The war in Chechnya is a black page in the history of Russia. List of Russian heroes of the Chechen war Combat generals of the Chechen war

Hot August 96th

The history of mankind is the history of betrayal. From the creation of the world and the first people of Adam and his son Cain to the present day, little has changed. This is especially noticeable in war, when the human spirit is subjected to special tests.

As once in the 41st ...

It all started in the early morning of August 6th. The militants, numbering about 1,000 people, who had accumulated in advance and concentrated in the city, suddenly attacked the railway station, the commandant's offices of Grozny, the Government House, the building of the FSB of the republic, the Coordination Center of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and almost all checkpoints.

The militants are firing

At the same time, hundreds of armed people gathered in advance in the suburban villages began to arrive in the city in an organized manner, safely bypassing the posts, some of which had been liquidated the day before as part of the Moscow and Nazran agreements. For the sake of truth, we must admit the fact: more than 130 roads lead to Grozny. Only 33 were directly under the control of the federal forces at that time, it is believed that there were not enough people for more.

Grozny Map

Subsequently, the total number of militants in Grozny reached 4-6 thousand people. They were led by the most experienced commanders headed by Maskhadov: Basaev, Gelaev, Israpilov, Khattab. A very serious "mess" was being brewed (the separatists gave it a loud name - operation "Jihad"), which could have been avoided, but, unfortunately, our guys had to disentangle. How could this happen?

A long time later, a document prepared in the bowels of the headquarters of Alexander Lebed, who in 1996 was the secretary of the Security Council of Russia, caught my eye. It contains, in my opinion, wording that reflects the essence of the current situation, to which not only the soldiers and officers of the group of forces in Chechnya, its commander, but, perhaps, the president himself have become hostages. I will quote a few paragraphs from the document: “The tension in Grozny did not decrease. The significant forces of law and order concentrated here provided only the appearance of maintaining public safety and protecting citizens from criminal encroachments. At night, the city, in fact, passed under the control of criminal elements and militants who penetrated into residential areas, since the patrol service and visits to the scene of incidents by the internal affairs bodies were not carried out during this period. So the "suddenness" was quite predictable. In addition, military intelligence reported on the impending attack, sparingly shared information from the FSB, and the information received through its channels was reported to the top by the MVD opera.

It is difficult, and hardly appropriate, to cite the chronology of those tragic days. Events developed on the rise, with kaleidoscopic diversity and speed. Today they are quite honestly and clearly recorded and reflected in a variety of documents: from summaries and reports to documentaries and memoirs. At the same time, there are still “white spots” in this dark story, which is yet to be shed light on. I will try to supplement this very colorful picture with my modest strokes of what I saw, heard, experienced, and thought about.

Leave to return

According to the plan of the command of the United Group, the defense of Grozny was entrusted to the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs. It was believed that there were about 12,000 law enforcement officers in the city (of which no more than 6,000 were servicemen of the Internal Troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs). The troops, mainly units of the 101st and 34th separate operational brigades (obron), stationed in the former 15th military camp, guarded 22 checkpoints, 5 commandant's offices and 2 commandant's stations; several detachments of OMON and SOBR reinforced the commandant's offices and administrative buildings. There were also several formations of the Zavgaev militia in the city. True, even the day before, just for August 6, an operation was planned in the suburbs of the Chechen capital, and part of these forces was withdrawn from Grozny. Army units with heavy equipment and weapons, for the most part, according to the orders of the command, were in the south of the republic.

101st defense

In the film of the famous TV journalist Alexander Sladkov “Shooting August”, the then acting commander of the United Group, Lieutenant General Konstantin Pulikovsky (instead of Lieutenant General Vyacheslav Tikhomirov, who had gone on vacation), admitted that he did not have enough to figure out the fidelity of such a decision on the alignment of forces. time, no authority - such a disposition was approved at the very top. I have not been able to determine the author of such a plan with absolute accuracy. Let the late Boris Nikolayevich, who approved such a decision, most likely without reading it, be the “extreme” one.

We, the officers of the 8th detachment of the special forces of the Internal Troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia "Rus", in which I was in Chechnya at that time, did not have the opportunity to master all the information, although our intelligence officers, wandering around the republic daily, brought news, the essence of which was reduced to the next - the silence that was established at the beginning of the summer, after the declarative statement of Boris Nikolayevich that, they say, "the war is over, that's enough, we've fought" was deceptive. By the way, our detachment is directly related to this propaganda and political action. During the famous May visit of President Yeltsin to the republic, a column of our armored personnel carriers “accidentally” caught the eye of the Supreme Commander, imitating the withdrawal of troops. Yeltsin, it seems, really believed then that "the process has begun", signing on the armor of one of our "boxes" a decree on reducing the service life of soldiers who served in Chechnya. And then the column, having made a detour, returned to the base - the war continued for us.

Yeltsin in Chechnya

The very beginning of this last operation of the first Chechen campaign found me in Rostov-on-Don, where I had flown on a business trip from still “peaceful” Chechnya just the day before. I returned a couple of days later in a completely different environment. The first thing I saw on the take-off of the Severny airport was cars standing in a row, from where they carried out a stretcher wrapped in foil. There were many. Somebody's legs, shod in sneakers of the 45th size, ran into my memory, going beyond the dimensions of the stretcher. I confess I was scared...

There is nothing to counterattack

We know the results of those heavy battles, which, however, we do not like to remember, but we must learn to face the truth: an almost complete loss of control over the city, a large number of dead and wounded, a blow to the prestige of the state and its security forces. However, this formal truth also has a kind of lining, consisting of thousands of "truths" of direct participants in the defense of Grozny.

One of the groups of our detachment, led by Captain Alexander Iglin in the amount of no more than 20 people, on August 6 was in the Coordination Center (CC) of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, which was located next to the republican Ministry of Internal Affairs and the FSB near the Dynamo stadium. The place is not the best even for conducting active defense, and even more so for deploying almost a counteroffensive, which General Pulikovsky blamed the policemen in the mentioned film. The KC itself is a closed building with “checkpoints”, a building surrounded by houses with an adjacent territory, surrounded by a concrete fence and the only entrance gate. From equipment - a pair of detachment BTR-80 - and that's it! True, as expected in large headquarters, there were many generals and officers who knew how to hold weapons in their hands.

The senior chief at the facility was the First Deputy Minister of the Interior of Russia, Militia Colonel-General Pavel Golubets. Later, he was accused of having removed himself from management, did not lead the defense of the city, and the forces entrusted to him. There were objective reasons for this: shortly after the start of intense fighting, the government communications line failed, which disrupted the unit control system. And what could be done when the enemy simultaneously attacked almost all the facilities where military personnel of the Internal Troops and police were serving, and the air was filled with pleas for help, screams of the wounded, curses against the militants and higher leadership, and squabbles.

In addition, outright "misinformation" was also broadcast on the radio channels, alternating with Maskhadov's appeal to the federal forces and Chechen policemen with a demand to lay down their arms. For example, there was information that the latter fled or completely went over to the side of the militants, which was not true: there were traitors and cowards among them, but those who remained faithful to the oath steadfastly defended the railway station, the base of the Chechen OMON, the location of the 2nd regiment of the PPSM of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Russia in the Czech Republic. At the same time, it is worth recognizing that the bandits managed, especially at first, to disorganize the work of managing units. However, it is, of course, impossible to talk about widespread panic, manifestations of cowardice or wholesale drunkenness of servicemen and employees who suddenly found themselves surrounded. My archive contains video footage, audio recordings of radio conversations, from which it becomes clear with impartial accuracy who did what, including the leadership.

KC Ministry of Internal Affairs and the entire so-called. the government quarter came under intense attack. Using 100% knowledge of the area, having studied all the approaches and weak points of the defense, the militants cut communications that were under fire, made several attempts to break into the territory of the KC. This was prevented by the competent actions of his defenders. Captain Iglin, as soon as it became known what was happening in the city, put a secret of two fighters on the roof of a nearby building. Their task was to monitor the situation around and, most importantly, the approaches to the KC and inform the commander by radio station.

The militants made their first serious attack around 6 p.m. on August 6. Prior to that, the bandits fired at the special forces from sniper rifles all day long. A group of militants, advanced from the side of the furniture factory, noticed the secret in time. They were fired from underbarrel grenade launchers, the fire was successfully corrected by fighters who were in secret. Several attackers were wounded, the assault organized by them was thwarted. By 23.00, when it was already dark, the militants again tried to attack the positions of the special forces. And again they ran into competent resistance. Underbarrel grenade launchers were used, and at the windows of the main post office, from where they were shooting especially densely, a detachment armored personnel carrier fired several long bursts. The attack was repulsed. But confident in their numerical and moral superiority, the militants launched a third assault around one in the morning. Radio interception showed: the bandits believed that there was almost no one to defend the object, everyone fled and therefore attacked furiously, went into the open. And again they stumbled upon an organized rebuff. No more assault attempts were made, but all the defenders were kept under the supervision of a sniper and machine gunners. By the way, the object was never handed over to the enemy.

Fighting in Grozny

According to eyewitnesses, the situation in the neighboring buildings of the FSB and the Department for Combating Organized Crime of the Ministry of Internal Affairs was worse. There, the bandits even managed to capture the lower floors, and the fighting went on inside the buildings. I had to call in aviation, which also suffered heavy losses: in the very first hours of the attack, militants shot down three helicopters.

Prolonged "Minute"

Another facet of the truth, its separate page, is the feat of soldiers and officers of the 34th Armored Forces of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs, who defended two GPs in the area of ​​Minutka Square and the so-called. "Romanovsky bridge". They fought for two weeks in complete encirclement, suffering losses (only 10 people died and died from wounds), experiencing serious problems due to lack of ammunition, medicines, food and water. The militants several times offered them to leave the buildings they held, guaranteeing safety, but the officers refused, hoping that they had not been forgotten, that the situation would soon be reversed and the victims they had suffered would not be in vain.

Soldiers of the 34th defense are fighting in the area of ​​Minutka Square

And only when the defenders heard on the TV, reanimated with the help of tank batteries, that the main news of the day was the inauguration of the president, and “the situation in the Chechen capital is normalizing and being under control,” the defenders began to doubt that they were right. As a participant in those battles, Lieutenant Colonel Mikhail Polyakov later recalled: “Something inside us broke then, I won’t hide it. There were questions that had not arisen before. Why do we put boys? ... In general, the day after that “political information”, those who led the defense of the VOP began negotiations with Khunkar Israpilov, who got in touch, the field commander, who was in charge of the general leadership of the actions of the militants in the Minutka area ... It was not about surrender, but about our ability to freely go to our own, along with weapons, the wounded and the bodies of the fallen. Which ultimately happened on August 19th.”

The language does not turn to accuse these soldiers and officers of treason or cowardice (although such attempts were later made by the competent authorities). They did more than was required of them, because some other defended objects fell much earlier. And the will of the defenders was broken by the indifference to their destinies, shown on the “box” of the country; the confusion of the command, the lack of will of the top leadership of the state and the clearly treacherous position of the media. It's no secret that during the attack on the city, journalists from the leading Russian TV channels found themselves in one of the basements of the attacked government buildings, from where, without sticking their noses out, they broadcast panic messages about the surrender of the city. I myself remember this moment very well: the commandant's offices, including the KC MVD, are fighting with might and main, and the journalists have already “surrendered” them! It is hard to imagine a better service rendered to the enemy, because the panic, reflected like an echo in the thousand-voiced crooked mirrors of the media, is capable of bringing down even a stronger defense!

Keyword - betrayal

And then the chief peacemaker of the country, Secretary of the Security Council of Russia Alexander Lebed, arrived in Chechnya, with the wish of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, tired of the war, to stop it and with great powers. I personally didn’t have any objections to this then, much less now, and I didn’t really believe in the effectiveness of the ultimatum of generals Pulikovsky-Tikhomirov, announced to Maskhadov the day before: to leave the encircled city within 48 hours. There were good reasons to doubt. Until very recently, the bandits managed to leave the encirclement more than once. Yes, and in other cases, when the militants were strongly pressed, the command “cease fire” and “enter into negotiations” immediately came, so I did not flatter myself with illusions that this time it would be somehow different.

Tikhomirov and Kulikov in Khankala. Photo by Roman Ilyushchenko

But at what cost the next assault on the city would cost, I soon became convinced when I left with one of the groups of the detachment for negotiations, which were actively conducted between the parties to the conflict from the second half of August. On one of the streets of Grozny along the route of movement (in my opinion, Gudermesskaya) we came across a broken military column: gnawed skeletons of infantrymen with burnt-out wombs of airborne squads; unwound spools of caterpillars resembling the tails of dead alligators; spent shell casings, a helmet pierced by a bullet ...

The streets are deserted, there is dead silence, and on both sides of the road there are five-story buildings, from which, it seemed, death was watching us. One after another, the commands were passed: “do not open fire” and “do not jump onto the roadside”, which turned out to be mined. And then, as if from under the ground, armed people appeared, shaking their machine guns and greeting us with a victorious cry: “Allahu Akbar!”. Personally, I had a depressing feeling of moral superiority over us by the enemy, who was not at all going to capitulate.

During the negotiations, in which the well-known field commander Aslanbek Ismailov participated on the part of the militants, I managed to talk with some Chechens from his external guard. They celebrated victory and did not hide it. Barely restrained gloating and feigned nobility of "real warriors" is a typical appearance of the Chechen militia of that period.

I remember several episodes. I, not forgetting about the machine gun, tried to capture a historical event on a photo and video camera. Many bandits posed, making characteristic gestures. One of them showed a cockade with a wolf on a cap and added that they were made in Russia, naming a specific factory. Another showed us a “Chechen body armor”, shouting “Allahu Akbar!” three times, assuring us that he was not afraid to die. There was one among them who, sincerely rejoicing at the victory, invited me to visit him. Just like Hasek: "at 6 pm after the war." It is impossible not to mention the children scurrying around everywhere, harassing us with chants on the theme “Allahu Akbar”.

I’ll be lying if, for the sake of completeness, I don’t mention the Chechen woman, who treated both us and the militants with homemade pies, which we unanimously refused (we don’t sell for gingerbread), gloomily remaining faithful to the oath. However, we had no reason to have fun: in addition to everything else, yesterday, in the area of ​​​​the 13th checkpoint, our comrade - scout, Sergeant Andrei Vasilenko, died in an ambush, on whom I had written a submission for awarding him the medal "For Courage" the day before.

Soldiers with the body of the deceased A. Vasilenko. Photo by Roman Ilyushchenko

Another characteristic picture of those days that remains in my memory is the eyes of Chechen policemen who remained loyal to Russia. They were taken with their families and miserable belongings to Khankala. They wandered around the base lost, not knowing where to put themselves, because they could not return home. When I caught their distant gaze, I could not endure it for a long time, because we once again betrayed them. But they betrayed us in turn.

Betrayal is generally the key word for understanding this war. , the script of which, it seems to me, was written in advance, in the silence of high offices far from here. It seemed that the very hot to the limit, all-penetrating air of the Chechen capital was saturated with betrayal, dooming all our victories to defeat in advance. Indulged and sold (not without reason in Russian these words are so similar) not only defense plans or weapons, but also the soldiers themselves, officers, ordinary people, the interests of the state ... Wholesale and retail.

The late Alexander Lebed has been appointed to the role of one of the main traitors to the interests of the country. But I believe that he himself was sincere in his desire to bring peace to a weary country. Alexander Ivanovich's misfortune was that he was "drifted" in order, and he did not want to share the laurels of a peacemaker with anyone else, opening (as he really wanted) the way to the presidency. And in order to achieve this goal, he was ready for a lot. As time has shown - a lot. The victims of the ambitious Secretary of the Security Council were not only the army put on a short leash, and then actually expelled from Chechnya, but also Russia itself, its international prestige, which suffered as a result of the shameful Khasavyurt Treaty, is akin to obscene Brest. I am sure that even by negotiating with the separatists, it was possible to beautifully get out of a difficult situation without losing face, while maintaining the status of a great power. Unfortunately, General Lebed, who fought well in Afghanistan and stopped the bloodshed in Transnistria, was much better than Lebed, a diplomat.

Aslan Maskhadov and Alexander Lebed

The signing of the Khasavyurt peace

Subsequent events showed that it is impossible to solve the "Chechen question" without taking into account the opinion of the Chechens and at the expense of the Chechens themselves . The times when Russian generals such as Alexei Yermolov, Yakov Baklanov or Soviet marshals such as Lavrenty Beria did politics in the Caucasus, catching up fear on the natives, have irrevocably gone. This was quickly understood when the new leader of Russia came to power (I remind you, a retired FSB colonel), who, having shown outstanding diplomatic skills, managed to find the right and, probably, the only right solution.

Minutka Square area today

To judge who, in the end, was a hero, and who was a traitor; who is right and who is not, there will be God and descendants . But even repeatedly betrayed, Russian soldiers and officers continued to demonstrate high morale, believing in the coming victory. In confirmation, I will cite a little-known fact: the soldiers of the 101st Armored Forces of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia (brigade commander - Colonel Yuri Zavizionov), who were the last to leave Chechnya, whose losses were the largest - over 80 people, took with them a tank division standing on a pedestal in a former military town - the symbol of the Victory, the T-34 tank. And on the armor of their "boxes" leaving Chechnya under the hooting of the crowd, these people, deadly tired of the war, hiding their resentment deep in their hearts, wrote: "Let her be wrong, but this is our Motherland!"

And while the feeling of faith in Russia among its defenders is indestructible, we cannot be defeated.

P.S. As a result of the fighting in Grozny from August 6 to August 23, 1996, according to generalized data obtained from various sources, we lost up to 2080 people (almost 500 killed, over 1400 wounded, more than 180 missing). On the streets of the city, up to 18 tanks, 61 infantry fighting vehicles, 8 armored personnel carriers, 30 vehicles were burned, 4 helicopters were shot down. The losses of militants in manpower exceeded ours by 2-3 times.

Eternal memory to the soldiers of the Fatherland who fell in those battles!

Roman Ilyushchenko - reserve lieutenant colonel, combat veteran

In 1991, the Soviet Union collapsed, a huge country that occupied 1/6 of the land. There was a reassessment of the values ​​of the former "subordinates" who became independent subjects of international relations. Old grievances were remembered, claims against neighbors appeared. This resulted in 6 major wars, 20 military clashes and hundreds of conflicts on interethnic and interfaith grounds. The book presents a clear and ideological overview of the information necessary to understand the essence of post-Soviet conflicts.

Russian generals who took part in the Chechen wars

Rokhlin Lev Yakovlevich

Born on June 6, 1947 in the city of Aralsk, Kzyl-Orda region of the Kazakh SSR. In 1970 he graduated from the Tashkent Combined Arms Command School with a gold medal, the Academy. M. V. Frunze (with honors), in 1993 - the Academy of the General Staff.

In 1982–1984 served in Afghanistan.

Since June 1993 - commander of the 8th Volgograd Army Corps and head of the Volgograd garrison.

From December 1, 1994 to February 1995, he headed the Northern grouping of federal troops in Chechnya.

In December 1995, Rokhlin was elected to the State Duma of the Russian Federation of the 6th convocation.

General Lev Rokhlin was killed on the night of July 2-3, 1998 in a dream from his own 5.45 mm PSM award pistol, which was later found near his house.

The Prosecutor General's Office of Russia accused his wife Tamara Rokhlina of committing this crime, who initially confessed to the deed, but later changed her testimony, saying that she had slandered herself under pressure and out of fear for her family.

Shamanov Vladimir Anatolievich

Born on February 15, 1957 in the city of Barnaul, Altai Territory, in a working class family. In 1978 he graduated from the Ryazan Higher Airborne Command School. From 1978 to 1995, he served in the airborne troops, rising from platoon commander to division chief of staff. After college, he commanded a self-propelled artillery platoon of the parachute regiment of the Pskov division, then a platoon and a company in the RVVDKU. In 1985, for the successful command of a company, by the personal decision of the commander of the Airborne Forces, he was appointed battalion commander (bypassing the post of chief of staff of the battalion) of the 104th regiment of the 76th airborne division (Pskov).

1986–1989 - studies at the Frunze Academy. In 1990 he was appointed deputy commander of the 300th regiment of the 98th airborne division (Kishinev). From 1991 to 1994 he commanded the 28th regiment (Kirovabad, Azerbaijan SSR). In 1993, he successfully withdraws the regiment from Azerbaijan to the city of Ulyanovsk.

In 1994 he was appointed Chief of Staff of the 7th Airborne Division (Novorossiysk). In March 1995, he headed the operational group of the 7th Airborne Division fighting in Chechnya.

In May 1995, he was seriously wounded (multiple shrapnel wounds), but refuses to be hospitalized in Rostov and returns to duty. In September 1995, Colonel V. Shamanov was appointed Deputy Commander of the 58th Army and acted as Deputy Commander of the Defense Ministry grouping in Chechnya for military operations.

In April 1996, Major General V. Shamanov was appointed commander of the Defense Ministry grouping in Chechnya. On July 31, he surrenders his position and leaves to study at the Academy of the General Staff.

In August 1999, he was appointed commander of the 58th Army (Vladikavkaz). The army is received in Botlikh, immediately repelling the aggression of the Chechen fighters who invaded Dagestan. Since October 1999 - commander of the joint grouping of federal forces in Chechnya "West".

Surovikin Sergey Vladimirovich

Born in 1966 in the city of Novosibirsk in a family of employees. After studying at a secondary educational institution, he entered and graduated with a gold medal from the Omsk Higher Combined Arms Command School in 1987, with honors from the M.V. Frunze Military Academy in 1995 and the Military Academy of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation in 2002.

He began his officer career in the special forces, in which he performed international duty on the territory of the Republic of Afghanistan. He passed all the main military positions from the commander of a motorized rifle platoon to the commander of the combined arms army of the Moscow Military District. During his service he changed several districts and garrisons - the Volga region, the Urals, the North Caucasus, the Republic of Tajikistan.

This is rarely mentioned. The crowd is inwardly "fried" news about the rich "majors" and "street racers", these topics procrastinate all over the Internet.

Heroes of Russia lived and live among us, study with us in the same schools, walk along the same streets of Russian cities. But the crowd is told that there are no such people left in Russia.
Black leeches are constantly mumbling - "f-f-so bad - bad"!

... And yet I will remind you that the heroes are the sons of generals and officers HONOR HAVE AND RUSSIANS DO NOT GIVE UP!

Let's see how many responses this article gets.

During the war in Chechnya in 1994-1996, the sons died:

Lieutenant General ANOSHIN Gennady Yakovlevich;
Major General NALETOV Gennady Afanasyevich;
Lieutenant General Suslov Vyacheslav Fedorovich;
Lieutenant General PULIKOVSKY Konstantin Borisovich;
Major General FILIPENK Anatoly Mikhailovich;
Major General of Aviation CHIGASHOV Anatoly;
Colonel General ShPAK Georgy Ivanovich.
Lieutenant General Shchepin Yuri.

Here they are, the generals' sons of the Russian Fatherland.

Senior Lieutenant Anoshin Alexander Gennadievich, commander of a tank platoon of the 81st motorized rifle regiment.

The father-general did not even know that his son was in Chechnya. Anoshin Sr. served in Ussuriysk. Anoshin Jr. - near Samara. Before leaving for the war, Alexander only briefly notified his parents by telegram: "I am fine".

Senior Lieutenant Anoshin had a choice - the regiment commander already had an order to send him to the Far East for further service. However, the officer decided to leave for Chechnya along with his unit.

He died in Chechnya on January 1, 1995. A platoon of senior lieutenant Anoshin that New Year's Eve fought for the railway station in Grozny. His body was found only on February 4th. He was buried at the Rubezhnoye Cemetery in Samara.

Captain Pulikovsky Alexei Konstantinovich, deputy commander of a tank battalion.

He died on December 14, 1995 in an operation to free an ambushed reconnaissance group of the regiment near Shatoi. Buried in Krasnodar. Awarded the Order of Courage (posthumously).

Lieutenant Filipyonok Evgeny Anatolyevich helicopter pilot.

He died in Chechnya on January 25, 1995. His helicopter was shot down during a sortie. Filipenko was buried at the Northern Cemetery in St. Petersburg. The Order of Courage is kept by his widow Natasha.

Lieutenant Chigashov Sergei Anatolyevich, platoon commander.

He died in Chechnya on January 1, 1995. During the battle, he changed 2 tanks. He shot the first, damaged car, from a cannon so that the enemy would not get it. https://vk.com/russianarmynews When the driver died, he sat in his place, was later shot down again and was shot by snipers when leaving the burning car along with the gunner. Buried in Ulyanovsk.

Guard Lieutenant Shpak Oleg Georgievich, commander of a paratrooper platoon.

He died in Chechnya on March 29, 1995 at the age of 22, blown up by a BMD during a combat mission.

Captain Shchepin Yury Yuryevich, company commander of the tank battalion of the 131st separate motorized rifle brigade.

He died on January 1, 1995 at the Grozny railway station, during the evacuation of the wounded from the station square.

Hero of Russia Lieutenant Solomatin Alexander Viktorovich, platoon commander of the 245th regiment.

He died in Chechnya on December 1, 1999. Moving along the route, the group stumbled upon a bandit formation advancing towards them, which intended to arrange a meat grinder for the regiment in the form of an ambush.
Eight against five hundred - the ratio is not the most favorable, but the scouts boldly entered the battle. With this ratio, it is impossible to prevent the encirclement by remaining in place, so the group commander gave the command to retreat. He covered the retreat himself.

SYRIA

Among the dead in Syria was Lieutenant Colonel of the RF Armed Forces Alexander Aleshin, son of the first deputy chief of the radio engineering troops of the Air Force - Chief of Staff Major General Alexander Aleshin.

- HOMELAND, LIKE MOTHER - DO NOT CHOOSE!

and even more so do not offend their whining!

The first Chechen war lasted exactly one year and nine months. The war began on December 1, 1994, with the bombing of all three Chechen air bases - Kalinovskaya, Khankala and Grozny-Severny, which destroyed the entire Chechen aviation, which included several "corn" and a couple of antediluvian Czechoslovak fighters. The war ended on August 31, 1996 with the signing of the Khasavyurt agreements, after which the federals left Chechnya.

Military losses are depressing: 4,100 Russian servicemen were killed and 1,200 were missing. 15,000 militants were killed, although Aslan Maskhadov, who led the military operations, claimed that the militants lost 2,700 people. According to Memorial's human rights activists, 30,000 civilians in Chechnya were killed.

There were no winners in this war. The federals were unable to take control of the territory of the republic, and the separatists did not receive a real independent state. Both sides lost.

Unrecognized state and prerequisites for war

The only Chechen the whole country knew before the start of the war was Dzhokhar Dudayev. The commander of a bomber division, a combat pilot, at the age of 45 he became a major general of aviation, at 47 he left the army and went into politics. He moved to Grozny, quickly advanced to leadership positions, and already in 1991 became president. True, the president is only the unrecognized Chechen Republic of Ichkeria. But the President! He was known to have a tough temper and determination. During the riots in Grozny, Dudayev and his supporters threw Vitaly Kutsenko, Chairman of the Grozny City Council, out of the window. He crashed, he was taken to the hospital, where the Dudaevites finished him off. Kutsenko died, and Dudayev became a national leader.

Now it is somehow forgotten, but Dudayev's criminal reputation was known back in that period in 1993. Let me remind you how much noise the “Chechen advice notes” have made at the federal level. After all, it was a real disaster for the national payment system. Fraudsters stole 4 trillion rubles from the Central Bank of Russia through shell companies and Grozny banks. That's a trillion! I will say for comparison that the budget of Russia in that very 93rd year was 10 trillion rubles. That is, almost half of the national budget was stolen from Chechen advice. Half of the annual salary of doctors, teachers, military personnel, officials, miners, half of all government revenues. Huge damage! Subsequently, Dudayev recalled how money was brought to Grozny by trucks.

It was with such marketers, democrats and supporters of national self-determination that Russia had to fight in 1994.

The beginning of the conflict

When did the first Chechen war start? December 11, 1994. So out of habit, many historians and publicists believe. They think that the first Chechen war of 1994-1996 began on the day when Russian President Boris Yeltsin signed a decree on the need to restore constitutional order in Chechnya. They forget that ten days earlier there had been an air strike on airfields in Chechnya. They forget about the burned-out cornfields, after which no one in Chechnya or in the Russian armed forces doubted that a war was going on.

But the ground operation really began on December 11. On this day, the so-called "Joint Group of Forces" (OGV), which then consisted of three parts, began to move:

• western;
• northwestern;
• eastern.

The Western group entered Chechnya from North Ossetia and Ingushetia. Northwestern - from the Mozdok region of North Ossetia. Eastern - from Dagestan.

All three groups moved straight to Grozny.

The OGV was supposed to clear the city from the separatists, and then destroy the bases of the militants: first, in the northern, flat part of the republic; then in the southern, mountainous part of it.

In a short time, the OGV was supposed to clear the entire territory of the republic from Dudayev's formations.

On the outskirts of Grozny, on December 12, the North-Western grouping reached the first and got involved in the battle near the village of Dolinsky. In this battle, the militants used the Grad multiple launch rocket system, and that day they did not allow Russian troops to pass to Grozny.

Gradually, two other groups moved in. By the end of December, the army approached the capital from three sides:

• from the west;
• from the north;
• from the east.

The assault was scheduled for December 31st. On New Year's Eve. And the eve of the birthday of Pavel Grachev - the then Minister of Defense. I will not say that they wanted to guess the victory for the holiday, but such an opinion is widespread.

Assault on Grozny

The assault has begun. The assault groups immediately ran into difficulties. The fact is that the commanders made two serious mistakes:

• Firstly. They did not complete the encirclement of Grozny. The problem was that Dudayev's formations actively used the gap in the open ring of encirclement. In the south, in the mountains, militant bases were located. From the south, the militants brought ammunition and weapons. The wounded were evacuated to the south. Reinforcements were coming in from the south;
• Secondly. We decided to massively use tanks. 250 combat vehicles entered Grozny. Moreover, without proper intelligence support and without infantry support. Tanks were helpless in the narrow streets of urban development. The tanks were on fire. The 131st separate Maykop motorized rifle brigade was surrounded, and 85 people were killed.

Parts of the Western and Eastern groups were unable to penetrate deep into the city and retreated. Only part of the North-Eastern group under the command of General Lev Rokhlin entrenched themselves in the city and took up defense. Some units were surrounded and suffered losses. Street fighting broke out in various districts of Grozny.

The command quickly learned the lessons of what had happened. The commanders changed tactics. Abandoned the massive use of armored vehicles. The battles were fought by small, mobile units of assault groups. Soldiers and officers quickly gained experience and improved their combat skills. On January 9, the federals took the building of the oil institute, and the airport came under the control of the OGV. By January 19, the militants left the presidential palace and organized defense on Minutka Square. At the end of January, the federals controlled 30% of the territory of Grozny. At that moment, the federal grouping was increased to 70 thousand people, it was headed by Anatoly Kulikov.

The next important change occurred on February 3rd. To blockade the city from the south, the command formed the "South" grouping. Already on February 9, it blocked the Rostov-Baku highway. The blockade is closed.

Half the city was reduced to rubble, but the victory was won. On March 6, the last militant left Grozny under pressure from the OGV. It was Shamil Basayev.

Major fighting in 1995

By April 1995, federal forces had established control over almost the entire flat part of the republic. Argun, Shali and Gudermes were taken under control relatively easily. The settlement of Bamut remained outside the zone of control. Fighting there continued intermittently until the end of the year, and even into the next 1996.

Quite a public outcry was received by the operation of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Samashki. The propaganda campaign against Russia, professionally conducted by Dudayev's Chechen-press agency, seriously influenced world public opinion about Russia and its actions in Chechnya. Many still believe that the casualties among the civilian population in Samashki were prohibitive. There are unverified rumors about thousands of deaths, while the human rights organization Memorial, for example, believes that the number of civilians killed during the cleansing of Samashki is measured in dozens.

What is true here, and what is exaggeration - now it is no longer possible to make out. One thing is certain: war is a cruel and unjust business. Especially when civilians are dying.

Advancement in the mountainous regions was more difficult for the federal forces than a campaign across the plains. The reason was that the troops often got bogged down in the defense of the militants, there were even such unpleasant incidents as, for example, the capture of 40 paratroopers of the Aksai special forces. In June, the federals took control of the district centers of Vedeno, Shatoi and Nozhai-Yurt.

The most socially significant and resonant episode of the first Chechen war of 1995 was the episode associated with the release of events outside of Chechnya. The main negative character of the episode was Shamil Basayev. At the head of a gang of 195 people, he made a raid on trucks in the Stavropol Territory. The militants entered the Russian city of Budyonnovsk, opened fire in the center of the city, broke into the building of the city department of internal affairs, shot several policemen and civilians.

The terrorists took about 2,000 hostages and herded them into the building complex of the city hospital. Basayev demanded to withdraw troops from Chechnya and start negotiations with Dudayev with the participation of the UN. The Russian authorities decided to storm the hospital. Unfortunately, there was a leak of information, and the bandits had time to prepare. The assault was not unexpected, and failed. The special forces captured a number of auxiliary buildings, but did not break into the main building. On the same day they made a second attempt to storm, and she also failed.

In short, the situation began to become critical, and the Russian authorities were forced to enter into negotiations. The then Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin was on the telephone line. The whole country was watching the TV report intently, when Chernomyrdin spoke into the phone: "Shamil Basayev, Shamil Basayev, I am listening to your demands." As a result of the negotiations, Basayev received a vehicle and left for Chechnya. There he released the 120 remaining hostages. In total, 143 people died during the events, 46 of them were security officials.

Combat clashes of varying intensity took place in the republic until the end of the year. On October 6, militants made an attempt on the life of the commander of the United Forces, General Anatoly Romanov. In Grozny, on Minutka Square, in a tunnel under the railway, the Dudayevites detonated a bomb. The helmet and body armor saved the life of General Romanov, who was passing through the tunnel at that moment. From the wound he received, the general fell into a coma, and subsequently became a deep invalid. After this incident, “retaliation strikes” were delivered to the militant bases, which, however, did not lead to a serious change in the balance of power in the confrontation.

Fighting in 1996

The new year began with another episode of hostage-taking. And again outside of Chechnya. The story is like this. On January 9, 250 militants made a bandit raid on the Dagestan city of Kizlyar. First, they attacked a Russian helicopter base, where they destroyed 2 incapacitated MI-8 helicopters. Then they seized the Kizlyar hospital and the maternity hospital. From the neighboring buildings, the militants drove up to three thousand citizens.

The bandits locked people on the second floor, mined it, and barricaded themselves on the first floor, and put forward demands: the withdrawal of troops from the Caucasus, the provision of buses and a corridor to Grozny. Negotiations with the militants were conducted by the authorities of Dagestan. Representatives of the command of the federal forces did not participate in these negotiations. On January 10, the Chechens were provided with buses, and the militants with a group of hostages began to move towards Chechnya. They were going to cross the border near the village of Pervomaiskoye, but did not reach it. The federal security forces, who were not going to put up with the fact that the hostages would be taken to Chechnya, opened warning fire, and the column had to stop. Unfortunately, as a result of insufficiently organized actions, there was confusion. This allowed the militants to disarm a checkpoint of 40 Novosibirsk policemen and capture the village of Pervomaiskoye.

The militants fortified themselves in Pervomaisky. The confrontation continued for several days. On the 15th, after the Chechens shot six captured policemen and two negotiators - Dagestan elders, the security forces launched an assault.

The assault failed. The confrontation continued. On the night of January 19, the Chechens broke through the encirclement and left for Chechnya. They took with them the captured policemen, who were later released.

During the raid, 78 people were killed.

Fighting in Chechnya continued throughout the winter. In March, the militants tried to retake Grozny, but the attempt ended in failure. In April, a bloody clash took place near the village of Yaryshmardy.

A new turn in the development of events was introduced by the liquidation of Chechen President Dzhokhar Dudayev by federal forces. Dudayev often used the satellite phone of the Inmarsat system. On April 21, from an aircraft equipped with a radar station, the Russian military located Dudayev. 2 SU-25 attack aircraft were raised into the sky. They fired two air-to-ground missiles along the bearing. One of them was right on target. Dudaev died.

Contrary to the expectations of the federals, the elimination of Dudayev did not lead to decisive changes in the course of hostilities. But the situation in Russia has changed. The election campaign for the presidential elections was approaching. Boris Yeltsin was keenly interested in freezing the conflict. Negotiations were underway until July, and the activity of both the Chechens and the federals has noticeably decreased.

After Yeltsin was elected president, hostilities intensified again.

The final battle chord of the first Chechen war sounded in August 1996. The separatists again attacked Grozny. The divisions of General Pulikovsky had a numerical superiority, but they could not hold Grozny. At the same time, the militants captured Gudermes and Argun.

Russia was forced to enter into negotiations.