On August 31, 1996, they were signed Khasavyurt agreements, which put an end to the First Chechen War. Journalist Olesya Emelyanova found the participants of the First Chechen campaign and talked with them about the war, about their life after the war, about Akhmat Kadyrov and much more.

Dmitry Belousov, St. Petersburg, senior warrant officer of the riot police

In Chechnya there was always a feeling: “What am I doing here? Why is all this needed?”, but there was no other work in the 90s. My first wife told me after my first business trip: “It’s either me or the war.” Where will I go? We tried to stay on business trips, at least we paid our salaries on time - 314 thousand. There were benefits, “combat” pay - it was pennies, I don’t remember exactly how much. And they gave me a bottle of vodka, without it I felt nauseous, in such situations it doesn’t make you drunk, but it helped me cope with stress. I fought for wages. We have a family at home, we had to feed them something. I didn’t know any background to the conflict, I didn’t read anything.
Young conscripts had to be slowly soldered off with alcohol. They are just after training, it is easier for them to die than to fight. Their eyes run wide, their heads are pulled out, they don’t understand anything. They see the blood, they see the dead - they cannot sleep.
Murder is unnatural for a person, although he gets used to everything. When the head doesn’t think, the body does everything on autopilot. It was not as scary to fight with the Chechens as with the Arab mercenaries. They are much more dangerous, they know how to fight very well.

We were prepared for the assault on Grozny for about a week. We - 80 riot police - were supposed to storm the village of Katayama. Later we learned that there were 240 militants there. Our tasks included reconnaissance in force, and then the internal troops were supposed to replace us. But nothing worked out. Ours also hit us. There was no connection. We have our own police radio, the tankers have their own wave, and the helicopter pilots have their own. We are passing the line, the artillery is hitting, the aviation is hitting. The Chechens were scared and thought they were some kind of fools. According to rumors, the Novosibirsk riot police were initially supposed to storm Katayama, but their commander refused. That's why they sent us from the reserve to the assault.
I had friends among Chechens in opposition areas. In Shali, for example, in Urus-Martan.
After the fighting, some people drank themselves to death, some ended up in a mental hospital - some were taken straight from Chechnya to a mental hospital. There was no adaptation. The wife left immediately. I can't remember anything good. Sometimes it seems that it is better to erase all this from memory in order to live on and move forward. And sometimes you want to speak out.
There seem to be benefits, but everything is only on paper. There are no levers on how to get them. I still live in the city, it’s easier for me, but rural residents completely impossible. There are arms and legs - and that’s good. The main trouble is that you rely on the state, which promises you everything, and then it turns out that no one needs you. I felt like a hero and received the Order of Courage. It was my pride. Now I look at everything differently.
If they offered to go and fight now, I would probably go. It's easier there. There is an enemy and there is a friend, black and white - you stop seeing the shades. But in peaceful life you have to twist and bend. It's tiring. When Ukraine began, I wanted to go, but my current wife dissuaded me.

Vladimir Bykov, Moscow, infantry sergeant

When I came to Chechnya, I was 20 years old. It was conscious choice, I applied to the military registration and enlistment office and left as a contract soldier in May 1996. Before that, I studied at a military school for two years, and at school I studied bullet shooting.
In Mozdok we were loaded into a Mi-26 helicopter. It felt like you were seeing footage from an American movie. When we arrived in Khankala, the soldiers who had already served for some time offered me a drink. They gave me a glass of water. I took a sip, and my first thought was: “Where should I throw this out?” Taste " military water"with bleach and pantocid - a kind of point of no return and the understanding that there is no turning back.
I didn’t and don’t feel like a hero. To become a hero in war, you must either die, commit an act that becomes public knowledge, or be close to the commander. And commanders, as a rule, are far away.
My goal in the war was minimal losses. I didn’t fight for the Reds or the Whites, I fought for my guys. In war, a reassessment of values ​​occurs; you begin to look at life differently.
The feeling of fear begins to disappear after about a month, and this is very bad; indifference to everything appears. Each of them came out differently. Some smoked, some drank. I wrote letters. He described the mountains, the weather, the local people and their customs. Then he tore up these letters. It was still not possible to send.

It was psychologically difficult, because it is often not clear whether you are a friend or an enemy. It seems that during the day a person calmly goes to work, and at night he goes out with a machine gun and fires at checkpoints. During the day you are on normal terms with him, and in the evening he shoots at you.
For ourselves, we divided the Chechens into lowland and mountainous. Plains more intelligent people, more integrated into our society. But those living in the mountains have a completely different mentality; a woman is nothing to them. If you ask a lady for documents for verification, this may be perceived as a personal insult to her husband. We came across women from mountain villages who didn’t even have passports.
One day, at a checkpoint at the intersection with Serzhen-Yurt, we stopped a car. A man came out with a yellow ID card in English and Arabic. It turned out to be Mufti Akhmat Kadyrov. We talked quite peacefully about everyday topics. He asked if there was anything he could do to help. At that time we had difficulties with food; there was no bread. Then he brought us two trays of loaves of bread to the checkpoint. They wanted to give him money, but he didn’t take it.
I think that we could end the war in such a way that there would not be a second Chechen one. It was necessary to go to the end, not to conclude peace agreement on disgraceful terms. Many soldiers and officers then felt that the state had betrayed them.
When I returned home, I threw myself into my studies. I studied at one institute, at the same time in another, and also worked to keep my brain occupied. After candidate's thesis defended.
When I was a student, I was sent to a course in psychosocial support for survivors of hot spots, organized by a Dutch university. I then thought that Holland did not fight with anyone in lately. But they answered me that Holland took part in the Indonesian war in the late 40s - as many as two thousand people. I offered to show them in quality educational material videotape from Chechnya. But their psychologists turned out to be morally unprepared and asked not to show the recording to the audience.

Andrey Amosov, St. Petersburg, SOBR major

I knew that I would be an officer from the third or fourth grade. My dad is a policeman, now retired, my grandfather is an officer, my brother is also an officer, my great-grandfather died in Finnish war. At the genetic level, this bore fruit. At school I played sports, then there was the army, the group special purpose. I have always had a desire to give back to my homeland, and when I was offered to go to special squad rapid response, I agreed. There was no doubt whether to go or not, I took the oath. During my military service I was in Ingushetia, it was clear to me what kind of mentality awaited me. I understood where I was going.
When you go to SOBR, it’s stupid not to think that you could lose your life. But my choice was conscious. I am ready to give my life for my homeland and for my friends. What doubts are there? Politics should be done by politicians, and combat structures must follow orders. I believe that the introduction of troops into Chechnya both under Yeltsin and under Putin was correct, so that the radical theme would not spread further on Russian territory.
For me, the Chechens have never been enemies. My first friend at the technical school was a Chechen, his name was Khamzat. In Chechnya, we gave them rice and buckwheat; we had good food, but they were in need.
We worked on the leaders of gangs. We captured one of them in battle at four o'clock in the morning and destroyed it. For this I received a medal “For Courage”.

On special missions we acted harmoniously, like united team. The tasks were set different, sometimes difficult to achieve. And that's not only combat missions. It was necessary to survive in the mountains, to freeze, to take turns sleeping near the stove and to warm each other with hugs when there was no firewood. All boys are heroes to me. The team helped overcome fear when the militants were 50 meters away and shouted “Surrender!” When I remember Chechnya, I more imagine the faces of my friends, how we joked, our unity. The humor was specific, on the verge of sarcasm. I think I underestimated this before.
It was easier for us to adapt because we worked in the same department and went on business trips together. Time passed, and we ourselves expressed a desire to go to the North Caucasus again. The physical factor worked. The feeling of fear that adrenaline gives had a strong influence. I regarded combat missions as both duty and relaxation.
It would be interesting to look at modern Grozny. When I saw it, it looked like Stalingrad. Nowadays I periodically dream of war and have disturbing dreams.

Alexander Podskrebaev, Moscow, GRU special forces sergeant

I came to Chechnya in 1996. We didn’t have a single conscript, only officers and contract soldiers. I went because adults should defend the Motherland, not young puppies. In our battalion we had no travel allowances, only combat allowances; we received $100 a month. I didn’t go for money, but to fight for my country. “If the homeland is in danger, then everyone should go to the front,” Vysotsky also sang.
The war in Chechnya did not appear out of the blue; it was Yeltsin’s fault. He himself armed Dudayev - when our units were withdrawn from there, all the warehouses of the North Caucasus Military District were left to him. I talked to ordinary Chechens; they saw this war in their graves. They lived normally, everyone was satisfied with life. It was not the Chechens who started the war and not Dudayev, but Yeltsin. One complete setup.
The Chechens fought, some for money, some for their homeland. They had their own truth. I didn't have the feeling that they were completely evil. But there is no truth in war.
In war you are obliged to follow orders, there’s no escape, even criminal orders. Afterwards you have the right to appeal them, but first you must comply. And we carried out criminal orders. That's when, for example, they introduced Maikop brigade to Grozny under New Year. The scouts knew that this could not be done, but the order was from above. How many boys were driven to their deaths? This was betrayal in its purest form.

Take, for example, the cash-in-transit KamAZ with money, which was standing near the headquarters of the 205th brigade when the Khasavyurt agreements were signed. Bearded guys came and loaded bags of money. The FSB allegedly gave money to the militants for the restoration of Chechnya. But we didn’t pay wages, but Yeltsin gave us Zippo lighters.
For me, the real heroes are Budanov and Shamanov. My chief of staff is a hero. While in Chechnya, he managed to write scientific work about the rupture of an artillery barrel. This is a person through whom the power of Russian weapons will become stronger. The Chechens also had heroism. They were characterized by both fearlessness and self-sacrifice. They defended their land, they were told that they were attacked.
I believe that the appearance post-traumatic syndrome strongly depends on the attitude of society. If they constantly say to your face, “You’re a murderer!”, this can traumatize someone. There were no syndromes during the Great Patriotic War, because the homeland of the heroes greeted us.
We must talk about the war certain angle so that people don't do stupid things. There will still be peace, only part of the people will be killed. And not the worst part. This makes no sense.

Alexander Chernov, Moscow, retired colonel, internal troops

In Chechnya, I worked as the head of a computer center. We left on July 25, 1995. There were four of us traveling: me as the head of the computer center and three of my employees. We arrived in Mozdok and got off the plane. The first impression is wild heat. We were taken by helicopter to Khankala. By tradition, in all hot spots the first day is a non-working day. I brought with me two liter bottles of White Eagle vodka and two loaves of Finnish sausage. The men put out Kizlyar cognac and sturgeon.
The internal troops camp in Khankala was a quadrangle surrounded by barbed wire. At the entrance there was a rail in case of artillery attacks to raise the alarm. The four of us lived in a trailer. It was quite convenient, we even had a refrigerator. The freezer was filled with bottles of water because the heat was unbearable.
Our computer center was engaged in collecting and processing all information, primarily operational information. Previously, all information was transmitted via ZAS (classified communication equipment). And six months before Chechnya, we got a device called RAMS - I don’t know how it stands for. This device made it possible to connect a computer with the ZAS, and we could transmit secret information to Moscow. Besides internal work like all kinds of information, twice a day - at 6 am and 12 am - we transmitted operational reports to Moscow. Despite the fact that the volume of files was small, the connection was sometimes poor, and the process took a long time.
We had a video camera and filmed everything. The most important filming is the negotiations of Romanov (Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs of Russia, commander internal troops Anatoly Romanov) with Maskhadov (one of the separatist leaders Aslan Maskhadov). There were two operators at the negotiations: from their side and from ours. The secretaries took the tape from us, and it future fate I don't know. Or, for example, a new howitzer appeared. Romanov told us: “Go and film how it works.” Our cameraman also filmed the story of how the heads of three foreign journalists were found. We sent the film to Moscow, they processed it there and showed the story on television.

May 1996, airfield military base in Khankala

The war was very unprepared. Drunk Grachev and Yegorov sent the tankers to Grozny on New Year’s Eve, and they were all burned there. Sending tanks to the city is not entirely the right decision. And the personnel were not prepared. It got to the point that the Marines were removed from the Far East and thrown there. People need to be trained, but here the boys were almost straight out of training and thrown into battle. The losses could have been avoided; in the second campaign there were an order of magnitude fewer of them. The truce provided a short respite.
I am sure that the first Chechen war could have been avoided. I believe that the main culprits of this war are Yeltsin, Grachev and Yegorov, they unleashed it. If Yeltsin had appointed Dudayev Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs and entrusted him with the North Caucasus, he would have brought order there. Civilians suffered from militants. But when we bombed their villages, they rose up against us. Intelligence during the first Chechen war worked very poorly. There were no agents, they lost all the agents. Whether there were militants in the destroyed villages or not, it is impossible to say for sure.
My friend, a military officer, with orders all over his chest, took off his shoulder straps and refused to go to Chechnya. He said that this is the wrong war. He even refused to apply for a pension. Proud.
My illnesses have worsened in Chechnya. It got to such a point that I couldn't work on the computer. Another mode of work was that I slept only four hours plus a glass of cognac at night to fall asleep.

Ruslan Savitsky, St. Petersburg, private of internal troops

I came to Chechnya in December 1995 from Perm region, where I had training in an operational battalion. We studied for six months and went to Grozny by train. We all wrote petitions so that we would be sent to the combat area and not be forced. If there is only one child in the family, then he could easily refuse.
WITH officers We're lucky. These were young guys, only two or three years older than us. They always ran ahead of us and felt responsibility. Of the entire battalion, we only had one officer with combat experience who had served in Afghanistan. Only riot police were directly involved in the clean-up operations; we, as a rule, held the perimeter.
In Grozny, we lived in a school building for six months. Part of it was occupied by a riot police unit, about two floors were occupied by us. There were cars parked around and the windows were covered with bricks. In the classroom where we lived there were potbelly stoves and they were heated with wood. We washed ourselves once a month and lived with lice. It was undesirable to go beyond the perimeter. I was taken out of there two weeks earlier than the others for disciplinary violations.
It was boring hanging around at school, although the food was normal. Over time, out of boredom, we started drinking. There were no shops, we bought vodka from the Chechens. It was necessary to go outside the perimeter, walk about a kilometer around the city, come to the usual private house and say that you need alcohol. Was high probability that you won't come back. I walked around without a weapon. Just one machine gun could get you killed.

Destroyed Grozny, 1995

Local banditry is a strange thing. It seemed like a normal person during the day, but in the evening he dug out a machine gun and went to shoot. In the morning I buried the weapon and was back to normal.
The first contact with death was when our sniper was killed. He shot back, he wanted to take the weapon from the dead man, he stepped on a tripwire and blew himself up. I think this is complete absence brains I had no sense of value own life. I wasn't afraid of death, I was afraid of stupidity. There were a lot of idiots around.
When I returned, I went to get a job in the police, but I did not have a secondary education. I passed the exams as an external student and came back, but they gave me a ride again because I developed tuberculosis in Chechnya. Also because I drank a lot. I can’t say that the army is to blame for my alcoholism. Alcohol was present in my life before. When the second Chechen war began, I wanted to go. I came to the military registration and enlistment office, they gave me a bunch of documents, this discouraged me a little. Then a criminal record appeared for some bullshit, and my service in the army ended. I wanted courage and excitement, but it didn’t work out.

Daniil Gvozdev, Helsinki, special forces

I ended up in Chechnya by conscription. When the time came to join the army, I asked my coach to place me in good troops - we had a special purpose company in Petrozavodsk. But at the assembly point, my name was heard with those who are going to Sertolovo to become grenade launchers. It turned out that the day before, my coach had left for Chechnya as part of a combined special forces detachment. I, along with the whole “herd,” got up, went to the train, and was in the training unit for three months. Nearby there was part of the paratroopers in Pesochny, I wrote applications there several times to be accepted, and came. Then I realized that everything was useless, I passed the exams to become a radio operator of the 142nd command and staff vehicle. At night, our captain and officers raised us. One walked around in tears, saying how much he respects and loves us all, the second tried to warn. They said that we were all leaving tomorrow. The next night it was so interesting to look at this officer, I still didn’t understand why he shed tears in front of us, he was younger than I am now. He cried: “Guys, I’m going to worry about you so much!” One of the guys told him: “So get ready and come with us.”
We flew to Vladikavkaz via Mozdok. We had three months active activities, they gave me the 159th radio station behind my back. Then I was sent to Chechnya. I stayed there for nine months, I was the only signalman in our company who more or less understood something about communications. After six months, I managed to knock out an assistant - a guy from Stavropol who did not understand anything, but smoked a lot, and for him Chechnya was a paradise in general.
We performed different tasks there. One of the simple ones - they can dig up oil there with a shovel and they installed the following devices: a barrel, under it there is a gas or diesel heater, they drive the oil to a state where in the end gasoline is obtained. They sell gasoline. Huge convoys of trucks were driving. ISIS, banned in Russia, is doing the same thing in Syria. Some won't come to an agreement, they hand him over to their own people - and his barrels will burn, but some will calmly do what is needed. Permanent job There was also - we guarded the entire leadership of the North Caucasian Military District headquarters, we guarded Shamanov. Well, reconnaissance missions.
We had a task to capture a militant of some kind. We went out into the night to search on the outskirts of the village, and saw that cars were approaching there and draining gasoline. We noticed one comrade there, he was constantly walking around, changing the heating under the barrels, he had a machine gun, well, since a machine gun means an action movie. He had a bottle, he would come over, take a sip and hide it, well, we were lying there, watching with a friend, he said: “He has vodka, they are Muslims, you can’t drink it, so he comes here, drinks it and hides it.” The task of capturing the tongue has faded into the background; we must first grab the vodka. We crawled around, found a bottle, and there was water! This angered us and took him prisoner. This militant guy, so thin, was sent back to us after interrogation by the intelligence department. He said that he used to do Greco-Roman wrestling and did a handstand with a broken rib, I respected him greatly for that. He turned out to be cousin field commander, so he was exchanged for two of our soldiers. You should have seen these soldiers: 18-year-old boys, I don’t know, their psyche is clearly broken. We wrote to this guy on a green scarf: “Nothing personal, we don’t want war.”
He asks: “Why didn’t you kill me?” We explained that we were wondering what he was drinking. And he said that they had only one Russian left in the village, they didn’t touch her, because she was a witch, everyone went to her. Two months ago she gave him a bottle of water and said: “They can kill you, drink this water and you will live.”

We were permanently located in Khankala and worked everywhere. The last time we had a demobilization chord was when Bamut was liberated. Have you seen Nevzorov’s film “Mad Company”? So we walked with them, we were on one side along the pass, they were on the other. They had one conscript in the company and it was he who was killed, but all the contract soldiers are alive. One day I was looking through binoculars, and there were some bearded people running around. The company commander says: “Let’s give them a couple of cucumbers.” They asked on the radio station, they told me the coordinates, I looked - they were running around, waving their hands. Then they show a beluga whale - what they wore under camouflage. And we realized that they were ours. It turned out that their batteries did not work for transmission and he could not transmit, but he heard me, so they started waving.
You don't remember anything in battle. Someone says: “When I saw this man’s eyes...” But I don’t remember this. The battle is over, I see that everything is fine, everyone is alive. There was a situation when we got into the ring and caused fire on ourselves, it turns out that if I lie down, there is no connection, and I need to adjust so that we don’t get hit. I got up. The guys shout: “Good! Lie down." And I understand that if there is no connection, they will shut down their own people.
Who came up with the idea of ​​giving children weapons at the age of 18, giving them the right to kill? If you give it, do it so that when people return they will be heroes, but now it’s Kadyrov’s bridges. I understand that they want to reconcile the two nations, everything will be erased in a few generations, but how can these generations live?
When I returned, it was the wild nineties, and almost all my friends were busy with something illegal. I found myself under investigation, a criminal record... At some point, when my head began to clear of the war fog, I waved my hand at this romance. We opened it with veteran guys public organization to support combat veterans. We work, help ourselves and others. I also paint icons.

KONSTANTINOV

KROPOCHEV

It was on the first day of spring 2000 that paratroopers of the 6th company under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Mark Evtyukhin entered into an unequal battle with Khattab’s militants near Ulus-Kert. They prevented the breakthrough of 2.5 thousand members of illegal gangs, destroying 700 of them. Of the 90 fighters, 84 died. For their courage, 22 military personnel were awarded the title of Hero of Russia, 69 soldiers and officers were awarded the Order of Courage, 63 of them posthumously.

Almost all the officers died in the first minutes of the battle. Trained snipers worked at the paratroopers' positions. Later it would become known that Khattab brought the best mercenaries, among whom were many Arabs, to the Argun Gorge.

They walked without even shooting. In the last attack - in full height. Later, strong drugs would be found at the heights, which were injected into themselves by militants twenty times superior to the paratroopers. But the sixth one still fought.

Battle at height 776. Feat of the 6th airborne company.

Before the fight

February 2000. Federal troops are blocking a large group of Khattab militants in the Argun Gorge. According to intelligence data, the bandits number from one and a half to two thousand people. The militants hoped to break out of the gorge, reach Vedeno and hide in Dagestan. The road to the plain lies through height 776.
On February 28, the commander of the 104th regiment, Colonel Sergei Melentyev, ordered the commander of the 6th company, Major Sergei Molodov, to occupy the dominant heights of Isty-Kord. Note that the 104th parachute regiment arrived in Chechnya 10 days before the battle at height 776, and the regiment was consolidated, and it was staffed on the spot at the expense of the 76th Airborne Division. Major Sergei Molodov was appointed commander of the 6th company, but in 10 days he did not and could not have time to get to know the soldiers, much less create a combat-ready formation from the 6th company. Nevertheless, on February 28, the 6th company set out on a 14-kilometer forced march and occupied height 776, and 12 scouts were sent to Mount Isty-Kord, located 4.5 kilometers away.

Progress of the battle

February 29, 2000

At 12:30 on February 29, reconnaissance of the 6th company came across militants, and a battle began with a group of about 20 militants. During the battle, the scouts were forced to retreat to Hill 776, where the 6th company entered the battle. In the very first minutes of the battle, commander Sergei Molodov was killed, and the position of the paratroopers from the very beginning began to look hopeless: they did not have time to dig in, there was thick fog at the height.

After the death of Molodov, battalion commander Mark Evtyukhin took command, asking for reinforcements and air support. But his requests for help went unheard. Only the regimental artillery provided assistance to the 6th company, but due to the fact that there was no artillery spotter among the paratroopers, the shells often fell inaccurately.
The most paradoxical thing is that the outskirts of Argun were literally filled with army units. Moreover, units of federal forces located on neighboring heights were eager to come to the aid of the dying 6th company, but they were forbidden to do so.

By the end of the day, the 6th company lost 31 people killed (33% to total number personnel).
Fortunately, among the officers of Yeltsin’s rotten army there were still honest and decent people who could not stand by and watch the militants destroy their comrades. 15 soldiers of the 3rd platoon of the 4th company, led by Major Alexander Dostavalov, were able to make their way to the 6th company in just 40 minutes and, under heavy fire from the militants, connect with Evtyukhin. 120 paratroopers under the command of the chief of reconnaissance of the 104th regiment, Sergei Baran, also voluntarily withdrew from their positions, crossed the Abazulgol River and moved to help Evtyukhin, but they were stopped by a categorical order from the command to immediately return to their positions. Marine Group Commander northern fleet Major General Otrakovsky repeatedly asked for permission to come to the aid of the paratroopers, but never received it. On March 6, because of these experiences, General Otrakovsky’s heart stopped. Another casualty of the battle at height 776...

March 1, 2000

At 3 o'clock in the morning a group of soldiers led by Major Alexander Vasilyevich Dostavalov (15 people) was able to break through to the encircled people, who, having violated the order, left defensive lines 4th company at a nearby height and came to the rescue. During the battle, all paratroopers of the 3rd platoon of the 4th company were killed. Alexander Dostavalov was repeatedly wounded, but continued to lead the fighters. Another wound turned out to be fatal.
At 6:11, communication with Evtyukhin was interrupted. By official version, he called artillery fire on himself, but, as witnesses of those events say, the last thing the battalion commander said before his death were the words:

you are goats, you betrayed us, bitches!

After which he fell silent forever, and Hill 776 was occupied by militants who slowly finished off the wounded paratroopers and mocked the body of Mark Evtyukhin for a long time. Moreover, all this was filmed and posted on the Internet.

The soldiers of the 1st company of the 1st battalion sought to rescue their comrades. However, while crossing the Abazulgol River, they were ambushed and were forced to gain a foothold on the bank. Only on the morning of March 3 did the 1st company manage to break through to the positions of the 6th company

After the battle at height 776

Paratrooper losses

84 soldiers of the 6th and 4th companies, including 13 officers, were killed in the battle.

Militant losses

According to federal forces, militant losses amounted to 400 or 500 people.
The militants claim the loss of up to 20 people.

Surviving paratroopers

After the death of Dostavalov, only one officer remained alive - Lieutenant Dmitry Kozhemyakin. He ordered senior guard sergeant Alexander Suponinsky to crawl to the cliff and jump, and he himself picked up a machine gun to cover the soldier.

Kozhemyakin’s both legs were broken, and he threw cartridges at us with his hands. The militants came close to us, there were about three meters left, and Kozhemyakin ordered us: leave, jump down.

- Andrey Porshev recalls.
Following the officer's order, Suponinsky and Andrei Porshnev crawled to the cliff and jumped, and to the middle next day reached the location of Russian troops. Sergei Kozhemyakin himself, while covering the soldier, was mortally wounded and died. Alexander Suponinsky, the only one of the six survivors, was awarded the Gold Star of the Hero of Russia.

I would return everything so that all the guys would remain alive.

- Alexander Suponensky later said.

Guard Private Timoshenko was also wounded. The militants were looking for him bloody trail, but the soldier was able to hide under the rubble of trees.
Privates Roman Khristolubov and Alexey Komarov were in the third platoon, which did not reach the height and died on the slope. They did not participate in the battle at altitude.
Private Evgeniy Vladykin was left alone without ammunition; in the battle he was hit on the head with a rifle butt and lost consciousness. When I woke up, I was able to get to my people.
Only 6 fighters survived.
Also, as a result of the ensuing battle, two GRU officers, Alexei Galkin and Vladimir Pakhomov, who were being escorted by militants near Ulus-Kert at that time, managed to escape from captivity. Subsequently, Alexei Galkin was awarded the title of Hero of Russia, and his image was used as the prototype for the main character of the film “Personal Number”

For their feat, the paratroopers of the 6th company were awarded the title of Hero of Russia (21 of them posthumously), 68 soldiers and officers of the company were awarded the Order of Courage (63 of them posthumously)

Betrayal?

Such a massive death of paratroopers who entered into battle with a significantly superior detachment of Chechen militants raises a lot of questions. The main ones are why something like this could happen and, no less important, did the command remain unpunished?
The company could not die in almost its entirety simply by definition. The command could have come to her aid more than a dozen times during the day, but this was not done. Why come to the rescue! The command could do nothing at all: it was enough simply not to interfere with those units that arbitrarily decided to help the Pskov paratroopers. But even this did not happen.

While the 6th company died heroically at height 776, someone purposefully blocked all attempts to save the paratroopers

There are assumptions that passage for militants from the Argun Gorge to Dagestan was purchased from high-ranking federal leaders. “All police checkpoints were removed from the only road leading to Dagestan,” while “the airborne group had information about the militants at the level of rumors.” The price for the retreat corridor was also mentioned - half a million dollars. A similar amount (17 million rubles) was called former commander 104th Guards Parachute Regiment by Colonel S. Yu. Melentyev:

Don’t believe anything they say about the Chechen war in the official media... They traded 17 million for 84 lives

According to Vladimir Vorobyov, the father of the deceased senior lieutenant Alexei Vorobyov, “Regimental Commander Melentyev asked for permission to withdraw the company, but the commander of the Eastern Group, General Makarov, did not give permission to retreat.” It is clarified that Melentyev 6 times (according to the testimony of people who personally knew him) asked permission to withdraw the company immediately after the start of the battle, but without receiving permission, he obeyed the order.
Military observer Vladimir Svartsevich argued that “there was no heroism, an outright betrayal of the guys by specific persons of our command”:
Contrary to the counterintelligence ban, we managed to talk with a witness to the death of the guys - with the boy who was sent by battalion commander Mark Evtyukhin, who died in that battle, to tell the truth. The material was written overnight; I compiled a complete chronicle of what was happening, hourly and minute by minute. And for the first time he called real figure killed in one battle. Everything was true. But the pathetic words that Mark Evtyukhin allegedly said on the radio - “I’m calling fire on myself” - were not true. In fact he said:

You assholes, you betrayed us, bitches!

The successful raid of Dostavalov’s platoon clearly refutes all allegations Russian command about the impossibility of getting through to the dying 6th company.

Officials initially did not want to talk openly about the story of the death of the 6th branch of Pskov paratroopers - journalists were the first to talk about what happened at Hill 766, and only after that the military broke the many-day silence.

Video

Report from the RTR TV channel in 2000. Feat of the Pskov Paratroopers of the 6th company of the Airborne Forces 104 RAP

Documentary film about the feat of the 6th Airborne Company. Chechnya battle near Ulus-Kert Argun Gorge

My father’s heart sank with a sense of foreboding when he went out into the courtyard of the helicopter factory where he worked to take a smoke break. Suddenly he saw two white swans flying in the sky with a plaintive purr. He thought about Dima. I felt bad from a bad feeling. His son Dmitry Petrov at that moment, together with his comrades, repelled the attacks of bandits under the leadership of Khattab and Shamil Basayev near the foot of height 776 near Ulus-Kert.

White swans in the March sky are harbingers of the death of Pskov paratroopers

On the day when the detachment of paratroopers advanced to the combat mission area, wet sticky snow began to fall and the weather was unflyable. And the terrain - continuous gullies, ravines, the mountain river Abazulgol and beech forest - prevented the landing of helicopters. Therefore, the detachment moved on foot. They did not have time to reach the height when they were discovered by bandits. The battle has begun. The paratroopers died one after another. They didn't get help. The commanders of the troops, Shamanov, have already reported to Russian President Vladimir Putin that the war in Chechnya is over, all large gangs have been destroyed. The general hurried. The parents of the dead 84 Pskov paratroopers urgently demanded an independent investigation and punishment of those responsible who failed to come to the aid of the dying company during three days of battle, from February 29 to March 1, 2000. 90 paratroopers fought against 2,500 thousand bandits.

For this battle, 21 paratroopers received the Hero Star posthumously. Dima Petrov is among them. The parents cherished the star like the apple of their eye. But they didn’t save it. Apartment thieves stole the relic. Local newspapers wrote about this. And a miracle happened. Even thieves, it turns out, have hearts. They tossed the reward around front door to the apartment.

A school in the city of Rostov-on-Don is named after the hero of Russia. In 2016, a memorial plaque was installed on the house where Dima studied at the Young Pilot club. There is no monument to the hero in the city.

Feat of the Orthodox spirit without official awards

In the narrow, dead Khanchelak gorge during the first Chechen war in 1995 Chechen fighters ambushed. Time for rescue is only 25 minutes or less. Russian helicopter pilots succeeded. But after a short battle, the comrades were missing Alexander Voronov. He was sitting on an armored vehicle and, apparently, shock wave was shot down. They were looking for him. To no avail. Only blood on the stones. Sasha was captured. They searched for him in the surrounding villages for another three days. Not found. Five years have passed. The second Chechen war began in 2000. After the assault on the village of Utam-Kala local residents They told the special forces that they had a special pit (zindan) in their backyard. There is a Russian man sitting there.

A miracle happened. When the fighters descended along a wooden ladder into a seven-meter hole, they hardly recognized the bearded man in decaying camouflage, dressed in burlap, as their lost friend. He was staggering. He was very weak. Special forces soldier Sasha Voronov was alive. He fell to his knees, cried and kissed the free ground. He was saved by his indestructible will to live and his Orthodox cross. He took it in his hands, kissed it, rolled pellets of clay and ate it. His hands were cut by bandits' knives. They practiced hand-to-hand combat techniques on it. Not everyone gets to experience such challenges. This - real feat. A feat of the human spirit. Even without official awards.

Zhukov walked through a minefield

In the Argun Gorge, a reconnaissance group was ambushed while carrying out a mission. She could not tear herself away, having two seriously wounded people in her arms. Lieutenant Colonel of the North Caucasus Military Headquarters District Alexander Zhukov receives an order to rescue his comrades. It is impossible to land helicopters in dense forests. The winch lifts the fighters. To help evacuate the remaining wounded, Zhukov winches down. Mi-24s, which are designed to provide fire support, cannot fire - a salvo can destroy their own.

Zhukov lowers the helicopter. It turns out. 100 meters away, militants surround him and the remaining two fighters on three sides. Heavy fire. And - captivity. The militants did not kill the fighters. After all, a captured district headquarters officer can be ransomed at a profit. The tractor driver, the leader of the militants, orders the prisoners not to be fed and to be methodically beaten. He sells Colonel Zhukov to field commander Gelayev. The gang of which is surrounded near the village of Komsomolskoye. The area is mined. Gelayev orders the prisoners to go along minefield. Alexander Zhukov was blown up by a mine, was seriously wounded and received the star of the Hero of Russia. Alive.

I didn’t attach the Hero’s Star to my ceremonial jacket.

In 1995, in the area of ​​Minutka Square, dressed in Airborne uniform Chechen militants with short haircuts characteristic of paratroopers killed the local population. The alleged atrocities of Russian soldiers were filmed on camera. A report was received about this to Ivan Babichev, the general of the united group “West”. He gives the order to Colonel Vasily Nuzhny to neutralize the militants.

The necessary one has been to Afghanistan twice, had military awards. A proposal to confer the title of Hero of Russia has already been sent to him.

He and the soldiers began clearing the ruins of houses. Four militants were found. Surrounded. They ordered to surrender. Suddenly, from the forks, shots were heard from other bandits sitting in ambush. Vasily Nuzhny was wounded. Blood instantly appeared in the place on the chest where it should have been hanging golden star. He died almost immediately.

Tanya and 17 children were rescued by scouts

In the village of Bamut, 18 children were rescued by a reconnaissance platoon under the command of Sergeant Danila Blarneysky. The militants held children hostage in order to use them as human shields. Our scouts suddenly burst into the house and began carrying out the children. The bandits went wild. They shot at their defenseless backs. The soldiers fell, but under heavy fire they grabbed the children and ran to hide them under saving stones. 27 soldiers died. The last girl rescued, Tanya Blank, was wounded in the leg. All other children survived. Danil was seriously wounded and did not receive the Hero of Russia star because he was discharged from the army. Instead of this well-deserved award, he puts the Order of Courage on his jacket.