Awards for soldiers of the 506th regiment in the 1st Chechen regiment. Memoirs of a military intelligence officer

In Russia today, December 9, they celebrate a memorable date - the Day of Heroes of the Fatherland. More than 27 thousand military personnel of the division based in the region passed through the “hot spots”. For courage and heroism in carrying out the tasks assigned by the command, more than 2.5 thousand soldiers and officers were awarded military awards of the Motherland. Three streets of the military town - Sinelnik, Kobin, Petrikov - bear the names of fallen heroes. The title of Hero of Russia was awarded to 12 servicemen of the Totsk division, seven - posthumously.

On the eve of the Day of Heroes of the Fatherland, I would like to remind readers of the exploits of those who continued the glorious traditions of the Russian army, beat the enemy without mercy, and at the cost of their own lives, defending peace and tranquility in the homes of their compatriots.

In the battle during the capture of the mountain village of Shali, one of the largest centers of Dudayev’s formations, on March 28, 1995, a difficult situation arose. One of the advancing companies was ambushed.

The chief of staff of the motorized rifle battalion of the 506th Guards Motorized Rifle Regiment of the Ural Military District, Guard, Major Igor Anatolyevich PETRIKOV replaced the wounded company commander. The militants, local residents, chose a very convenient position, practically not allowing the Russian fighters to raise their heads or even move away. Under these conditions, Petrikov made a decision that was unexpected for the enemy: to attack! With a swift throw, the company knocked the enemy out of fortified positions, which not only saved itself from destruction or humiliation in captivity, but also allowed other units to move forward. This daring, victorious breakthrough saved others, but cost the life of the commander himself - Igor Petrikov died the death of the brave. For the courage and heroism shown in the performance of military duty, he was awarded the title of Hero of the Russian Federation (posthumously), and the Gold Star medal was awarded to his relatives. Hero of Russia I.A. Petrikov was forever included in the lists of the commandant company of the 27th Motorized Rifle Division.

In February 1995, a motorized rifle battalion of the 506th Guards Motorized Rifle Regiment, with the support of tanks from the 3rd Tank Company, commanded by Guard Captain Alexander Vladimirovich SINELNIK, captured a commanding height in the Novye Promysla area, which led to the final encirclement of Grozny. For 15 hours, the militants made furious attempts to dislodge the motorized riflemen and tankers from the heights. At a critical moment in the battle, Sinelnik led an armored group consisting of a tank and two infantry fighting vehicles, reached an advantageous position and struck the enemy. By calling fire on himself, the commander gave the motorized rifles the opportunity to gain a foothold on their lines. Six shots were fired at his tank from a grenade launcher, but, skillfully maneuvering, the captain continued to fight. And even being mortally wounded by a shot from an ATGM, he took the tank to a safe place, ordered the crew to leave the burning car, and he himself died. Posthumously received the title of Hero of Russia, forever enlisted in the lists of the 3rd tank company of the tank battalion of the 506th Guards Motorized Rifle Regiment.

A few months later, in October 1995, the head of the engineering service of the same regiment, Major Alexander Ivanovich KOBIN, also stepped into eternity. The convoy of vehicles with fuel, which he commanded, was ambushed. In a heavy battle under heavy enemy fire, the column commander covered the withdrawal of personnel, trying to prevent the enemy from approaching the vehicles. In this battle, 10 militants were killed, but one shot from an enemy grenade launcher was accurate - it hit a fuel tanker. Burning fuel poured onto the officer. Kobin rushed to the river with a living torch and knocked out the flames. Then he fought his way to the soldiers who had taken up a perimeter defense and commanded them until aviation arrived. Major Kobin was evacuated to the hospital, where he died from his wounds and burns. The title of Hero of Russia was awarded posthumously. He was also awarded the Order of Courage and the medal “For Courage”.

Another Hero of Russia from the 506th Motorized Rifle Regiment, guard squad commander junior sergeant Alexei Nikolaevich MOROKHOVETS, showed courage and military skill in the battles of the second Chechen war. Acting as part of a motorized rifle platoon of junior lieutenant Konstantin Sitkin, Alexey distinguished himself in battle on November 26, 1999. At night, the platoon secretly bypassed the bandits and began the battle from the rear. Seeing one of the militants aiming at the commander, Morokhovets covered the officer with himself. A street in his native village was named after the hero, a memorial plaque was installed on the house, and a bronze bust was unveiled in the center of the village.

The commander, who was saved from machine gun fire by Alexey Morokhovets, did not survive the junior sergeant for long. Konstantin Vasilyevich SITKIN fought in Chechnya during his military service. Then, under a contract, he went to Tajikistan to the 201st division. In 1999, he graduated from the junior lieutenant course at the Kazan Tank School, found himself back in Chechnya, and commanded a platoon in a guards motorized rifle regiment that crushed gangs as part of the Northern Group of Forces. After the capture of the Terk ridge, Sitnik was nominated for the title of Hero of Russia, but did not have time to receive it: he died a heroic death in another fierce battle.

The squad commander of the 506th Guards Motorized Rifle Regiment of the 27th Motorized Rifle Division, Guard Private Alexey Viktorovich ZHAROV, also died heroically. When taking fortified positions of militants on the Terksky ridge at night, Alexey Zharov was the first to break into the position, destroying four militants with machine gun fire, which caused confusion in the ranks of the enemy and contributed to the advancement of his comrades. Having been wounded, he continued to fight. He shielded the battalion commander from machine-gun fire.

Zharov was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of Russia. In the village of Lysva, Perm Territory, one of the streets is named after him. On the school building where Zharov studied, there is a memorial plaque in his honor.

The senior technician of the 1st company of the 81st Guards Small Rifle Regiment of the 2nd Guards Tank Army of the Volga Military District, senior warrant officer Grigory Sergeevich KIRICHENKO was lucky enough to receive a high well-deserved award from the hands of President B.N. Yeltsin in the winter of 1996 in the Kremlin. And he was awarded the title of Hero of Russia for the courage shown on New Year’s Eve 1995 during the storming of Grozny. Under fire from bandits, he carried out wounded soldiers and officers in his infantry fighting vehicle, including the seriously wounded regiment commander, Colonel Yaroslavtsev. A total of 68 people were saved.

In October 1999, the 506th SME carried out a cleanup on the slopes of the Terksky ridge. The deputy platoon commander, Sergei Anatolyevich OZHEGOV, together with his platoon commander Sitkin, approached the enemy from the rear and struck the main unit - this decided the victorious outcome of the battle. Later examining the territory, we discovered a whole well-organized defensive system, with underground passages and two-story bunkers. The terrorists could resist there for a long time. In June 2000, in the Kremlin, Hero of Russia Ozhegov also received a special insignia - the Gold Star medal.

Three months earlier, the same state honors were given to Andrei Igorevich MOROZOV, guard colonel, commander of the 506th Guards Regiment. Since October 1999 - in the battles of the second Chechen campaign. Morozov's battalion climbed the mountain ridge without heavy weapons, in complete radio silence and under the cover of darkness carried out a combat mission - destroyed the last center of bandit resistance and completely liberated the village of Khankala. The militants had 70 killed, 8 mortars were captured and destroyed; in Morozov's battalion there were six wounded, no killed.

Thanks to the competent actions of the assistant commander of the 81st Guards Motorized Rifle Regiment for educational work, Guard Colonel Igor Valentinovich STANKEVICH, who took command because the regiment commander and chief of staff were seriously wounded in battle, the complete defeat of the regiment was avoided. Under the leadership of Stankevich, the units, which had previously fought from the administrative border of Chechnya to Grozny, defended for two days in complete isolation in the center of the Chechen capital, then the guard colonel organized a breakthrough from the encirclement. Yes, the units suffered significant losses, but if not for the decision to break through, there would have been nothing left of the military unit except its name and number. The soldiers who escaped the encirclement, together with Stankevich, continued to fight near Shali and Gudermes. In October 1995, the valiant colonel was awarded the title of Hero of Russia with the Golden Star medal, and previously he was awarded the Order of the Red Star, “For Service to the Motherland in the USSR Armed Forces,” III degree, and medals.

In the zone of armed conflict in Abkhazia in the summer of 1998, the life of Roman Genrikhovich BERSENEV, senior lieutenant, deputy commander for educational work, was cut short. His demining group, which was part of the peacekeeping forces, was entrusted with reconnaissance and demining of patrol routes of military units in the security zone. Once, during an inspection, an explosion occurred from a controlled landmine installed five meters from the road. The explosion was followed by fire from an ambush. Being seriously wounded, Bersenev organized a repulse of the bandit group’s attack, covering the retreat of the wounded soldiers. As a result of a long battle, the ambush was dispersed, but the senior lieutenant himself and four of his subordinates died on the spot and on the way to the hospital from numerous shrapnel wounds and heavy loss of blood. The title of Hero of Russia was awarded to him posthumously.

The 506th regiment, which included a motorized rifle battalion under the command of Major Hasan Rajab ogly NAJAFOV, took part in the offensive of Russian troops on Grozny. The battalion received orders to drive the militants out of the fortified area. Having made a rapid forced march, Najafov led the unit into the gap between enemy positions, and, dividing into two groups, the fighters began cleaning up. In December 1999, the major’s battalion was one of the first to reach the approaches to Grozny as part of the “North” group. During the battle, the officer received a severe concussion, but after treatment he returned to duty. At the end of June 2000, Najafov was awarded the title of Hero of Russia, with the presentation of the Gold Star medal.

On the memorial stele of Heroes, installed at the House of Officers of the Volga-Ural Military District in Samara, the names of many of those about whom we told our readers are also engraved. To the dead - eternal peace, to the living - health and success, and to all the Heroes of Russia - glory and great gratitude to their native Fatherland!

Our fellow countryman, a native of the Kovylkinsky district, Alexey Kichkasov, saved a reconnaissance detachment of the 506th motorized rifle regiment during the assault on Grozny in December 1999. Under heavy fire from the militants, he led out his children who were surrounded. This feat was written about by Komsomolskaya Pravda, the magazine of special forces units Bratishka, and featured on the ORT channel. Alexey was nominated for the title of Hero of Russia, but our fellow countryman still has not received the well-deserved award.

We met with Alexey in his native Kovylkino. In May last year he retired to the reserve. The officer's biography of our hero began simply and simply. After graduating from school, Lesha entered the Mordovian Pedagogical Institute named after Evseviev. I chose the Faculty of Physical Education, Department of Fundamentals of Life Safety. Kichkasov has been involved in martial arts for a long time. At competitions he managed to take prizes. At the end of his fifth year of study he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant. Kichkasov did not expect that the Motherland would call him under its banner. When he was studying, he had countless plans, but in none of them did his life intersect with military paths. He worked briefly as a teacher at the Kovylkino State Technical University, and was a Kyokushinkai karate coach.

Lieutenant's stars

Kichkasov did not manage to stay in civilian life for long. The Minister of Defense issued an order to call up reserve lieutenants. At the military registration and enlistment office he was offered to repay his civic duty to his homeland. Lesha agreed. So our fellow countryman ended up in one of the most famous Russian divisions - the 27th Totsk peacekeeping division. He ended up here among seven lieutenants from Mordovia. Most of them were assigned to the Guards 506th Motorized Rifle Regiment. He ended up in a reconnaissance company, then this unit, according to Alexei, was short-staffed with officers. The young lieutenant decided to take the most out of two years of military service, gain harsh army experience, and strengthen his character. Where else, if not in intelligence, can this be done? And that’s why he liked his stay in Totsk. Exercises and tactical exercises were replaced by field trips. Lieutenant Kichkasov took part in all this. He quickly mastered what cadets in military schools study for several years. There was no other way. The 506th regiment was a peacekeeper for a long time, went through Transnistria, Abkhazia and the First Chechen War, and became part of constant readiness. This meant: if the flames of a new war flared up somewhere, they would be abandoned first.

Second Chechen

In the fall of 1999, after the invasion of Basayev and Khattab’s gangs into Dagestan, it became clear that a new war could not be avoided. And so it happened. At the end of September, the regiment's echelons reached the North Caucasus. The columns of the 506th entered Chechnya from the direction of Dagestan. The first serious clashes with militants took place in the area of ​​Chervlenaya-Uzlovaya station. The guards did not lose face. Corr. “S” was able to visit this area just then, and we witnessed that motorized riflemen actually carried out combat missions that the elite units of the internal troops could not cope with. Moreover, they managed to get out of the most dangerous situations with minimal losses. This is a great merit of regimental intelligence. The company was relatively small, it consisted of 80 people. At first, Kichkasov commanded a platoon of armored reconnaissance and patrol vehicles, and, in principle, could not participate in going behind enemy lines. But in one of the battles, the lieutenant of a neighboring platoon was wounded, and our fellow countryman took command of his platoon.

“Capital S” has written more than once about the depressing state of the Russian army. The troops are now equipped in some ways even worse than during the Afghan war. Satellite navigation systems, thermal imaging surveillance equipment, which make it possible to detect the enemy not only at night, but also in rain, fog, under an impressive layer of earth - all this has long become a common attribute of Western reconnaissance units. In the Russian army all this is known as exotic. And although our industry can produce systems no worse than foreign ones, there is no money to purchase them. And as during the Great Patriotic War, all hope lies in the sharp eyes and strong legs of our military personnel. And where the Americans would have sent a remote-controlled flying reconnaissance aircraft, ours were forced to go themselves, sometimes even into the thick of it. The only reconnaissance equipment was AKM assault rifles with a silencer and binoculars.

Mordvinians against militants

As Alexey recalls, at the beginning of the Second Chechen Company they managed to penetrate 10-12 kilometers into the enemy’s location. Beforehand, in order not to fall under their own fire, they warned the command about the direction of movement. The lieutenant took with him 7-11 the most trusted people. By the way, among them there were guys from Mordovia, for example, Alexey Larin Kichkasov now lives in neighboring houses. During one trip, his namesake stumbled and fell into the river, got very wet, and it was already frosty, but they continued on their way. After all, going back meant disrupting the combat mission, and in war, failure to follow an order is fraught with losses in the ranks of the attacking motorized riflemen. And the fighter, soaked to the skin, never complained once during the 14-hour sortie. This is where the well-known saying in peaceful life acquired specific meaning: “I would go on reconnaissance with him.”

The scouts studied the places where the columns of infantry and tanks were supposed to pass. They found militant firing points and called in artillery and aviation fire. Artillery is the “God of War,” and it performed much better in this campaign than in the previous one. The howitzers began firing within five minutes after they were given the target coordinates. Anyone who knows even a little about military affairs will understand that this is an excellent result. Moreover, as a rule, the shells hit with high accuracy. And this is without any fancy laser guidance systems. In this battle for Grozny, the Russian army finally used for the first time the entire arsenal of defeat at its disposal. Starting from long-range Tochka-U missiles (range up to 120 km, accuracy up to 50 m) and super-powerful Tulip mortars (caliber 240 mm), which turned five-story buildings into a pile of ruins. Alexey speaks highly of the Buratino heavy flamethrower (range up to 3.5 km, ammunition - 30 thermobaric rockets). With its long “nose” it simultaneously fires two vacuum missiles, destroying all living things within a radius of several tens of meters.

Kichkasov did not specifically count how many times they had to go behind enemy lines. Sometimes the intensity of reconnaissance missions was so great that no more than two hours were allotted for rest. I slept a little - and again forward! The work in the Grozny region was especially difficult. Here it was even necessary to conduct reconnaissance in force. This is when, in order to identify firing points, they cause an attack on themselves.

Battle for Grozny

During the Grozny operation, the 506th regiment was in the direction of the main attack. Therefore, he suffered great losses. The press reported that almost a third of the personnel were out of action within a week. In companies of one hundred and twenty people there remained twenty to thirty. In battalions of four hundred there are eighty to one hundred. The scouts also got a hard time. On the morning of December 17, 1999, their company was given a combat mission: to advance and occupy strategic height 382.1. It rose near Grozny, and from it many areas of the Chechen capital were controlled. The matter was complicated by the fact that there were powerful concrete militant bunkers there. We left at night. The transition took about seven hours. And then we came across militants. An intense firefight ensued. Walking next to Alexei Kichkasov was Sergeant Major Pavlov, an experienced fighter who had already served in Tajikistan and received the Order of Courage. In 1996, in Chechnya, he was part of the personal security of the commander of the Russian troops. The sergeant major's crown was cut off by a fragment of an exploding grenade. The wound was severe; the brain was affected. Alexey bandaged his comrade and gave him an injection of promedol. Already bandaged, he could not fire from a machine gun, but tried in every possible way to help the commander. He loaded the magazines with cartridges, but soon lost consciousness.

Pavlov will die in a few days in a Mozdok hospital, but that will happen later, but for now his comrades were destroying the terrorists. Sniper fire began. One fighter was hit in the eye by a bullet. He didn't even have time to scream. Then five more people died. Alexei’s best friend, Lieutenant Vlasov, was seriously wounded in the stomach by a machine-gun burst. A sniper killed a soldier who rushed to help. This time, due to some mistake, the artillerymen opened fire on their own. Alexey Kichkasov, together with several soldiers, carried out the wounded sergeant major, then returned back. The surviving soldiers gathered around the senior lieutenant. The militants, realizing that they were dealing with a small group of scouts, tried to surround them, but the fierce fire of ours thwarted their plan.

Lieutenant Vladimir Vlasov died in Larin’s arms. Unfortunately, the guys were unable to remove the bodies of the dead from the battlefield. Alexey Kichkasov brought out, or rather saved, twenty-nine people. For this battle, and his ability to act in a seemingly hopeless situation, Senior Lieutenant Kichkasov will be nominated for the title of Hero of Russia. Komsomolskaya Pravda will be the first to write about this. Then several more bloody battles will follow. And the ill-fated height 382.1 was completely occupied a week later, and they found the bodies of their comrades, mutilated by spirits. The militants mined Vladimir Vlasov, taking out their impotent anger on him.

Sports character

Alexey believes that he managed to survive this war only thanks to his sports training. Karate taught him to overcome fear and mortal fatigue. He adapted quickly enough to a combat situation. The worst thing in war is when complete indifference sets in, a person does not pay attention to the bullets whistling over his head. Military psychologists have described this condition; it is as dangerous as loss of control over oneself. Alexey did everything to prevent this from happening to him or his subordinates, because urban battles are the hardest. Here he received a concussion. He doesn’t even remember how it happened. Everything happened in a fraction of a second. The infamous Minutka Square was taken without Kichkasov. On ORT, in Sergei Dorenko’s program, there was a report about this event; looking into the camera lens, Alexei’s subordinates sincerely regretted that their commander was not nearby and said hello to him. This program was seen by the mother of our hero. Before this, she did not know that he was participating in hostilities. Our fellow countryman spent about a month in the Rostov hospital.

The senior lieutenant retired from the army in May 2000. Now he lives in his native Kovylkino. I wanted to get a job in the security forces, but it turned out that no one needed his combat experience. As before the army, Alexey devotes himself to karate - training children. As for the Hero of Russia star, Kichkasov never received it. Although he was nominated for this title three times. The fatal role in this was played by the fact that he is not a career officer. It turns out that when they sent the guy into battle, no one understood that he only had studies at the military department, but when it came to awards, then according to the logic of the rear bureaucrats, it turns out that he was not supposed to be a hero. It’s hard to think of anything more absurd and offensive. In our country, only the dead are honored.

Exploded bridgehead. Requiem for the 245th Regiment Kiselev Valery Pavlovich

Chapter 1 Just a minute. Hours and days

Just a minute. Hours and days

The most intense days of the operation to capture Grozny were approaching. Both sides were preparing for decisive battles...

From the diary of Alexey Gorshkov:

01/22/2000

The inevitability of the assault on Grozny is becoming increasingly clear. The “Czechs” are not going to surrender the city. Every day, preparations for the upcoming assault are being made more and more clearly and thoroughly.

01/23/2000

An order was received to march from Starye Promyshy to the southern outskirts of Grozny, where the 506th Regiment had already taken the private sector, but could not advance further due to strong resistance from spirits.

01/25/2000

From Khankala we entered Grozny and settled in the area occupied by the 506th regiment.

From the Combat Log of the 245th Guards Motorized Rifle Regiment

At 6.00 the regiment began marching to the concentration area. The march took place along the route: regimental checkpoint - Oktyabrskoye - Alkhan-Kala - Alkhan-Yurt - Prigorodnoye - Khankala. The regiment made a 50-kilometer march and at 13.00 concentrated 1 km northeast of Khankala. The regiment's units occupied their designated areas, organized security, and began preparing for the upcoming task. At 15.00, the regiment commander left for the Grozny OR SH to clarify the mission and organize interaction. During the clarification of the task, Major General Troshev reported that Major General Malofeev had been found and taken to the Grozny group’s headquarters. Major General Malofeev died on January 17, but his body was not found. Today, after a lengthy search, the body of Major General Malofeev and his signal soldier, with the help of a search dog, was found near the battlefield, covered with snow. The headquarters officers said goodbye to the deceased.

At 18.30 at the command post, the regiment commander assigned tasks to the battalion commanders to prepare for the upcoming task.

“We are acting on the main direction...”

Sergei Yudin, regiment commander, guard colonel:

- What kind of mood can one have before a battle - excitement, anxiety for subordinates... The main blow of our troops in Grozny was delivered by the adjacent flanks of the 506th and our regiments. We understood that we were operating in the main direction, that the regiment would have to bear the brunt of the fighting. But the 506th Regiment was not in a secondary direction. We do not share the merits; the 506th regiment fought no worse than the 245th and no weaker. The officers and soldiers of both the 506th and 245th regiments fought and behaved with dignity, especially since the 506th regiment suffered most of the losses. And the brunt of the fighting in Grozny fell on the 506th Regiment. For operations in the city, assault detachments were created in this regiment. First we conducted demonstration classes. The 506th assault troops went into battle a few days before our arrival and suffered heavy losses. As a result, this regiment was demoralized and abandoned the offensive for several days until the losses of personnel were replenished.

– San Sanych Frolov called me, and we left with him and the task force for Khankala.

We stood in a field, part of it was mined. Where? What? - difficult to understand. We chose a place for the regiment, and soon our columns began to approach. During the day everyone arrived, during daylight hours. We were given two or three days to be “sloppy.”

We knew that the spirits could take our direction, and so that they would not figure us out, overnight at the regimental headquarters they redrawn maps of the city onto tracing paper.

“The Chechens made an unfortunate joke...”

– When the regiment was transferred from Katayama, bypassing Grozny to Khankala, our platoon covered the column. We stood on the “beha” on the road and waited for the column to pass, but due to breakdowns, and until the last cars arrived, this lasted for a day.

Peaceful Chechens drove along the roads. We stop the Volga, and from there the Chechens show us “fuck!” A bus with riot police was passing by, and they rounded up everyone from that Volga and took them somewhere. The Chechens made a bad joke. In the morning, driving through the village, we saw an aggressive crowd. The Chechens were yelling at us. It turns out that the tank crushed a car with people.

Vyacheslav Lesin, deputy technical engineer of the 2nd motorized rifle battalion, guard senior lieutenant:

“It wasn’t a tank that crushed a car with people.” The village was at the entrance to Khankala. There was a column of regiment equipment. Almost behind me, at some distance, a BTS-4 repair company tractor was towing a faulty infantry fighting vehicle. A Chechen car was moving towards us, it looked like a white Volga. They didn’t move away, the tractor caught her. Moreover, the Volga moved impudently. And, of course, the locals began to gather in a crowd, shouting and screaming. Having reached his people, he asked me to tell them upstairs that there was a riot in the village and the column had been stopped. An infantry fighting vehicle from a reconnaissance company went there for a showdown.

Vitaly Zavraisky, commander of the 4th motorized rifle company, guard captain:

– Received a task to move to the settlement of Oktyabrskoye. We stayed there overnight as part of the battalion and replenished all supplies. In the morning we marched through Severny Airport to Khankala. For two or three days they prepared for the upcoming assault on the city. We went on a reconnaissance mission, but it didn’t work out due to the high density of militant fire.

Alexey Gorshkov:

– Grozny is a key point of defense for the bandits. Everyone understood that if they took it quickly, it would be easier to fight further. We were told that the commander of the unit that would take Minutka Square would receive the title of Hero of Russia.

Nearby, in the depot area and in several private houses, a battalion of the 506th motorized rifle regiment took up defensive positions. I then understood the task of our regiment as follows: to enter Grozny and push out the bandits in the direction of the Aldy microdistrict. We stood on Vozdvizhenskaya Street, in front were five-story panel buildings, to the left was Minutka Square, through the viaduct, we could see a three-story red brick shopping center, without windows or doors, and a consumer services building. On Minutka there were three “candles” - nine-story buildings, a school, behind it “candles” nine-story panel houses, they ended at the Romanov Bridge, and then there was a hospital complex where Nevzorov filmed his film “Purgatory”.

“Only sparks from the armor...”

Igor Druzhinin, 3rd motorized rifle company, contract soldier:

– Once, even before the assault on Grozny, a couple of boys and I went to the private sector to look for food, and when we went up to the heights, it turned out that the general, the head of intelligence in our direction, had arrived, and the guys complained to him that the foreman and the company technician were not giving us enough food. dry ration. They were given part-time service, and I, as the ringleader (although I was not there during the conversation with the general), as well as Vovan Tkachenko and Diman, at the insistence of the technician and the sergeant major, were transferred from reconnaissance to the infantry.

So I ended up in the second platoon of the third company, Vovan - apparently in the first company, where his left arm was soon torn off by a shot from a Chekhov's AGS.

In the infantry, normal guys came along. The platoon commander was Lieutenant Vanya Tsykin, who seemed to be my age, from 1976. I begged myself again for “RMB”.

We stood opposite the private sector of Katayama, about three hundred meters away, lived in trailers, only the windows were sealed from snipers. Snipers worked there constantly, mostly to the sound of artillery. They didn’t shoot in silence, so as not to be exposed. We laid out a small post made of concrete blocks on the roof of the building and observed from there. A tank had just arrived to shoot from us, the crew couldn’t get out of it, the snipers were shooting so hard at it, only sparks from the armor. And I somehow decided there, in a concrete garage, to go in for sports, hit a punching bag and, having forgotten myself, walked out of the garage gate, immediately two shots were fired and holes from a large-caliber rifle appeared in the iron door near my head (they often shot at us from “ anti-sniper" caliber 12.7 mm).

My platoon was quite famous in the regiment. At a height that they took for three days, the boys managed to steal a Niva from the “Czechs” with a mortar installed in the car, and also brought down a couple of “Czechs”. And one day half of the platoon went to look for something to eat at home, and they came across “Czechs”. Our boy opens the door to the house, and there is a “Czech” standing there, with a machine gun lowered in his hands, but he manages to fire a burst into our stomach. The battle began, a platoon BMP jumped up to help and covered the machine gunner on the roof. In general, ours left with losses. Of course, they didn’t pat me on the head afterwards, because if they hadn’t gone to the houses, nothing would have happened.

“Fatigue and apathy have accumulated...”

Artur Sataev, chief of staff of the 1st battalion, major:

- January twenty-third - march of the regiment to Khankala. Almost immediately, units began to move to Grozny. Fighting began in the city. At first it was scary to fight in the city. Then fatigue and apathy accumulated: I managed to sleep only two to three hours a day.

There was interaction between the troops, but what kind of interaction was another question. To say that it was good or bad... No comments... There were enough problems. At the regimental level, interaction was normal. But I can’t say that everything was wonderful and good.

The militants had their own intelligence, their own control, I wouldn’t say clear, but not chaotic. They did not have any feelings of doom and hopelessness, as some might think; they felt that they would leave the city at the right moment. But there was no moral superiority of the militants over us.

The battalion headquarters, mortar battery, communications platoon and support platoon were located in the depot in front of the private sector. The battalion commander assigned me the task of deploying the command post and being with the mortar battery.

“He died before my eyes...”

Sergei Girin, deputy commander of the 2nd motorized rifle company for educational work, lieutenant:

– On January twenty-fourth we entered Grozny and began to move through the private sector in the direction of Minutka Square.

This is where the most difficult stage of the war began... As we moved through the private sector, we changed units of the 506th Regiment. One flyer from this unit told me: “I have twelve people left from the platoon, the rest are decimated...”

We occupied the area allocated to us. Here, before my eyes, a contract soldier, a young guy from Nizhny Novgorod, died. There were many deaths, but this one was remembered because he died from his own... Our artillerymen began shelling the positions of the “Czechs”, the so-called separation came from a series of fired shells, and the soldier’s head was torn off by a shrapnel... At that time he was standing on guard in the street... Ridiculous ... It was a painful sight... The guys put him on the beha, I took him to the medical platoon...

Dmitry Usikov, senior assistant chief of artillery of the regiment:

– We entered Grozny on the twenty-fourth of January, and things began to spin...

The tension of these days was such that Colonel Yudin ordered special pills so as not to sleep. On the edge of Khankala there were two five-story buildings, in one of the panels there was a NP of the 506th regiment, they were already here. We got up and went into another house, construction workers lived there, and on the third floor there was a regiment first-aid post. We sat there for three days while Bulavintsev took Minutka. At night there was a shot from a tank at this building, the shell hit the corner of the building and went to the third floor, to the first-aid post. Then our ATGM battery driver was wounded in the leg.

In the battles for Grozny, we were given a battery of self-propelled guns from the 752nd regiment. When Bulavintsev’s battalion went on the offensive and reached Minutka Square, it was night. Ours went to the cinema area, some of the infantry were locked there by the spirits, and then our battery at one in the morning began firing at Minutka so that the spirits would not sleep. They woke up. It turned out that in the building where ours are, the spirits are sitting. The first house is clean, empty, ours are reporting, and the spirits are on the second and third floors. We had to bring the self-propelled guns into direct fire. They completely destroyed a twelve-story building...

Documentation

Combat order No. 015 for attack.

9.00 01/24/2000

1. The enemy holds the occupied lines along Filatova, Magistralnaya, and Khankalskaya streets. He is trying to defeat our troops with counterattacks and is pulling up reserves from the depths of the city. Approximately, up to 400 militants are defending in the regiment’s offensive zone, armed with small arms, 82- and 120-mm mortars, grenade launchers and chargers, having an advantage in position, since they occupy defenses in multi-story buildings and, using this, conduct targeted sniper fire on the entire depth of the battle formations of the regiment's battalions. With the help of the senior commander, in the interests of the regiment, aviation and artillery are used to destroy enemy manpower and fire weapons in high-rise buildings in the area of ​​the square. Just a minute.

2. 245 MRR and a tank company with two assault detachments No. 4 and 5 to attack from the line the corner of Kolbusa street, the corner of the street. Brothers Nosovykh in the direction of st. Chernoglaza – cinema, excl. Minutka Square and, in cooperation with the 506th Motorized Rifle Regiment, defeat the enemy in the area of ​​the street. Kolbusa, pl. Minute, st. Nosov brothers. By the morning of January 25, 2000, take possession of high-rise buildings northeast of the outskirts of the square. Just a minute. The 506th Motorized Rifle Regiment advances on the left, in the direction of mark 138.0 with the task of defeating the enemy in the area of ​​the corner of Brothers Nosov streets, the L-shaped building, etc. Leonov, the demarcation line. The 33rd OBRON is advancing on the right, setting up roadblocks in the area of ​​the intersection with the street. Komarova.

3. I decided: to deliver the main blow in the direction of the street. Kolbusa - garages - cinema - high-rise buildings northeast of the square. Just a minute. Inflict fire defeats on the enemy in two periods: fire preparation for the attack and assault on the city and fire support for the attack during the assault on the city. Fire preparation should be carried out using the forces and means of the senior commander and the fire of the artillery battalion of the regiment, with three fire raids within 38 minutes. In the first fire raid lasting 4 minutes, defeat enemy personnel and fire weapons in the area of ​​Filatov streets - garages - cinema.

"Capture and hold..."

Sergei Bulavintsev, commander of the 2nd motorized rifle battalion, guard major:

– My battalion first blocked the Katayama area (this is the northwestern outskirts of Grozny). On the morning of January twenty-third, two columns of our regiment, having circled the city from the north and south, four hours later reached Khankala - the western outskirts, where a reconnaissance group was already located. Here the regiment commander assigned me a combat mission: the battalion, as an assault detachment, must capture and hold three high-rise buildings on Minutka Square, which were of key importance in the defense of militants in this area.

As often happens in real war conditions, the limited time to prepare for an offensive did not allow us to work out in detail all the issues of organizing the battle, primarily the interaction between units and neighbors on the ground.

In addition, militant activity greatly hampered thorough reconnaissance. Using, as a rule, houses in the private sector, they fired aimed fire from sniper rifles, AGS-17 automatic grenade launchers and GP-25 under-barrel grenade launchers at our troops, often changing their positions. Suffice it to say that during the advance of the reconnaissance group, the commander of the sapper platoon and two servicemen providing security were mortally wounded.

We had to limit ourselves to a visit to the command post of a neighboring regiment and, having agreed only on some issues on the map there, return to the concentration area. The planned tactical drill on the order of operations of the assault detachment in the city failed to be carried out.

Based on the current situation, an assessment of the forces and nature of the enemy’s actions, as well as the capabilities of our own, attached and supporting units, it was decided to create three assault groups, the basis of which was reinforced motorized rifle companies. Each assault group, in turn, was divided into subgroups: light, medium and heavy. The easy task was to capture the target of attack, and it was equipped with small arms and had only the necessary supply of ammunition. The middle subgroup, following the light one, was supposed to provide its actions with fire. This subgroup was armed with eight Bumblebee flamethrowers, eight thermobaric and 16 fragmentation grenades. The heavy subgroup (82-mm "Tray" mortar with 30 mines, a heavy machine gun with 300 rounds of ammunition, four grenade launchers with 24 rounds) supported the actions of the light and medium subgroups with its fire, covering the flanks from sudden enemy attacks. Its riflemen and machine gunners each carried three rounds of ammunition. In addition, the heavy subgroup contained an additional supply of ammunition and food rations for the entire assault group.

Our snipers (eight people in each company) worked according to a special plan. All of them were paired up to conduct counter-sniper combat, destroy commanders, machine gunners, grenade launchers and mortar crews of militants. Snipers were a separate element of the combat formation of the assault detachment and reported directly to the commanders of the assault groups.

At 12 o'clock on January 24, the battalion moved to the initial area for the attack, which was located in the area of ​​the railway depot. In the interests of increasing survivability and delivering surprise attacks on the enemy, all the battalion's equipment was hidden in the depot building in readiness to support the groups' actions. The following are also located here: a motorized rifle platoon - a reserve of the assault detachment, a medical platoon and rear units. A mortar battery had set up firing positions nearby.

The operation started unsuccessfully. The battalion from the regiment operating in front was unable to immediately capture the line from which our regiment was to be introduced into battle.

The commander of the group, Lieutenant General Bulgakov, sent the first battalion of our regiment to help, which was also soon stopped by enemy fire.

At 13.00 the combat mission was clarified to me, and the battalion rushed forward. Without getting involved in fire duels with militants, bypassing open spaces, through breaks in fences and houses, by the end of the day the companies reached the starting line for the offensive, where they received orders to stop moving, organize a perimeter defense, watch and night rest.

“I’ll walk along Apricotovaya...”

“Our neighbors, the 506th Regiment, on the outskirts of Grozny spent a month preparing for the assault on the city. We had to go into battle without thorough preparation. Our first assault detachments went into battle at night, the 3rd motorized rifle company did not arrive until the morning of the next day. At first there was no good communication with the 506th.

Since the enemy was listening to all our radio communications, I suggested that the command post change the names of the streets. We renamed all the streets in the regiment's combat zone, drew a diagram, brought it to each company, and changed their names every night. Within a day the spirits get used to the names of the streets on air, so the next day we come up with new ones. This cunning helped us confuse the enemy and reduce losses. I know that Bulavintsev has since loved to sing: “I’ll walk along Abrikosovaya, turn onto Vinogradnaya...”

Major Bulavintsev reported on the radio: “Bars, I am Granit, we went to Minutka, reception...” At three o’clock in the morning, the assault groups of Bulavintsev’s battalion entered the five-story building on Minutka, but during the battle it turned out to be a layer cake: on some floors ours, on others the spirits . Deputy The regiment commander, Lieutenant Colonel Frolov, was in the first battalion at that time, and I completely lost him for those three days. He should have been in the most dangerous direction, but the battalion units settled in such a way that they could neither forward nor backward.

On the first day of the assault, we lost twenty people killed and wounded, and in three days - about fifty.

The tension during the storming of Grozny was such that I didn’t go to sleep for three days.

“Take it, clean it up and hold on...”

Andrey Kuzmenko, commander of the 3rd platoon of the 5th motorized rifle company, guard senior lieutenant:

– On the twenty-fourth of January we concentrated in the initial area for the offensive in Khankala. Each company was an assault group, which consisted of three subgroups. Light, aka capture group (AK, AKS, GP-25, RPG, RPO, Shmel assault rifles), heavy, aka fire support group (PKM, AK, "RPG-7", "RPO" - "Shmel"), the crew of the "Vasilek" mortar with a small supply of mines. The grenades for the RPG-7 were mainly fragmentation and thermobaric. And the support group is everyone who remained in the company. Each group commander had a map of the city and an R-148 radio station.

The commander of the first platoon, Lieutenant Maltsev, was appointed commander of the capture group, which consisted of 10–12 people, I commanded the fire support group, which already consisted of 18 people. The company commander refused my request to change places. It was a shame because my friend Senior Lieutenant Kononov from the sixth company was assigned to the first group. The third group in the fifth company was commanded by contract soldier Senior Sergeant Cherdakov, it consisted of ten people.

Two people refused to storm the city: conscript Vavilov from Yaroslavl and contract soldier Tereshin from Shuya. The first gave up fear, and the second came to Chechnya entirely for financial reasons. They began to incite people against the assault, but they were quickly isolated (closed in a freight car). And they were punished in a unique way: they were sent on a train along with those demobilized soldiers who survived the storming of the city. Then they told me how they were driving... And to the deputy. There was no point in contacting the educational company about this. It’s better not to talk about him out loud at all.

The first battalion entered the private sector first. After some time they gave us a command...

The further we moved, the more destruction became visible on the streets. In one of the courtyards we came across a platoon of the first company. When I asked what they were doing here, they told me that there were spirits ahead. I looked up my location on the map and we moved forward. About a hundred meters later we were fired upon from the attic of one of the houses. We riddled this entire attic and moved on.

It was getting dark quickly. We stopped on the outskirts of the private sector, set up secrets and ambushes. We got ready for the night. Although, what an overnight stay there... Senior Lieutenant Kononov (we called him Horse) was sent by the battalion commander to scout out the garage complex. When he returned from reconnaissance, I checked the secrets. “I don’t understand anything,” he says, “I didn’t find these garages. Let’s go and have a look together.” - "Let's go to". Indeed, a pit was dug in place of the garages. That's all.

Then Senior Lieutenant Kononov and his group went to the cinema, occupied it and established themselves there without a fight. He reported to the battalion commander, and the battalion commander, in turn, reported to the regiment commander. The question may arise: why did all my reports go to the battalion commander? The answer is very simple: he was directly on the front line along with the company commanders. Yes, and we were on the same frequency.

They took over the cinema. We started to look around. And then their own artillery slashed at the cinema. The feeling, frankly speaking, was terrible. The communications battalion commander explained to the regiment commander in a raised voice that we were under fire. The shelling stopped.

In front of us lay Minutka Square. The battalion commander began assigning tasks to the commanders of the assault groups. The first group of the sixth company of Senior Lieutenant Kononov left and occupied the far wing of a long five-story building, cut in the middle by the explosion. The second group of Senior Lieutenant Arishin of the sixth company left and occupied the near wing of this five-story building. All this happened without a fight.

The battalion commander began to call the commander of the first group of our company, senior lieutenant Maltsev - they could not find him. We asked via communication - no response. Neither him nor the group. I didn’t see him again, but then they said that he became scared, he found a bunch of women’s underwear and left with this underwear. Why he needed it is unclear.

The battalion commander called me over: “Do you see a nine-story candle in the area between the five- and four-story buildings?” - “I see.” – “Take it, clean it up and stay there. Just hurry up, soon it will start to get light.” My group and I set out, and when I walked through the passage between the five- and four-story buildings, I was surprised to see that the four-story building was shaped like the letter “L,” although on the city map it was just straight. The courtyard of the house was closed on all sides. We had already walked halfway through the five-story building, and at that moment my group was hit by machine guns and grenade launchers from almost three sides. The situation was becoming critical. I noticed that there were also firing points in the “candle” house, and got in touch with the battalion commander. In a nutshell, I reported to him the situation and asked permission to take the group to the first and second groups of the sixth company. He gave permission, at the same time assigning them the task of supporting me with fire and smoke. Although Kononov and Arishin, without his team, were already crushing enemy firing points with the fire of their groups. Our group, firing back, crawled towards the five-story building. When they put up the smoke screen, the spirits began to hit the smoke with such frenzy that at some point I doubted that we would come out alive. And then I noticed that it was starting to get light. This meant we had to hurry: both we and the spirits had an aiming bar and a sight front sight. We overcame the last meters - in smoke - with a jerk. Half of the group went to Kononov, the other half, along with me, to Arishin.

As it turned out later, we left on time. Reinforcements approached the spirits. The fire became so dense that it became impossible to move around the house. The first wounded appeared. It was lucky that the floor in the corridor fell into the basement and a semi-basement was formed. It saved us. My platoon commander, senior sergeant Zhenya Petrunkin, crawled up to me and said in a broken voice: “Comrade senior lieutenant, we killed Nyukh (Private Plahotniuc). Immediately a voice from the darkness: “I’m alive!”

The denser the enemy fire was, the larger the window openings in the rooms became, because of this there were more wounded. Senior Lieutenant Arishin was wounded in the head by shrapnel. Blood poured down the collar, they stopped it and bandaged it. I made a decision: in order to avoid unnecessary losses, leave fire weapons on duty at the windows, and move the rest of the soldiers into the semi-basement corridor. I reported the decision to the battalion commander, and he approved it.

The radio station sat down with Senior Lieutenant Arishin. By the evening, contact with senior lieutenant Kononov, who was in the other wing of the five-story building with part of my group, was lost.

I didn’t know that Cherdakov’s group was sent right after us, and even without a walkie-talkie. It was then that a messenger came crawling from him. And so everyone fired at his group: both the enemy and their own.

In the evening, when it got dark, he sent a volunteer soldier to Kononov. To pass during the day - there were no options. He returned along with people from my group, led by Sergeant Kozorezov, and the news that Kononov’s radio was broken.

How was this day reflected in the documents of the regiment headquarters...

From the Combat Log

The regiment had the task by the end of the day to replace units of the 506th regiment occupying defenses in the private sector on Filatova Street, then storm garages, a cinema and take possession of an L-shaped 5-story building and two 5-story buildings located on the northern outskirts of Minutka Square . At 9.40 the regiment commander left for the OP of the 506th regiment to organize interaction and determine the order of rotation of units. Then the regimental commander went to the front line of the 2nd battalion of the 506th regiment to conduct reconnaissance on the ground. The battalion commanders also left with the regiment commander. The line for introducing assault troops into battle was determined on the ground. During reconnaissance, the regiment commander's armored personnel carrier and motorized rifle company were fired upon by the enemy from an AGS-17. A number of servicemen were injured to varying degrees.

At 13.30, the assault detachments of the 1st and 2nd battalions moved to their starting lines: st. Mikhail Kolbus, st. Black-eyed. Before this, the regiment commander once again personally clarified to the battalion commanders the tasks regarding the order of assault on Grozny’s facilities on Minutka Square, as well as facilities adjacent to it from the south. He resolved the problems that the commanders had on the spot and gave instructions on resolving other issues that required time.

At 14.40, the 1st Battalion began moving to relieve units of the 506th Regiment, the 2nd Battalion was preparing to carry out an assault on the garage sector and cinema through the battle formations of the 1st Battalion.

At 1500, the 2nd Battalion began moving behind the 1st Battalion. At 15:40, the 1st Battalion began relieving units of the 506th Regiment on the street. Kolbusa, the 2nd battalion went to the street. Komarova. ISR conducted engineering reconnaissance.

At 16.20, the replacement of units of the 506th regiment by units of the 1st battalion was completed. At 16.30, the assault group of the 1st assault detachment began an offensive in the direction of the 1st block on the street. Filatova and by 17.00 she had completely mastered it. The 2nd and 3rd assault groups began the assault. During the offensive, the assault groups identified enemy strongholds in the area of ​​124.4 and the bridge over the railway.

At 17.45 at the NP regiment, equipped in a 5-story building on the street. Topolevoy, the head of the OR "Grozny" school, Lieutenant General Bulgakov, arrived to familiarize himself with the current situation.

By 19.00, the 2nd battalion had fully completed its assigned task for that time and was consolidating its position at the line along the street. Filatova between st. Kolbus and Vozdvizhenskaya.

The 1st battalion met enemy resistance from level 124.4, did not engage in battle, and secured a position at the intersection of the street. Kolbus and Komarov. The artillery division opened fire on enemy strongholds at the call of the commander of the 1st battalion.

At 22.00, the reconnaissance group of the 2nd battalion began reconnaissance of the garage area.

Everyone who survived those battles retained in their memory details that you will never forget...

“Tears mixed with blood are rolling down my cheeks...”

– On the twenty-fourth of January we moved forward. We encountered guys from the 506th Regiment. Their losses were very large. The private sector ended, and then came high-rise buildings. It was here, at the crossroads, that the first losses occurred. The spirit snipers shot crosswise across the road. Kuzya the machine gunner from the first platoon was wounded. The sniper shot him in both legs. The platoon commander, Lieutenant Mamenko, tried to pull him out, and the sniper almost shot off his middle finger. Then the guys said that they sewed his finger on.

Then the company gathered in the outermost houses along the road. I remember the company commander standing in the gateway and shouting to our platoon: “Run over here one at a time!” The first one ran, I followed him. I turn around - there is no one behind me. The boys standing nearby smile: “I was born in a shirt!” It turns out that while I was running across, the sniper shot at me three times. I ask: “Did you even shoot in the body?” - “Twice in the body, once in the head.”

Then the platoon walked around areas that were not subject to fire and joined us. The company commander gave the command: throw smoke bombs at the road and run across to the other side. We ran across. We received new introductions and moved on in dashes. We run into a large two-story garage. There is no one in it, behind it is a concrete fence, and behind the fence are the positions of the spiritual crew of the “AGS”. The platoon commander contacted the company commander on the radio and outlined the situation. The first platoon with snipers pulled up to us. While they were running across, one boy was wounded in the side. So he lay there in the area under fire... The company commander calls up the “box” and shouts: “I have the two hundredth!” We urgently need to evacuate!” The guy lies there and doesn't move. We thought that was it, he was killed.

At the same time, our snipers began to shoot the spirits. One of them said: “I can’t aim properly, PSO (optical sniper sight. - Auto.) interferes. The distance is about thirty meters. I shoot, I see that I hit him, he rips out shreds of clothing and meat, and he moves on anyway, on drugs.” In response, the spirits opened fire from the AGS. A contract soldier from our platoon was wounded by ricocheting fragments from the ceiling. He was a funny guy, his name was Kostya. He was 25 years old, but, to be honest, he was 15 years old. He joked all the time, telling children’s jokes. But well done, he turned out to be a man, he didn’t shit his pants. He stands there, they bandage his head, and tears mixed with blood are rolling down his cheeks.

Our snipers suppressed the AGS crew of spirits, but a spirit sniper sat in front, in a log house. The second platoon was stationed in a nearby house; it was commanded by the company commander. He was wounded there. In general, the second platoon had no luck with officers. Then he was commanded by a conscript sergeant.

At dusk, an infantry fighting vehicle drove up to us, apparently from the second company, to pick up the “200th”. They approach him, and he gets up himself. The guys are shocked: you have to lie motionless in such cold for so long - five hours!

Night has come. The spirits came to collect their dead. They let out “candles” - such dim flares, and shout so drawn out - “Allah Akbar!” Everyone is on alert. The company commander commands: “Get ready to repel a possible attack!” He takes his “AKMS” and with the words “Glory to the CPSU!” releases a long line of fire into the opening. Laughing stood for about five minutes. So, at least a little, but the nervous tension was relieved...

“We advanced without armor...”

Igor Druzhinin, 3rd motorized rifle company, contract soldier:

– We spent the night in hastily erected tents. In the morning we were given BC as much as you can take. We received new camouflage suits, white ones, to replace the old ones, and began to advance to Grozny on foot. Then the Behi with the Two Hundreds arrived. The boys were badly torn up: the shell of our self-propelled gun was undershot. The battalion commander yelled at them to get the “bahi” out of sight, otherwise we’ll have to go into battle, and some of them are already staring at a nickel with fear.

We advanced without armor towards Minutka Square. The entire private sector through which they passed was destroyed, it’s not enough to say completely, there were a lot of places where there were just piles of bricks instead of houses. Before us, the 506th regiment stormed here, which we seemed to replace because it was defeated. We found the place where our men were hit by a shell. The iron gates of the house are covered in blood and holes.

They moved forward in dashes to the end of the private sector and settled in the first more or less intact private houses. Some of them contained dead militants. They immediately started blocking the windows with bricks and crawled around the houses. It was unclear whether there were ours ahead; they were shooting in our direction from nearby high-rise buildings. In the evening, they lit a fire behind the house and began to cook food. The “Czechs” shot a little in the reflection of the fire, and hit us with a “granika”, but they could not reach us.

From somewhere a tank of the 506th regiment drove up to us, the men sat down with us, we fed them. And they are making plans for how the next morning they will take the five-story building - it seems their boys stayed there, but the “Czechs” captured almost all of it. The most interesting thing is that five of them gathered to fight. These are the men!

“The task of the day was completed...”

Alexander Frolov, deputy regiment commander, guard lieutenant colonel:

“In the new direction of the operation we had to replace the 506th Motorized Rifle Regiment. The regiment's units walked through the streets of the private sector of Grozny, almost one and a half kilometers, with very heavy losses - there were 12-20 people left in the companies. They had almost passed the private sector; there was one block left to the multi-storey buildings in the center of Grozny. According to the plan, the 506th Regiment must reduce its area of ​​attack, three streets are cut for us, we go between the 1st and 506th Motorized Rifle Regiments. But it turns out that the 1st regiment, the Tamans, was behind us, but they had no combat experience, although armed to the teeth, they stood with us in the second echelon. We are next to the 276th Regiment, and then some other units. We entered the streets, I was in the center with the 2nd battalion, on the right was the 1st battalion. They quickly got involved, very quickly, so that the spirits did not have time to understand the situation. At night, along one street we approached a shopping center, as it later turned out, and garages in front of it. In fact, these turned out to be not garages, as on the map, but a pit; it was impossible to immediately pass along the second street, but then they entered and expanded the front of the offensive. There the 1st battalion ran into reinforced firing points and got stuck. And when we came towards them from the side, the spirits there abandoned everything and ran away. We completed the task of the day. With a battalion commander or two, we decide: we’ll sleep for three hours, have a quick snack, and at three o’clock in the morning, in groups of 3–5 people, we’ll go ahead while the soul rises and prays. Bulavintsev's battalion quickly reached the cinema and the shopping center. I stood about two hundred meters behind him. Morning came, the spirits saw that we had no support on the right or left. The 506th Regiment is not moving. General Bulgakov, heard on air, swears, removes the regiment commander from his post: “Why haven’t they taken Minutka Square yet!”

“A military tribunal with soldiers is arriving...”

Alexander Likhachev, chief of staff of the regiment, lieutenant colonel:

“At the height of the fighting on Minutka, a representative of the military prosecutor’s office from the group came to the regiment headquarters with a group of soldiers. It turned out that battalion commander Major Bulavintsev was under arrest for leaving the bridge across the railway. They began to figure it out... Bulavintsev walked to Minutka not in the lane allocated to his battalion, but on the right (there was no neighbor there), going around this bridge. I passed it and returned to my offensive zone. The report that Bulavintsev had crossed the bridge left the regiment for the group headquarters. General Bulgakov bursts into tears and shouts: “I left the bridge!” But a bridge was needed. Bulavintsev did not defend him, because the bridge was not in his offensive zone, and went to Minutka, where he had a combat mission. He’s been surrounded for three days, he can’t get anything, but a military tribunal with soldiers arrives: “Give Major Bulavintsev here!” I say - go to Minutka and try to take it. Then he showed the regiment’s combat order, which clearly stated that this bridge was excluded from the offensive zone of Bulavintsev’s battalion. “Give me this order...” asked the representative of the military tribunal. “I won’t give it, it was issued on the basis of a combat order from the group; it is at the group’s headquarters.” That's where it all ended...

“Four days left until demobilization...”

Alexey Gorshkov, commander of the 3rd platoon of the 3rd motorized rifle company, senior lieutenant:

– Bulavintsev’s battalion, in my opinion, without reconnaissance, entered Minutka Square at night through the garages, settled in the basements of a five-story building and for two days the “Czechs” thrashed them. On the evening of January 25, Bulavintsev, according to the battalion commander and company commander, contacted the regiment: “We won’t go out on our own, we need help.” I was called to the company commander - we were just getting ready to sleep. At 0.30 the command to the platoon is “Rise!”

On January 24 and 25, our company stood on Vozdvizhenskaya Street, on Khankalskaya Street there was a cinema - without walls, only the wall survived, from where the cameraman showed films. Our task was to break through the corridor to Bulavintsev’s battalion. We went with the whole company, in platoons. My platoon was called “Ranger” - I had a grenade launcher, machine guns - two PKMs, three RPKs and a sniper, a normal guy.

The conscripts were eager to go into battle, as much as it took me to keep them out: “You have four days left before demobilization...” They usually moved out like this: me, followed by Vova the radio operator - Pager Dzhan, machine gunner Seryozha Petropavlovsky - Trachacha and one contract soldier. First they blew smoke, and only then did the conscripts, five or six, go, accompanied by one or two contract soldiers. The last ones were machine gunner Kolya Krasnov, we called him Kranov Klya, after his story about how he signed his notebook like that in first grade - and the “double basses”, the sniper and the “RPK” machine gunner. They left the battle in the same sequence. I was the last to leave, I never left ahead of my soldiers, there was no such thing. Other platoons also acted according to my tactics.

We entered at one in the morning through a cleared-out garden of a private sector, 20–25 meters wide, to the right were the viaduct and Minutka Square, to the left was the House of Public Services. The second platoon goes first, the first follows, and the company commander suddenly says to me: “You will stay with me, we need to cover the company command post.” I was very offended: “I’ll go myself!” - “You’ll go to court!”

At one o'clock in the morning the first and second platoons began to move out, and at two or three o'clock the battle began...

“I got stuck in a traffic jam...”

Artur Sataev, chief of staff of the 1st motorized rifle battalion, major:

– After the first battles, at night, the regiment commander on the radio pointed out my shortcomings in organizing communications and demanded my presence in the private sector of Grozny, where the units, the battalion commander and the assistant battalion commander for artillery were located.

Taking the BMP-1KSh with me, I went to the units at night. There was fog that night, and it was difficult to navigate the unfamiliar terrain at night in the city. In the private sector, everything was in ruins, and in some places you couldn’t tell whether it was a former street, or whether a tank had driven through the courtyards. I got stuck in a traffic jam, there were infantry fighting vehicles, both ours and neighboring units, and they didn’t know whether to go forward: the lead vehicle came under fire. They got off the BMP and the officers said: “There’s an ambush ahead, militants.” According to my information, it should be clean. Just in case, I asked the name of the street we were on. I sent my soldier to find a sign with the name of the street, he came 10 minutes later and found nothing.

I decided to rely on my location data, and I was not mistaken. I contacted the battalion commander and outlined the situation and location to him. He replied that there you could go straight to the militants, began to explain that you had to go by yards, explain which yards - it didn’t work, he said that he would send a man to guide the combat vehicle. After 20 minutes, a soldier from the grenade launcher platoon of our battalion came to me, he led the car to the house where the battalion commander was located. I remember battalion commander Major Ilyukhin at that moment... The man did not sleep at all for several days. I don’t know what he did to stay awake: he ate coffee beans, or took sleep medications, or just held on. But he didn't fall. He said: “Arthur, communications are the business of the chief of staff, take the chief of communications of the battalion, Lieutenant Neikshin, and make it normal.”

Problems with communication were due to the fact that during the battle the batteries of the radio stations were not charged, and most of them were lost. That same night I went to the regiment's checkpoint in the hope of finding batteries. The signalmen only managed to get a few charged batteries. It was necessary to find charged batteries to get through now and tomorrow. Everything worked out for us, but one unit remained without communication. A solution was found. I ordered the commander of the mortar battery, which at that time was not moving and was in the depot, to dismantle the passenger cars and take out the car batteries, connect them to the radio stations using wires, creating the required voltage, excluding the battery banks of large car batteries. Everything worked.

Having eliminated the shortcomings, I decided to be in the city, closer to the units.

At dawn, Lieutenant Neikshin and I walked around the houses where the units were located; all companies of the battalion collected enough batteries and handed them over to the communications company for charging. I remember: when I went to the support platoon at the depot, the soldiers were sitting there, drinking tea, a two-cassette player was playing, powered by station batteries, and about five of them were lying nearby... I was ready to shoot them, but I scolded the soldiers, calmed down and took the batteries.

During the fighting, I often had to travel around Grozny at night. Always on the front line, among the units, it was much more comfortable than driving through the city at night, even though you were going to the regiment’s command post. Running into the underdogs or “friendly fire” from one’s own at night was a real possibility. But that first time, in an unfamiliar city, on a command and staff vehicle, navigating through the fog on a map, among the ruins - the feeling was not a pleasant one...

“The sniper didn’t bother us anymore...”

Andrey Aktaev, machine gunner of the 3rd platoon of the 1st motorized rifle company, contract soldier:

“We sat in the garage all night.” In the morning, the Dukhovsky sniper began to play pranks again. I remember the grenade launcher, a contract soldier from the first platoon - like a crazy guy - shouting: “Guys! Cover it!” Everything in that direction is a flurry of fire. He runs out with the Granik, takes aim and, with some scream, releases a vacuum grenade. And so three times.

Somewhere towards lunch, three soldiers and an officer from the 506th Regiment ran across to us. Each one brought a pair of “Bumblebees” with them. They asked: “Cover it!” We ran out and heard three flamethrowers blow - even crumbs fell from our windowsills. And that’s it, the sniper didn’t bother us anymore. After lunch we moved on. The platoon was located in some house. We spent the night there. The next day, the assault on Grozny ended for my platoon: they were sent to guard an artillery division.

“Everything was shot through by militants...”

Vitaly Zavraisky, commander of the 4th motorized rifle company, captain:

– The twenty-fifth of January has arrived. My company had already received the task and was all armored up, lined up in a column, when the regiment psychologist came up and congratulated me on the birth of my daughter. But somehow this thought never occurred to me...

I went with the company to carry out the assigned task. The equipment and crews were left on the outskirts of the private sector in the area of ​​the railway depot. We split into three platoons, each of them was given the street along which they were to advance. Each company was an assault group. Thus, our entire battalion was divided into groups: light, medium and heavy.

When the assault began, one company went forward, followed by the second; my company was in the rear. The supply of ammunition, medicine and food was minimal. The assault began at 16–17. We had to move forward in the private sector, making passages in fences and house walls, since it was impossible to move along the road: everything was shot through by militants. We made our way until dark.

The battalion commander gathered the company commanders and once again clarified the task. Half an hour later, the first company left the private sector. After some time, they reported that they had occupied the Rodina cinema and another house. The next company with the battalion commander followed her. Then the regiment's artillery began its work. The militants discovered our middle group and opened fire on it. It was clarified to me that I and my company are on the outskirts of the private sector. He gained a foothold, took up a perimeter defense and stayed here until the morning. In the morning, the militants opened fire on me, and at that time two companies were fighting in the cinema - I could hear it over the communications. The regimental artillery fire was constantly adjusted. I ordered the mortar crew assigned to me to process the area in front of us, from where the militants were firing. So we shot back until lunchtime the next day. Two companies in the cinema were running out of ammunition.

“You could light a cigarette from the barrel...”

Igor Druzhinin, 3rd motorized rifle company, contract soldier:

“At night, at two or three o’clock, the company was gathered and told that we had to go forward and take the shopping center. Ahead there was a small park about twenty meters wide, to the left of it was a cinema, to the right was a shopping center, and a five-story building was looking straight at us. We lay down near the park, and then the commander of our third company said to my former reconnaissance company commander: “Well, reconnaissance, let’s go ahead, and we will follow you,” and the reconnaissance company commander, senior lieutenant Katunkin, excused himself: “We were not given such a task to lead you forward.” ...”, in general, I was scared.

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2. The first hours, the first days... No matter how much the intelligence officers tried to forestall the fatal events, no matter how much messages from the most reliable and authoritative sources flocked to Moscow first in streams, and then in streams that Hitler’s divisions were being pulled up to the borders of the Soviet Union,

Mikhail Kudryavtsev says:




The battle for height 382.1 near Grozny also remains forever in my memory. I can’t help but write to you about him, about the scouts of the 506th Guards Motorized Rifle Regiment - real fighters with whom we drank Chechen hard times, fed lice, went on patrol and attack, and who, by the will of fate, remained behind the scenes, remained nameless heroes of the war.

WITH AT FIVE o'clock in the morning on December 17, 1999, our reconnaissance group of seven people under the command of Senior Lieutenant Alexei Kichkasov conducted reconnaissance in a holiday village near the village. Suburban. From here the militants conducted harassing fire on units of the regiment's second battalion using sniper rifles, grenade launchers and ATGMs. Having discovered several firing points, bunkers and dugouts on the slopes, we received an order to retreat. In the afternoon we returned to the temporary deployment point.
Two hours later, the company was given a new mission: to capture the strategically important height 382.1, as well as two high-rise buildings on the approaches to it and hold them until the arrival of units of the second battalion. Powerful artillery preparation was promised, including the use of volumetric explosion shells, as well as support with all available forces and means.
This hill towered over the Chechen capital. It offered an excellent overview of Prigorodnoye, Gikalovsky, the 53rd section of Grozny, Chernorechye. The mental hospital was also clearly visible - a strong cruciform building made of red brick, which, as it turned out later, was a powerful stronghold of the militants. At the very top there were once rocket men, and powerful concrete fortifications and deep bunkers are still preserved.
At 22.15 we started moving. Our reconnaissance detachment consisted of three groups, no more than forty people in total. The detachment was assigned an artillery gunner, a chemist, and three sappers. Several fighters from the battalion went with us to later lead their units to the heights. The first group was commanded by Lieutenant V. Vlasov, the second by Lieutenant I. Ostroumov, the third by Senior Lieutenant A. Kichkasov.
The promised artillery barrage never arrived; the tanks only worked on the slope for a short time.
The difficult night climb to the first high-rise buildings through dense thickets took about seven hours. By five in the morning we reached the first line, lay down, and the infantrymen accompanying us went down.
It was still dark, we were lying on the frozen ground, quietly talking. There were many contract soldiers in the reconnaissance company. My emergency service was in the early 90s in the GRU special forces. And almost all the guys are not new to intelligence; they served in serious units. Junior Sergeant S. Nedoshivin - in the GSN of the Zelenograd BON, privates Telelyaev and Slesarev - in the GOS of the 8th OBRON, participated in the first Chechen war. Private Sergei Skutin served in the Sofrino brigade and was in hot spots in the early nineties. Private P. Tsetsyrin - from the 3rd ObrSN GRU, Private A. Zashikhin - former intelligence officer of the 31st ObrON. Sergeant E. Khmelevsky, private A. Borisov, private V. Balandin (fought in the first Chechen war, later served in Yugoslavia) served in the Airborne Forces. Sergeant Major V. Pavlov served under contract in Tajikistan in the 201st Division, and in 1995 he was awarded the Order of Courage. From August 1996 to February 1997, he served in the reconnaissance battalion of the 205th brigade in Grozny, and was part of the personal security group of the commander of the United Armed Forces in the North Caucasus, General V. Tikhomirov. Military intelligence officers Senior Sergeant A. Seleznev, Sergeant N. Meleshkin, Senior Sergeant A. Larin are simply good guys and wonderful fighters.
...It dawned on an unusually bright and sunny day. Ahead, about eight hundred meters away, the repeater tower was clearly visible at a height. We waited for the arrival of two motorized rifle companies in order to place them at this line and at the end of the day move towards the final goal - the repeater. At this time, I was next to the company commander, Lieutenant I. Ostroumov, and heard his radio exchange with the regiment intelligence chief.
- Has the infantry arrived?
- No..
— Do you see the repeater?
- I see.
- To the repeater - forward!
At 7.15 they rushed forward in a long chain along a narrow path. About twenty minutes later, the lead patrol and the first group reached the outskirts of the plateau. There were no more than 150 meters left to the tower. At the bottom of the circular trench they found a large-caliber machine gun, carefully covered with a blanket. After ten or fifteen steps, the patrol came across a “spirit” that had grown up as if from underground. Private Yu. Kurgankov, who was walking first, reacted faster - a point-blank burst and a dash into the trench.
And immediately the plateau came to life, machine guns and machine guns started working. The lead patrol and the first group dispersed to the right of the direction of movement and occupied a shallow trench along the edge of the height.
They hit us with grenade launchers. Foreman V. Pavlov, a VOG-25 grenade hit the radio station behind his back. The foreman's crown was cut off by shrapnel. Senior Lieutenant Alexey Kichkasov, who was nearby, bandaged the foreman and injected him with promedol. Seriously wounded, Pavlov, although he could no longer shoot himself, loaded the magazines and handed them over to the commander lying next to him, then lost consciousness.
At the same minutes, Pavel Slobodsky was also hit by a VOG-25 fragment.
There were few militants. Heart-rendingly shouting “Allahu Akbar!”, they retreated to the tower. To hit them in the flank, Private A. Borisov and I moved along the slope along the trenches to the left of the main group. They crawled up. I part the tall, withered grass. Right in front of me, about twenty meters away, is a “spirit”. He immediately pulls the trigger, but the bullets go higher. I rolled to the right, raised my machine gun and through my sights I saw a grenade flying at me. I jerk back and cover my head automatically. I was lucky this time too - an explosion sounded ahead, only fragments whizzed overhead. And Borisov was not hooked. But after our grenades, the “spirit” died down completely.
The battle is already going on throughout the high-rise building. On the right, a little ahead, I see Sergeant N. Meleshkin, Senior Sergeant Seleznev, Company Foreman Edik, Sergeant E. Khmelevsky, Junior Sergeant A. Arshinov, Corporal A. Shurkin. Running onto the roof of the bunker, senior sergeant Andrei Seleznev throws a grenade down.
At this time, the “spiritual” snipers opened fire. In the second group, Corporal A. Shurkin was the first to die. The bullet hit him in the eye. Without crying out, he silently sank down. Senior Sergeant Seleznev died next - a sniper’s bullet pierced his arm and entered his chest. Andrei turned around before our eyes, the “unloading” on him began to smoke. Sergeant E. Khmelevsky also died. He almost reached the entrance to the hangar. The first bullet hit him in the chest, the second in the chin.
On the right flank, in the first group, private S. Kenzhibaev was killed by a sniper bullet, and a big man from Penza, junior sergeant S. Nedoshivin, was hit in the neck by a bullet, breaking an artery. Private A. Zashikhin radioed to the regiment that there was a battle going on, there were killed and wounded. The next moment he himself was wounded by a grenade fragment.
An order to withdraw comes over the radio station. The company commander, Lieutenant I. Ostroumov, is trying to bring it to everyone’s attention, but this is not easy to do. Soldiers in groups of several people are in different trenches. The radio station of the first group was destroyed by an explosion, the signalmen were injured, and the roar was so loud that you couldn’t stop shouting. And Ostroumov with the seven soldiers who were nearby, including the artillery gunner and signalman, retreats down. He returned to the regiment's location at about nine in the morning.
And the battle at the height continued. Lieutenant V. Vlasov was seriously wounded in the stomach by a machine-gun burst. Sapper Bulatov, who rushed to his aid, was killed by a sniper.
In the center of the height, a group of scouts took cover in a trench, next to a bunker. The sniper did not allow us to get up and pull out the dead. Three bullets, one after another, landed next to Sergeant Meleshkin, one tore off his hat. Private Saprykin was wounded in the arm. For Private Maltsev, a bullet broke a magazine while being unloaded and got stuck in his body armor. Finally our regimental artillery began to fire. Probably the artillery gunner who had gone down called fire to the heights.
At this time, Private A. Borisov and I went quite far along the trenches around the height. Here the bandits felt free. We see three of them standing almost at full height, saying something and pointing in the direction where our men were lying. We took our time to take aim and took out two targets with two single shots. The third “spirit” rushed towards the tower so that his heels sparkled.
The shells were exploding so close that we had to crawl back along the trench.
The fighters of the group led by Sergeant N. Meleshkin, entrenched in the center, fired, making it possible to pull out the seriously wounded. Senior Lieutenant Alexey Kichkasov and several soldiers carried out Sergeant Major V. Pavlov. Having gone eight hundred meters down to the place where the detachment was located in the morning, and leaving the wounded man and the soldiers there, Kichkasov returned.
After some time, the militants left the height. The machine gun fire and then the artillery fire died down. There was an eerie silence.
Everyone who survived the battle gathered together. Senior Lieutenant Kichkasov gave the command to retreat down to the morning line, taking the dead with him. At this time, the “spirits”, having come to their senses and regrouped at the base camp, began to pull themselves up and take the heights into a ring, cutting off our escape routes. Their guttural screams seemed to come from everywhere. Having picked up the dead, we began our descent. But the “spirits” who approached from the right and below opened heavy fire. We had to leave the “two hundredths” and, returning fire (the machine gunners privates Slesarev and Abdulragimov did a good job), retreat down.
The main group retreated to the line of the morning position of the detachment and took up a perimeter defense. There are just over twenty of us left. Two of them were seriously wounded, several were shell-shocked. First aid to the wounded was provided by Private Sergei Skutin, a former medical instructor of the Sofrino brigade. Of the commanders in the ranks, senior lieutenant A. Kichkasov, of the warrant officers - company sergeant major and sapper S. Shelekhov. There was no contact with the regiment.
The “Czechs” were quickly approaching, conducting combing fire and trying to encircle us again. The only place to escape was down the densely overgrown ravine.
They settled down in a “scorpion”: four in the “head”, two “claws” of four people each - along the slopes of the crevice, in the center eight people, alternately changing, carried out the seriously wounded Sergeant Major Pavlov on a tent. Private Saprykin with a broken arm walks on his own. Behind, in the cover group, there are four led by Senior Lieutenant Kichkasov.
The five fighters who carried out Lieutenant Vladimir Vlasov, either crawling or running, retreated down two hundred to three hundred meters to the right of the main group. Volodya sometimes came to his senses and kept asking:
- Has the infantry arrived?
Having received a negative answer, he ground his teeth and lost consciousness again.
After some time, which seemed like an eternity to us, we reached the Grozny-Shali highway. Here, on the dacha plots, there were two motorized rifle companies. At eight o'clock in the morning, as planned, they moved forward, but, crossing the highway, they came under machine-gun fire from bunkers equipped on one of the hills. Having lost one soldier killed, the motorized riflemen retreated back. It's a shame! After all, a day earlier, while on patrol, we spotted these firing points and reported on command, as expected. Somewhat later, a small group of scouts from the Volgograd reconnaissance battalion, guarding the headquarters of the northern group, went to the mountain. But they also returned back, reporting that the regiment’s reconnaissance unit was surrounded at a height and was fighting an unequal battle, and it was not possible to get through to us. We were given some help by a mortar battery, which, having resumed fire on the slopes of the high-rise buildings, did not allow the militants to quickly maneuver and pursue us.
The soldiers who carried Lieutenant Vlasov from the height sent down Private Zashikhin, wounded in the back, for help. He came out onto the highway not far from us and, losing strength, fired his machine gun upward. Zashikhin reported that Lieutenant Vlasov was alive, he was eight hundred to a thousand meters up the slope, he needed help. Having loaded Sergeant Major Pavlov onto the “bashka”, Senior Lieutenant Kichkasov and I, along with several other volunteer infantrymen, went up the mountain.
And at this time, exhausted, the guys decided to take a break. We sat down. Senior Sergeant Larin placed the commander's head on his lap. The last time Volodya whispered:
-Where are the infantry? How's the height?..
“Everything is fine, they fought off,” Larin said, turning away.
And Vlasov died. They continued to carry Volodya until they ran into an ambush of “spirits”.
Around two o'clock in the afternoon, led by Senior Lieutenant Kichkasov, 29 of us, along with the wounded, came to the regiment's location...

A week later, the chief of reconnaissance of the regiment, Major Ilyukhin, led us to a height of 382.1. We occupied the height at night, without shots fired. Within a week, aviation and artillery had plowed it beyond recognition.
In the morning, at the height, we found three of our comrades. The bodies of Senior Sergeant Seleznev and Sergeant Khmelevsky were mutilated. “Spirits” are afraid of dead scouts. Lieutenant Vladimir Vlasov was found three days later with a mine (F-1 under his head, RGD-5 in his pocket).
Sergeant Major V. Pavlov died in Mozdok on December 25, the very day when the height would become ours. Junior Sergeant S. Nedoshivin will be found by the Ministry of Emergency Situations in three months, and he will be buried in his homeland in Penza. Private Kenzhibaev and sapper Bulatov are still considered missing. I and several of my comrades were the last to see and carried them out from that height. That they could not bear it is our pain for the rest of our lives, and that they died heroically is a fact.
The head of intelligence, Major N. Ilyukhin, will die from a sniper’s bullet on January 21 in Grozny, on Minutka Square. Senior Lieutenant A. Kichkasov has already retired to the reserve. Alexey is not a career military man (he graduated from Saransk University, he is a teacher and coach in martial arts). Kichkasov has more than thirty combat reconnaissance missions to his name, he is an excellent officer and fearless commander. On January 23, Alexey will be seriously shell-shocked in Grozny and, after recovery in a Rostov hospital, will retire to the reserve. For the battle at an altitude of 382.1, for Grozny, Kichkasov will be nominated for the title of Hero of Russia. Thank you, Alexey, for not leaving us at that height, for bringing us to your people...
* * *

Junior Sergeant Sergei Vladimirovich Nedoshivin, deputy platoon commander of the reconnaissance company of the 506th motorized rifle regiment. In April 2000 he was buried at the Ternovskoye cemetery in Penza. Posthumously awarded the Order of Courage. Everlasting memory!!!

Andrey Seleznev was born in the town of Ufa on February 7, 1977. Since 1983, he lived and studied in Totskoye 2. Andrei’s father no longer lived with them since childhood.Lyudmila Simonova (Shcherbakova), a school teacher, talks about him: "
I taught Andryushka from the 7th grade,was their homeroom teacher from grades 7 to 11, teaching Russian language and literature. There were 43 people in the class at that time. His mother, Lyudmila Ivanovna, always took him with her to parent meetings; this was an educational moment: he listened to complaints about himself from teachers. And they complained about inattention, I couldn’t sit for a long time, something had to be done. In class he enjoyed authority from his classmates, did not offend anyone, was polite with teachers, and respected adults. He was the leader in the class: he organized all the trips: he took us out into nature at any time of the year. We had a favorite place - not far from the Holy Spring: the boys from the class made a table and benches around it: we made a fire, played, sang songs. Each of us still remembers these events. Served honestly in the army. When I came on vacation, all the graduates in the town gathered at Andrey’s. We also saw him off from vacation together and went to the station. But when the news came, the guys and I again gathered at Andrei’s mother. They were waiting for confirmation of death and... They didn’t believe it... But then they brought a zinc coffin. Colleagues arrived and talked about our HERO: he never complained about anything, he was such a “live.” We watch a film where he stands with his colleagues on the mountain and says: “There’s not much left. Wait. I’ll be there soon.” And a heavy exhalation.... DIDN'T ARRIVE. They were also buried by the whole town. We try not to forget about our graduates: we go to the cemetery, introduce younger schoolchildren to boys who have not yet managed to start a family, but have bravely endured all the hardships of military service. They were written about in the book "Black Tulip."

Andrei served his military service in the missile forces. After the emergency, I went on a contract to do reconnaissance in the division of my military camp.Left for Chechnya on October 25, 1999. Andrey was a wonderful friend and person. He respected his parents. LyudmilaSelezneva (Plotnikova) Mother,Andrey,loves and misses you very much to this day.
Natalya Borodaenko. Nina Bulgakova. Marina Revina nurses who treated the wounded of the 506th Motorized Rifle Regiment in 1999. They remember him cheerful, coming to the medical unit, showing his body armor, which his mother had improved for him.
On December 17, 1999, a reconnaissance group of seven people under the command of Senior Lieutenant Alexei Kichkasov conducted reconnaissance in a holiday village near the settlement. Suburban. From here the militants conducted harassing fire on units of the regiment's second battalion using sniper rifles, grenade launchers and ATGMs. Having discovered several firing points, bunkers and dugouts on the slopes, we received an order to withdraw. In the afternoon we returned to the temporary deployment point. battle for height 382.1 near Grozny. Two hours later, the company was given a new mission: to capture the strategically important height 382.1, as well as two high-rise buildings on the approaches to it and hold them until the arrival of units of the second battalion. Powerful artillery preparation was promised, including the use of volumetric explosion shells, as well as support with all available forces and means.
This hill towered over the Chechen capital. It offered an excellent overview of Prigorodnoye, Gikalovsky, the 53rd section of Grozny, Chernorechye. The mental hospital was also clearly visible - a strong cruciform building made of red brick, which, as it turned out later, was a powerful stronghold of the militants. At the very top there were once rocket men, and powerful concrete fortifications and deep bunkers are still preserved.

December 18, 1999 at 7.15 they rushed forward in a long chain along a narrow path. About twenty minutes later, the lead patrol and the first group reached the outskirts of the plateau. There were no more than 150 meters left to the tower. At the bottom of the circular trench they found a large-caliber machine gun, carefully covered with a blanket. After ten or fifteen steps, the patrol came across a “spirit” that had grown up as if from underground. Private Yu. Kurgankov, who was walking first, reacted faster - a point-blank burst and a dash into the trench.
And immediately the plateau came to life, machine guns and machine guns started working. The lead patrol and the first group dispersed to the right of the direction of movement and occupied a shallow trench along the edge of the height.

The battle is already going on throughout the high-rise building. On the right, slightly ahead, were Sergeant N. Meleshkin, Senior Sergeant Seleznev, Company Foreman Edik, Sergeant E. Khmelevsky, Junior Sergeant A. Arshinov, Corporal A. Shurkin. Running onto the roof of the bunker, senior sergeant Andrei Seleznev throws a grenade down.
At this time, the “spiritual” snipers opened fire. In the second group, Corporal A. Shurkin was the first to die. The bullet hit him in the eye. Without crying out, he silently sank down. Senior Sergeant Seleznev died next - a sniper’s bullet pierced his arm and entered his chest. Andrei turned around before our eyes, the “unloading” on him began to smoke. Sergeant E. Khmelevsky also died. He almost reached the entrance to the hangar. The first bullet hit him in the chest, the second in the chin.
On the right flank, in the first group, private S. Kenzhibaev was killed by a sniper bullet, and a big man from Penza, junior sergeant S. Nedoshivin, was hit in the neck by a bullet, breaking an artery. Private A. Zashikhin radioed to the regiment that there was a battle going on, there were killed and wounded. The next moment he himself was wounded by a grenade fragment.
An order to withdraw comes over the radio station. The company commander, Lieutenant I. Ostroumov, is trying to bring it to everyone’s attention, but this is not easy to do. Soldiers in groups of several people are in different trenches. The radio station of the first group was destroyed by an explosion, the signalmen were injured, and the roar was so loud that you couldn’t stop shouting. And Ostroumov with the seven soldiers who were nearby, including the artillery gunner and signalman, retreats down. He returned to the regiment's location at about nine in the morning.
And the battle at the height continued. Lieutenant V. Vlasov was seriously wounded in the stomach by a machine-gun burst. Sapper Bulatov, who rushed to his aid, was killed by a sniper.

A week later, the regiment's reconnaissance chief, Major Ilyukhin, led the fighters to a height of 382.1. The height was occupied at night, without shots being fired. Within a week, aviation and artillery had plowed it beyond recognition.
In the morning, at the height, we found three of our comrades. The bodies of Senior Sergeant Seleznev and Sergeant Khmelevsky were mutilated.Andrei Seleznev's eyes were gouged out, his stomach was torn open, his ear was cut off, his throat was cut. Zhenya Khmelevsky had 17 knives, his ear was cut. His eyes were gouged out. The conscript was apparently killed and nothing was done with him. And two were later found in a holiday village - according to their badges .They were delivered on the 8th day.“Spirits” are afraid of dead scouts. Lieutenant Vladimir Vlasov was found three days later with a mine (F-1 under his head, RGD-5 in his pocket).
Sergeant Major V. Pavlov died in Mozdok on December 25, the very day when the height would become ours. Junior Sergeant S. Nedoshivin will be found by the Ministry of Emergency Situations in three months, and he will be buried in his homeland in Penza. Private Kenzhibaev and sapper Bulatov are still considered missing. I and several of my comrades were the last to see and carried them out from that height. That they could not bear it is our pain for the rest of our lives, and that they died heroically is a fact.
The head of intelligence, Major N. Ilyukhin, will die from a sniper’s bullet on January 21 in Grozny, on Minutka Square. Senior Lieutenant A. Kichkasov has already retired to the reserve. Alexey is not a career military man (he graduated from Saransk University, he is a teacher and coach in martial arts). Kichkasov has more than thirty combat reconnaissance missions to his name, he is an excellent officer and fearless commander. On January 23, Alexey will be seriously shell-shocked in Grozny and, after recovery in a Rostov hospital, will retire to the reserve. For the battle at an altitude of 382.1, for Grozny, Kichkasov will be nominated for the title of Hero of Russia. Thank you, Alexey, for not leaving us at that height, for bringing us to yours...

On the right is Nikolai Ilyukhin, company reconnaissance major. Andrey's friend,will die from a sniper’s bullet on January 21 in Grozny, on Minutka Square.

in the top row on the left Ilyukhin Nikolay