1st reconnaissance company on BMP-1 (9 BMP-1 and 1 BRM-1K);
2nd reconnaissance company on BMP-1 (9 BMP-1 and 1 BRM-1K);
3rd reconnaissance and landing company on BMD-1 (10 BMD-1);
4th company AGS-17 (three fire platoons of three sections - 18 AGS-17, 10 BTR-70);
5th special weapons company (RPO “Lynx” flamethrower group, mining group on BTR-70);
6th company – transport.
Each of the combat (1st–3rd) companies, in addition to the commander, political officer, deputy for technical affairs, senior mechanic, BRM gunner-operator, foreman and clerk, included three special forces groups.
The group consisted of three squads, each of which consisted of a squad commander, a senior reconnaissance officer, a driver, a gunner-operator, a sniper, a reconnaissance corpsman and two machine gunners.
668th separate special forces detachment (4th separate motorized rifle battalion - “Barakinsky”)
The detachment was formed on August 21, 1984 in Kirovograd on the basis of the 9th Special Forces Brigade. On September 15, 1984, he was transferred to the subordination of Turkvo and introduced into Afghanistan in the present day. p. Kalagulai. In March 1985, he became part of the 15th Special Forces Brigade in the village of Sufla. The battle flag was presented on March 28, 1987. Released to the USSR on February 6, 1989.
Location: Sufla, Baraki district, Logar province.
Time spent in Afghanistan: February 1985 – February 1989.
Commanders:
Lieutenant Colonel Yurin I.S. (09.1984–08.1985);
Lieutenant Colonel Ryzhik M.I. (08.1985–11.1985);
Major Reznik E.A. (11.1985–08.1986);
Major Udovichenko V.M. (08.1986–04.1987);
Major Korchagin A.V. (04.1987–06.1988);
Lieutenant Colonel Goratenkov V.A. (06.1988–02.1989).
334th separate special forces detachment (5th separate motorized rifle battalion - “Asadabad”)
The detachment was formed from December 25, 1984 to January 8, 1985 in Maryina Gorka from the troops of the BVO, DVO, Lenvo, Prikvo, Savo; transferred to Turkvo on January 13, 1985. On March 11, 1985, it was transferred to the 40th Army.
Location: Asadabad, Kunar province.
Time spent in Afghanistan: February 1985 – May 1988.
Squad leaders:
Major Terentyev V.Ya. (03.1985–05.1985);
Captain, Major G.V. Bykov (05.1985–05.1987);
Lieutenant Colonel Klochkov A.B. (05.1987–11.1987);
Lieutenant Colonel Giluch V.P. (11.1987–05.1988).
370th separate special forces detachment (6th separate motorized rifle battalion - “Lashkarevsky”)
Location: Lashkar Gah, Helmand Province.
Time spent in Afghanistan: February 1984 – August 1988.
Squad leaders:
Major Krot I.M. (03.1985–08.1986);
Captain Fomin A.M. (08.1986–05.1987);
Major Eremeev V.V. (05.1987–08.1988).
186th separate special forces detachment (7th separate motorized rifle battalion - “Shahjoysky”)
Location: Shahjoy, Zabol province.
Time spent in Afghanistan: April 1985 – May 1988.
Squad leaders:
Lieutenant Colonel Fedorov K.K. (04.1985–05.1985);
Captain, Major Likhidchenko A.I. (05.1985–03.1986);
Major, Lieutenant Colonel Nechitailo A.I. (03.1986–04.1988);
Major, Lieutenant Colonel Borisov A.E. (04.1988–05.1988).
411th separate special forces detachment (8th separate motorized rifle battalion - “Farakh”)
Location: Farah, Farah province.
Time spent in Afghanistan: December 1985 – August 1988.
Commanders:
Captain Fomin A.G. (10.1985–08.1986);
Major Krot I.M. (08.1986–12.1986);
Major Yurchenko A.E. (12.1986–04.1987);
Major Khudyakov A.N. (04.1987–08.1988).
459th separate special forces company (“Kabul company”)
Stationed in Kabul.
Formed in December 1979 on the basis of a special forces training regiment in the city of Chirchik. Introduced into Afghanistan in February 1980.
During the hostilities, the company's personnel took part in more than six hundred combat missions.
Withdrew from Afghanistan in August 1988.
(brief military historical background)
...Only infinitely courageous and determined soldiers can do what the special forces did in Afghanistan. The people who served in the special forces battalions were professionals of the highest standard.
Colonel General Gromov B.V.
(“Limited contingent”)
During the entry of Soviet troops into Afghanistan, in addition to the 154th “Muslim” battalion already located here, the 40th Army included another special forces unit - the 459th separate company, staffed by volunteers from the 15th special forces brigade of the TurkVO. The company had four groups, according to the state, and initially there were no armored vehicles (the company was subordinate to the reconnaissance department of the 40th Army). This company was the first unit to participate in combat operations in Afghanistan. At the initial stage, it carried out its operations throughout the country. The first special forces operation in the “Afghan war” was carried out by Captain Somov’s group.
In addition to this unit, in 1980-81. Groups of the “Muslim battalion”, which by that time was already on the territory of the Soviet Union, were involved in conducting reconnaissance and implementing intelligence data. The battalion officers were also involved in training military personnel of combined arms and airborne units to perform special missions, since there were not enough regular reconnaissance units.
Considering the effectiveness of the special forces' actions demonstrated during this period, it was decided to strengthen the special forces of the 40th Army. Since the end of 1981, large-scale use of special forces units in Afghanistan began. In October 1981, two detachments were introduced: the 154th (the former “Muslim battalion”, in Afghanistan received the code name 1 OMSB) to the north of the country in Akchu, Jawzjan province, and the 177th (the second “Muslim battalion” based on 22- 1st special forces brigade of the Central Asian Military District, in Afghanistan - 2nd OMSB) in Meimen, Faryab province - to the north-west.
At first, the detachments were mainly engaged in combat operations to ensure the security of areas adjacent to the Soviet-Afghan border. In 1982, after the introduction of motorized maneuver groups of border troops into the northern provinces of Afghanistan, detachments were transferred to the center of the country: the 1st battalion to Aibak, Samangan province, the 2nd to Ruhu in Panjshir, Kapisa province, and a year later to Gulbahor, Parvan province.
The Kabul company carried out combat missions mainly in the Kabul region and provinces bordering Pakistan.
The training battalion of the TurkVO special forces brigade in Chirchik was preparing military personnel for service in Afghanistan. Gunners-operators, mechanics-drivers of infantry fighting vehicles, drivers of armored personnel carriers came from combined arms training units, other specialists came from a training regiment in the Leningrad Military District. In 1985, in addition to the training battalion in Chirchik, a special forces training regiment was formed to train sergeants and specialists. These two units trained military personnel only for service in Afghanistan, through which most of the officers of this unit passed.
By 1984, it became clear that the main task of the special forces was to create a barrier to supplying the rebels with weapons, ammunition and materiel from Pakistan and partly Iran. Therefore, in the spring of 1984, special forces units were redeployed to the Pakistani border and the number of battalions was increased: the 1st battalion was transferred from Aibak to Jalalabad, Nargarhar province, the 2nd to the village. Pajak, near Ghazni, Ghazni province. In February 1984, the 173rd detachment (in Afghanistan - the 3rd OMSB) from the 12th Transcaucasus Brigade was introduced into the Kandahar airfield area, Kandahar province.
In April 1984, an operation was carried out to block part of the Pakistani border and the “Curtain” zone was created along the Kandahar-Ghazni-Jalalabad line. A “caravan war” began, which lasted more than 4 years and made the special forces a legend of the 40th Army. Carrying out tasks to close the borders required large forces and therefore at the end of 1984 - beginning of 1985 the special forces were doubled in strength.
In the fall of 1984, the 668th detachment (4th OMSB) from the 9th special forces brigade of the Kyiv Military District was brought into Kalagulai, near Bagram, Lagman province. At the beginning of 1985, three additional detachments were introduced: from the 16th special forces brigade of the Moscow Military District near Lashkar Gah, Helmand province, the 370th detachment (6th OMSB) was deployed, from the 5th brigade of the Belarusian Military District - to Asadabad, Kunar province, 334th Detachment (5th Infantry Infantry), from the 8th Brigade of the Carpathian Military District - near Shahdzhoy, Zobul Province, 186th Detachment (7th Infantry Infantry Infantry). In addition to these battalions, the 411th Special Forces Detachment (8th Infantry Motorized Infantry Division) was formed right in Afghanistan, stationed in the Iranian direction, near the Farakhrut Bridge on the Shindand-Girishk highway; The 4th battalion from near Bagram was transferred to the village of Sufla, on the Gardez-Kabul highway, near Barakibarak, Kabul province.
All detachments were formed in the image of a “Muslim” battalion, with some changes in the organizational and headquarters structure. These eight battalions were combined into two brigades, whose headquarters were introduced into Afghanistan in April 1985. The 22nd special forces brigade (from the Central Asian Military District), which stood near Lashkargah, included: the 3rd “Kandahar”, 6th “Lashkargah”, 7th “Shahjoy” and 8th “Farakhrut” battalions. The 15th brigade (from TurkVO) in Jalalabad included the remaining battalions: 1st “Jalalabad”, 2nd “Ghazni”, 4th “Barakinsky” and 5th “Asadabad”. “Kabul” 459 – I company remained separate.
All battalions were mostly stationed near the Pakistani and partly Iranian border, operating on 100 caravan routes. They prevented new rebel units and caravans with weapons and ammunition from entering Afghanistan. Unlike other battalions, the 5th "Asadabad" battalion operated mainly in the mountains of Kunar province, against bases, training centers and warehouses of the rebels.
In total, by the summer of 1985, there were eight battalions and a separate special forces company in Afghanistan, which could simultaneously deploy up to 76 reconnaissance groups. To coordinate the activities of special forces units, a Combat Control Center (CBU) was created in the intelligence department of the 40th Army, consisting of 7-10 officers, headed by the deputy chief of intelligence for special work. There were such central control units in brigades and in all special forces battalions.
Despite all efforts, special forces intercepted 12-15% of all caravans from Pakistan and Iran, although some battalions destroyed 2-3 caravans every month. According to the special forces themselves and intelligence data, only in one of the three exits did the special forces collide with the enemy. But the special forces were always morally determined to win, thanks to the high fighting spirit of their soldiers and officers.
After Kabul announced a policy of national reconciliation in January 1987 and, in connection with this, the reduction in the number of combat operations of Soviet troops, special forces remained the most active part of the 40th Army and continued to carry out their tasks to the same extent. The Islamic opposition rejected peace proposals, and the flow of caravans from abroad intensified. In 1987 alone, special forces units intercepted and destroyed 332 caravans. The “caravan war” continued until the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan.
In May 1988, special forces units were among the first to leave Afghan soil. The following were withdrawn: the headquarters of the 15th brigade and three battalions (Jalalabad, Asadabad, Shahjoi) from the southeast of Afghanistan. Two other battalions of the 15th brigade (Ghazni, Barakinsky) were transferred to Kabul.
In August 1988, three battalions of the 22nd brigade left from the south and southwest (Lashkar Gah, Farah, Kandahar).
By the fall of 1988, two battalions and a separate company remained in Afghanistan (all in Kabul), which until the end of the withdrawal of the 40th Army carried out combat missions to cover the capital and surrounding areas. All of these parts were among the last to be released in February 1989.
Due to the lack of complete information, it is not possible to provide a detailed analysis of the combat activities of each special forces battalion. But it is known that during the war years, special forces destroyed over 17 thousand rebels, 990 caravans, 332 warehouses, and captured 825 rebels. According to some reports, sometimes special forces units provided up to 80% of the results of the combat activities of the entire 40th Army, accounting for only 5-6% of the total number of Soviet troops in Afghanistan. The intensity of the struggle is also indicated by the loss figures: 184 people died in the 22nd brigade, about 500 people in the 15th brigade.
A notorious incident took place in April 1985 in the Maravar Gorge of Kunar province, when two groups of the 1st company of the “Asadabad” battalion were killed. Sometimes special forces groups died completely; B. Gromov’s memoirs mention three such cases in 1987-88.
For heroism and courage, 6 special forces servicemen were awarded the title of “Hero of the Soviet Union” (of which 4 people received this title posthumously): Private V. Arsenov (posthumously), Captain Y. Goroshko, Junior Sergeant Yu. Islamov (posthumously), Lieutenant N .Kuznetsov (posthumously), senior lieutenant O.Onischuk (posthumously). Hundreds of intelligence officers received orders, thousands received military medals.
The assessment of the activities of special forces in Afghanistan by American experts is interesting. Thus, in an article by David Ottowell in the Washington Post on July 6, 1989, it is written that “... the Soviet Union was able to show extreme flexibility in adapting Special Forces to the tasks of light infantry operations ...” and further: “... the only Soviet troops who fought successfully are special forces. appointments..."
In the difficult situation that has developed around the CIS after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the role of special forces units in protecting the interests of the commonwealth in the near abroad, using the Afghan experience, is increasing.
KAPCHAGAY BATTALION
Special task
In 1981, an order was issued by the head of the Main Intelligence Directorate and the General Staff to create a special forces detachment with a deployment point in the city of Kapchagai, Central Asian Military District. At the same time, a commission from the GRU and the intelligence department was created and began work on the formation of military unit 56712. In addition to the fact that national personnel were required, the following were taken into account without fail:
physical fitness of personnel;
good command of weapons and equipment that were in service with the military unit;
preparedness of personnel in knowledge of the language (primarily Uyghur, Uzbek, Tajik). Therefore, taking into account the expected tasks that the unit will solve, 50-60% were people of Uyghur nationality.
The first thing that arose was the appointment of a unit commander. The criteria remained the same as above. The intelligence department invited 4-5 commanders to a conversation, including me.
A little bit about yourself.
I, Kerimbaev Boris Tukenovich, was born on January 12, 1948 in the village. Ponds in Dzhambul district, Almaty region. After graduating from high school, in 1966 he entered the Tashkent Higher Command School named after. IN AND. Lenin. He graduated from it in 1970 and was sent to serve in the GSVG (Group of Soviet Forces in Germany). For three years he served as commander of a motorized rifle platoon. In 1973, he was appointed commander of a reconnaissance company. In 1975, he was replaced in the KSAVO, as a reconnaissance company commander. In 1977, he was appointed deputy chief of staff, and later - commander of the motorized rifle battalion of military unit 52857 in Temirtau. In 1980, he was assigned to the 10th Directorate of the General Staff for a trip abroad to Ethiopia as an adviser to the commander of an infantry brigade.
In January 1980, I sent my battalion’s equipment to Afghanistan, then left to receive new ones in return. Perhaps my fate was already being decided at that time. Before I had time to arrive in Temirtau with the equipment, I remember it was Sunday, the unit commander gave the order: on Monday at 10.00 to arrive at the SAVO intelligence department in Alma-Ata. Having exchanged one suitcase (“alarm”) for another, at the appointed time I was at the pass office of the KSAVO Headquarters at the intersection of Dzhandosov and Pravda streets and reported my arrival to the duty officer.
At this time, a lieutenant colonel came out to the checkpoint (I learned his name later - Trepak, he was an officer of the intelligence department). Seeing me, he took a closer look, came up and asked:
Where are you from, comrade major? What is your last name?
When he found out who I was, he grabbed his head. Imagine my state at this moment. Naturally I asked him:
Comrade Lieutenant Colonel, tell me where they are sending me? Maybe refuse?
However, he didn’t say anything to me, but only periodically grabbed his head with quiet exclamations of “Oh-oh-oh.”
After he left, I stood in a confused state for probably ten minutes, until a representative of the GRU of the General Staff of the USSR Armed Forces, Colonel Soldatenko, arrived at the pass office. He quickly, without any formalities, took me, almost by the hand, to the intelligence department to the GRU commission. Here I never found out where they wanted to send me. The truth was informed: the commission came to the conclusion that I was suitable and made a unanimous decision to approve my candidacy. When asked: “Where do I fit?” - they didn’t answer me.
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KERIMBAEV Boris Tukenovich
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