Gru during the Chechen company. The history of "Musik" (Colonel of the GRU special forces)
GRU special forces brigades in the wars in Chechnya
The most acute phase of operations in the North Caucasus and in Chechnya in particular has already passed. But only for those who have never touched these events closely. Each GRU special forces fighter in Chechnya, videos about which can be found in a significant amount in this article, will hardly ever forget every day spent in the Chechen Republic. This article is long overdue, and it’s not even about the approaching one, there are simply topics that cannot be ignored.
Let's talk about the participation of special forces in the campaign against Chechen field commanders' militants. Or, to put it simply, about the GRU special forces in Chechnya. The video materials presented in the article will also arouse interest. It is also worth remembering the heroes of this war, or the counter-terrorist operation - as it is more convenient for anyone to call it. The essence of this will not change. As well as not returning those guys from the GRU special forces brigades in Chechnya, who forever remained to look at the mountains. Not through the sight of a machine gun, but from the sky.
Those who do not know history are forced to go through science anew. And it would be wrong to forget about the high casualties of special forces in this terrible southern meat grinder. You can safely watch the GRU special forces on television, having stumbled upon the news or films, but not know their glorious history. Yes, it often happens. Therefore, it will not be superfluous to talk about the glorious tough guys from the GRU special forces brigades, who honestly performed their duty. And here you can watch a video of the GRU special forces in Chechnya in good quality.
Chechen syndrome
What can I say, Russia has a long history, and everything has happened in it. Living in our vast area different people, different nations, and even now there are people who secretly dream of independence. What can we say about the collapse of the USSR and the creation of new independent states. Many countries had independent sentiments, but only 15 Soviet socialist republics. The aspirations of SA General Dzhokhar Dudayev did not come true.
The Ichkerian conflict is, of course, not only Dudayev's battles against the GRU special forces in Chechnya. It just so happened that they were the most combat-ready formations in the newly formed Russian army, which lost in numbers, combat capability, the amount of equipment and material base. But it was nice to look at the GRU special forces - trained people, most of whom went through the crucible of the fight against dushmans in unfriendly Afghanistan.
Severe guys from the special forces brigades of the main intelligence department became everyone in the units that served in Chechnya. Often, after all, poorly trained recruits were thrown into the war, who were even afraid to shoot from a machine gun at Wahhabis, well-trained, radically minded, well-armed. Therefore, the losses were extremely high. But with the special forces, everything was different - the elite, whatever one may say, are fighters who are prepared to destroy the enemy. If you watch various videos of GRU spetsnaz in Chechnya, you can see how they perform often impossible tasks. But there are no random people in the GRU special forces brigades. It is a fact.
And everyone is a hero
I don’t know if you have heard about Senior Lieutenant Dolonin, who served in military intelligence e, in . Now this unit, unfortunately, no longer exists, it was disbanded as a result of the infamous reforms of the Russian army in 2009. But not the point. You will hardly find a mention of his feat in the video collections of the GRU special forces in Chechnya. Yes, and with films on this topic - extremely suitable, I note - a bit tight, frankly. But the man showed incredible resilience: being seriously wounded, for a long time he covered the retreat of his practically surrounded comrades with machine gun fire. Senior Lieutenant Dolonin died, but his comrades from the 12th GRU ObrSpN escaped inevitable death at the hands of Chechen fighters.
It is people like Senior Lieutenant Dolonin who are the quintessence of the whole essence of the role of special forces in the bloody war against the rebels. It was absolutely not a shame to look at the GRU special forces. They were proud of them, they were respected by their own and frankly feared by enemies. For the murder of a commando, a separate, very large bonus was relied on, plus promotion through the military ladder. But it was more likely that the soldiers of the GRU special forces brigades destroyed the enemies and carried out combat missions than fell into the bloody paws of the enemy and the cold hands of the goddesses of death.
No, of course, the special forces soldiers were dying. It cannot be that the warring parties did not lose anyone - this is the prerogative of myths, cheap action movies and all sorts of computer toys. The GRU special forces in Chechnya suffered very heavy losses, numbering in the tens, hundreds of people. There were losses due to errors in command and encirclement by enemies, from ambushes, during the performance of various tasks, including those that were considered and are considered impossible. But we are talking about the elite, the very best. Yes, there were losses, but if it were not for these soldiers, the best of the worst would have to be sent, and the losses would have been much greater. We must look at the GRU special forces as the force through which many young soldiers went through this survival school and returned home alive.
Conclusion
I repeat once again: I am convinced and believe that the role of the GRU special forces in Chechnya is practically invaluable. Connections military intelligence were the most combat-ready of all the formations of the Russian army, in principle, as now. That's how it should have been. And in war time their power, experience and hardening were very much needed to turn the tide of the war in their favor, so that the arriving guys would feel more confident under the wing of strong defenders. A war without experienced people develops into a banal throwing of meat.
It is not for nothing that the collections of videos of the GRU special forces in Chechnya are quite large - often tough guys from the special forces were at the forefront, performing a variety of functions and tasks. The broad masses of the population often do not know the names and surnames of ordinary workers of the GRU special forces brigades, but if you wish, you can always get acquainted with the list, at least of those who did not live to see the end of the war.
Military Intelligence Day is a very important holiday in the army calendar, perhaps not as famous as the day special forces of the Airborne Forces but many people know about it. I would like, of course, to make this holiday more famous, but not everything depends on the Voenpro online store. We can (and do) write more about GRU spetsnaz brigades, we can help people buy - we have a wide range of spetsnaz goods - and we will continue to do so, because we consider it our duty to talk about deserving people.
To make the memory of service in the military intelligence unit and GRU special forces brighter, you can use your brigade, detachment, even the nominal flag of your platoon.
And in autumn and winter, in addition to the very symbolism of the formation and type of troops, you can be warmed by an excellent
Friends call him the gentle word "Music". Yes, and he does not look at all like a seasoned officer who went through the hell of Afghanistan and Chechnya, but like some intelligent Soviet botanist engineer or an elderly skipper from a peaceful fishing trawler (this is because of the beard). In general, not the way a veteran of special forces should look, according to the layman. On the other hand, who should such a person look like? On the closed, gloomy, suspicious, beaten by life John Rambo?
He is not closed, but very modest. Quiet like that. Laconic, speaks quietly, if not to say - quietly. Perhaps that is why they listen to him. But he gives detailed answers to questions, formulates thoughts intelligibly, with examples, almost literary.
Lanky, long-necked, with a sharp Adam's apple protruding above the shirt collar. The face is open, the gaze is direct, honest, gray-blue penetrating eyes, a soft, friendly smile. This civilian appearance does not fit with his past at all. He even dresses in a cozy homely way - you know, such soft jumpers with a deep neckline, under which they put on shirts ...
In general, until I saw him in my photo studio in an Afghan "gerbil", I could not get used to the idea that this is the same Musik, who in 86 took part in the legendary and secret operation "Karera" to destroy the fortified area of the Islamic regiment named after Abdul Vakil, for which the special forces crossed the border with Pakistan and fought there, which, for obvious reasons, was denied by official Moscow. This quiet modest smashed Mujahideen caravans near Jalalabad, put Emomali Rahmon on the Tajik throne, supervised the creation of the first "ethnic" special forces battalions of the "West" and "East" type in Chechnya. And, finally, it was Musienko who led the intelligence of the special forces in the operation to destroy Ruslan Gelaev ...
Gelaev was called the Black Eagle. I don’t know if he is an eagle, but I treat him with respect - as an opponent with a strong spirit. And so he died.
Helicopters, on one of which I was the commander of the group, processed the slopes of the gorge with a machine gun, suggesting that there could be firing positions of militants. Suddenly, the commander of the helicopter crew shouted to me:
Commander, these are not yours?
Not! Perfume!
We saw two people climbing up the gorge. We were separated by no more than three hundred meters. I opened fire on them with a machine gun, but the commander of the helicopter crew asked me not to shoot and covered the slope with a volley of 80-mm aircraft rockets. The militants were simply swept away from the ridge and overwhelmed by an avalanche. One of these two was Ruslan Gelaev. This was established in February, when his corpse was dug out from under the snow. In general, death in the mountains ... According to the pathoanatomical conclusion, Gelaev's death was caused by "multiple shrapnel wounds, fractures of the limbs and blood loss as a result of traumatic amputation of the hand."
But it was last Stand. And it began military biography Musienko in Afghanistan.
Afghanistan. Start
In 1985, two months before graduating from the Kyiv VOKU - the higher combined arms command school - a "buyer" from the GRU arrived and asked me at an interview:
And if the motherland sends to fulfill an international duty?
I replied:
- I will go with pleasure!
- With pleasure?
- Yes sir! I have been preparing for this for four years!
After graduating from college, I looked at the prescription and ... immediately realized that it was an Afghan. Usually it indicated the position, district, group of troops. I had only three words: “becomes at the disposal of the TurkVO (Turkestan military district. - “RR”)”. Without details. So at the age of 21 I ended up in the 154th separate detachment special purpose(OOSPN) of the 15th GRU Special Forces Brigade. Upon arrival, they told me: “Work calmly. There are no “fuck heroes” here. There are soldiers here. Command them like an officer." And on the very first climb, I turned over the beds with demobilized people who did not want to get up for exercise ...
I had no combat experience before Afghanistan, but I had a good military education. I knew all the equipment, all the weapons: from a pistol to an infantry fighting vehicle, I knew the topography, I knew how to navigate unfamiliar terrain on a map.
In fact, officially there was no GRU special forces in Afghanistan. The very word "special forces" was taboo. We were listed as the 1st separate motorized rifle battalion, but carried out in its purest form reconnaissance and sabotage tasks. We hunted caravans from Pakistan and "slaughtered" them. Personally, I had 96 military exits in Afghanistan. Every fifth of them was productive.
The first fight is always the scariest. My first was in the village of Bagicha, 25 kilometers south of Jalalabad. We raided the Islamic committee in that village. We had a demonstrative agent with us, and we decided to cover all the field commanders with a sudden raid. In the roar of the Mi-24 propellers that passed over the yard where the “committee members” were sitting, the noise of two “eights” with a landing party on board was not heard, and two reconnaissance groups landed safely on the hill from above.
The appearance of special forces in the courtyard of the house was completely unexpected for the spirits. The commander of the group, Zhenya Ovsyannikov, simply jumped down to them from the cliff that protected the courtyard from the side of the hill. The scouts immediately began to "mopping up". In that battle, I killed my first spirit: two ran away from the yard, and I killed one with a machine gun. The second managed to get away.
In that battle, we lost the company commander, Captain Alexei Turkov, and the platoon commander, Lieutenant Ovsyannikov. We slept in adjacent beds. He died immediately.
Then there was the 334th Asadabad detachment. We were called suicide bombers. The detachment had the most difficult zone - the Kunar region, a mountainous and wooded area. I worked there for eight months.
For me, Afghanistan has remained a holy war. It was the high point of the GRU special forces and the swan song of the Soviet Army. We did not lose this war. But they didn't win either.
Musienko does not say “fought”, “fought”. He says "worked". This is what an officer's job is - to fight and die. And they were dying. The price of the combat experience of the GRU special forces for ten years is 875 dead scouts. But the enemy paid dearly for their lives.
Here is a quote from the order of the headquarters of the 40th combined arms army: “Only in 1987, special forces units intercepted and destroyed 332 caravans with weapons and ammunition, which did not allow the leadership of the rebels to supply more than 290 heavy weapons, 80 MANPADS (portable air defense systems), 30 PURS (missile launchers) to the interior provinces of Afghanistan shells - the Chinese 12-barrel analogue of the legendary Katyusha. - “RR”), more than 15 thousand mines, 8 millionammunition."
Tajikistan. Second war
Listening to Colonel Musienko, you think: was there peace in his life? Shortly after graduation afghan war he was sent to Nagorno-Karabakh. Three months of war between Armenians and Azerbaijanis. And then there was Tajikistan.
In 1991, after it collapsed Soviet Union, the 15th GRU brigade, where I then served, was “gifted” to Uzbekistan. I received the rank of major by order of the Minister of Defense of Uzbekistan. In the summer of 1992 broke out Civil War in neighboring Tajikistan. Uzbek Defense Minister Rustam Akhmedov ordered us to participate in the "restoration of the constitutional order of the Republic of Tajikistan." A special reconnaissance detachment was formed. I was the chief of staff of this detachment. The composition of the detachment is about a hundred people. Most are officers with Afghan experience. By the way, our commander was Vladimir Kvachkov, the same one who was tried for the assassination attempt on Chubais.
In Tajikistan, two warring camps were conditionally divided into "Yurchiks" and "Vovchiks". “Yurchiks” were those who were for secular power or something else, and “Vovchiks” were those who seemed to be in the Islamic opposition, that is, Wahhabis.
However, people signed up for both camps not so much by their convictions as by their place of residence and kinship, and the republic was divided according to the tribal principle. Pamirs, Kulyabs, Karategins, Hissars…
What was going on there!.. At the Shar-Shar pass we counted thirty victims of Mullo Adjik's bandits. In one house I saw the corpse of a twelve-year-old girl who had been raped. There were bite marks on her cheeks and neck, her stomach was torn open ... Next to her in the corner lay another dead lump - her six-year-old brother. The corpse of their mother was lying in the ravine with lowered bloomers... I will not forget the gravel pit a few kilometers south of Kurgan-Tyube, filled with the bodies of the executed Kulyab residents, partially gnawed by dogs. In total, more than three hundred and fifty corpses were counted there. They cut out everyone in a row, regardless of gender and age, with entire families and villages.
Our group worked in Kurgan-Tyube, and when the main part returned back, I remained in the operational group of the RU General Staff of Uzbekistan. In order to somehow legalize, we came up with the name "People's Front of Tajikistan" (PFT). Our main support was the criminal authority Sangak Safarov, an elderly man who spent 21 years in prison. He was a born leader with excellent organizational skills, a heightened sense of justice and patriotism - and he headed the NFT.
It was Sangak who introduced me to "Emomalishka" - now the President of the Republic, Emomali Rahmon. Then Rahmon was the chairman of the collective farm. The picture still stands before my eyes: Rahmon with a huge lyagan (decorative plate. - “RR”) pilaf and a bottle of vodka introduces himself to Sangak on the occasion of his appointment as chairman of the regional executive committee. Later, after the death of Safarov, Emomali turned from a puppet into a local god-president who destroyed everyone who brought him to power. Someone was planted, someone was buried ...
I was one of the main advisers to Sangak, and later to the Minister of Internal Affairs of Tajikistan. We supplied the NFT units with weapons and ammunition, using special methods guerrilla war, helped to unite everyone who was against the "Vovchiks", and taught them to fight. In fact, the partisan movement in Tajikistan was organized by specialists from the GRU special forces.
Actually, we also fought. It was the spetsnaz officers who planned the operations and were the core of all landings. "Vovchikov" was driven from January to May and driven to the Pamirs. We successfully landed troops on the dominant heights in the Karategin valley. By the end of the winter of 1993, the NFT units took the Romit fortified area with a fight. Both operations were planned by the Russian "Uzbeks" - the special forces of the 15th brigade.
There were many small skirmishes, spontaneous operations, improvisations, in which spetsnaz ingenuity came to the rescue. I remember well the assault on Shar-Shara on November 11, 1992. Emomali, terrified to death, calls me and shouts that in the morning the "Vovchiks" saddled the pass. Asked for help, in general. We took, I won’t say where, two armored personnel carriers, an easel grenade launcher, an 82-mm mortar, loaded a 30-mm automatic grenade launcher onto our UAZ and ... with two dozen fighters went to storm the pass.
They acted like a textbook. We approached the foot, fired at the positions with mortars and grenade launchers. The grass caught fire upstairs, the smoke was like a yoke, one of our mines destroyed the house. Already good! And then all of us, twenty fighters and officers, under the cover of a BTEER, launched a frontal attack on them. Then the “Vovchiks” realized that it was not the “Yurchiks” who were fighting against them, but the Russians, and fled.
Although we were listed as officers of the Uzbek army, we continued to serve Russia. In parallel with the war, we conducted political intelligence - it was thanks to our work that comfortable conditions were created for the transfer of power in the region to politicians with whom Moscow could build normal relations.
In total, the civil war in Tajikistan, which lasted from 1992 to 1997, claimed 85,000 lives. But the colonel is sure: if there were no Russian special forces there, the bill could go to hundreds of thousands, and it is possible that Tajikistan as a state would cease to exist.
Chechnya. Ulman case
After Tajikistan, Colonel Musienko returned to Russia and taught at the Novosibirsk Higher Military command school at the department of special intelligence - trained officers for units and formations of special forces of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation. It was then that he met Eduard Ulman - he was a student at his faculty.
In the second Chechnya, I commanded an officer task force that carried out special tasks: we hunted for the leaders of Chechen gangs. Edik was the commander of a reconnaissance group and worked together with another of my graduates. I learned their names from the reports. They had two years of experience and good results in reaching tasks.
Coincidentally, I witnessed their detention by the military prosecutor's office and how explanations were taken from them. In the intelligence information and analytical center (RIAC) I came across two strangely dressed officers - they were in combat gear, but with empty unloadings without ammunition and without weapons. One of them was Ulman. I asked:
Since when have officers been disarmed at the RIAC?
Yes we ... yes us ... here it is ...
They told what exactly happened. What commands who gave them and what happened next. They, the scouts, had the task of preventing the enemy from breaking through the area of the special operation. Ulman's reconnaissance group was in ambush on the outskirts of the forest, and when a suspicious car approached them, they ordered the driver to stop. The order was military-style simple - machine-gun fire in front of the car. But the car didn't stop. Then they shot her with several barrels. I know that under similar circumstances, two girls died in another area. Sitting in the car with them... Maskhadov. The girls were his cover.
I think either the driver or whoever was sitting next to him was a gunman who forced the driver not to stop. Then, when the wrecked car was inspected and the incident was reported to the RIAC, Ulman was instructed to leave the area. Before leaving, he helped the wounded! Why would he bandage them, inject them with promedol, if he intended to finish off the wounded and burn the car? It was then that Ulman was ordered to cover his tracks, and he complied with the order ...
Why couldn't Edik have acted differently? A wounded enemy left behind can show where and in what composition the reconnaissance group left. And this group can be destroyed by militants.
And then Ulman… got caught. My conclusion: there is a fact of criminal negligence and illiteracy of the operational duty officer at the RIAC, who gave conflicting orders to the reconnaissance group. And the chaos of war is to blame. No luck for Ulman and the people he killed. Nobody likes to kill innocent people. Live with this later...
Few people understand this horror of war and all its truth. The colonel really feels sorry for both Ulman and the people he killed. But there are people whom he does not feel sorry for. At all.
Chechnya-2. Hunt for Gelaev
It all started with an attack on a Russian frontier post in the Tsumadinsky district of Dagestan, a few kilometers from the Georgian border. The bandits attacked unexpectedly and destroyed the mobile border detachment. It was impossible to leave this unpunished. Special forces of the Ministry of Defense and the Dagestan OMON were thrown into Tsumada. I was assigned as task force commander. At first, we intended to check for the presence of militants in one of the caves and flew there, but we could not land - the depth of the snow did not allow; the helicopter's engines sucked snow, water got into them, and the crew was afraid that the landing would end in disaster. I had to sit down at the frontier post itself and advance under its own power. For two days we rummaged through the mountains, got wet, froze and didn’t find a damn thing ...
The militants were found in the region of the Kusa ridge, and an operation was launched to destroy them. I headed the VKP (air command post. - "RR"), which was supposed to coordinate the management of all intelligence forces in the area.
We flew 36 times in 11 days. Already on the second day they began to bomb the ways of the supposed retreat of the gang. Later it turned out that as a result, one of the members of the bandit group, an Arab, a citizen of Germany, Abu Yassin, was killed. It was he who stabbed the commander of the frontier post.
Then a snowstorm followed for days. Everything was covered. There are no traces. And no one believes that we will find the militants. Moscow ridiculed us. The General Staff accused of fantasies:
Where are the Chechen fighters from in this area?
Imagine: on New Year's Eve, we spend two weeks stuck in absolutely wild snow-capped mountains and chasing an enemy we can't see. My operational duty officer handed over a box of tangerines to me and the helicopter pilots from Khankala for the holiday. There was a note in the box: "We wish you success in the fight against virtual spirits!"
And on December 20 we found them. And again the gorges were bombed. I worked as an aircraft controller, since I had experience from Afghanistan. The first link of the "dryers" was bombed incorrectly, and then Lieutenant General Gorbas, commander of the 4th Air Force Army, a fifty-year-old Afghan veteran, sat at the helm of the Su-25. He took off from the Kuban and forty minutes after takeoff was already working in Tsumada.
The difficulty was that the gorges were very narrow - only a few tens of meters wide and about two hundred deep. And the height above sea level is just over three thousand meters. Due to the narrowness of the gorges, neither direct bombing nor nose-ups were suitable. It was possible to apply only a dive - with acute angle attacks. In this case, it was possible to hit accurately, but this is a big risk for the pilot. One mistake - and you can not get out of the attack, but crash into a rock. You can drop bombs while on the very ceiling of the height, but then we are not talking about targeted bombing: the pilot simply does not see the target.
And so, having risen into the air, I directed the Su-25 from the side of the Mi-8.
In the end, everything went well. The bombs triggered avalanches on the right slopes, blocking the militants in the gorge and cutting off their escape routes. They had no way back: everything was littered with hundreds of tons of snow and ice. Without food, frostbitten, they sat at a height for several days. When trying to break through, they ran into the fire of our ambushes. Then they split into two groups. One was bound to go to Georgia for help. The second, with the wounded and frostbitten, remained in the gorge. They saw how the special forces were squeezing the ring, and at night they crossed into the neighboring gorge. Every day, the "ears of militants" demanded from us from the General Staff. They yelled at us and said that we “eat cereal for nothing”:
You have a week for surgery, no more!
On December 27, the first group of militants ran into an ambush of border guards. Four bandits were killed. Three more “leopards Gelaev” were taken prisoner. They preferred death by bullets, starvation and cold to him. At the very first interrogation, the prisoners told the FSB officers exactly who we were hunting. But I found out about it three days earlier.
On December 24, a Chechen militant, Ali Magomadov, was captured. Dagestan riot police took him. The Chechen was exhausted and severely frostbitten. We saved his life. They did not beat him, they provided medical assistance and treated him to cigarettes and ... tangerines. The very ones that were sent to us from Khankala. Why such humanism? It was this militant who admitted that the commander of the bandit group, which we drove through the gorges in Tsumada, was the Chechen Brigadier General Ruslan Gelaev. We reported this to Kvashnin (at that time Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. - “RR”).
Kvashnin asked:
Do you need anything?
And I asked for the Ka-27. This is a shipborne two-axle helicopter that can fly up to 3,000 meters. From the board of this turntable, you can land a reconnaissance group in hovering mode right on the top of the ridge and give the scouts the opportunity to operate from top to bottom, and not climb the rocks from below.
The helicopter took off from the Black Sea Novorossiysk, but traveled to the Caspian Sea for three days. And we continued to work. Moreover, we found climbing ropes, mountain boots, and Gortex jackets from the captured and killed militants. We just didn't have it. All that was sent to us by the end of the operation was rigging ropes. Due to the lack of equipment, we lost six people: they died on the rocks, falling into the gorge. The radio operator broke, and his commander, Lieutenant Alexei Dergunov, climbed to get him and fell after him. For me it was a terrible blow: Alexey is my graduate. Their corpses were collected for a long time, with the help of specialists from the Ministry of Emergency Situations of Dagestan. The radio operator of the scouts was the last to be found, already five days after the end of the operation.
And on December 28 came the denouement. Soldiers of the Volgograd reconnaissance battalion noticed a small group of militants descending a rock on a bunch of automatic belts. The thirst for glory prevented the scouts from reporting this to the CPSU. And they went to the capture with some machine guns. The battle went on during the day, and I personally had to evacuate the wounded by helicopter, landing the car in the bed of the Andiyskoye Koysu River.
The Chechens took refuge in a cave. It was impossible to bypass them along the steep slopes, and they kept the bottom of the canyon under fire. Nevertheless, the scouts managed to destroy several militants, pinned down in the maneuver by mortar fire. Then ensign Igor Mokrushin distinguished himself. His mortar crew laid mines 30–50 meters from their scouts. Mines were delivered to the high-altitude firing position on donkeys by residents of the surrounding villages. In this battle, the seventh "two hundredth" appeared - in addition to those guys who crashed on the rocks.
On the morning of the next day, three groups of special forces went to the cave area, and the battle broke out there again. Helicopters of the border troops were lifted into the air, I was on board one of them as the head of the CPSU. What happened next, I have already told.
So the official statements of the press services, which claimed that Gelaev was mortally wounded by two soldiers of the FSB border troops, who fell from bandit bullets in an unequal battle, after which the brigadier general amputated his own hand, look somewhat unnatural.
Together with Gelaev, twenty bandits were destroyed, nine surrendered. The special forces lost seven. For this operation, Alexander Musienko was presented with the Star of the Hero, then they replayed her for the Order of Merit for the Fatherland, 2nd degree, they even tried to award her with a nominal weapon, but in the end they did not award anything. The commander of the special forces group Alexei Dergunov was awarded the "Gold Star" posthumously. The colonel announced the poor provision of mountain equipment and uniforms for our special forces groups, but ... he only made influential enemies at the very top and in 2006 was forced to resign from the GRU. All wars in Russia at that time "ended".
Biography:
Musienko Alexander, colonel of the GRU special forces
He was awarded the Orders of the Red Star, "For Personal Courage", "For Service to the Motherland in the Armed Forces of the USSR" 3rd degree, "For Merit to the Fatherland" 4th degree with swords and the Order of Courage.
He fought in Afghanistan, Tajikistan and Chechnya (in the second campaign). In Afghanistan, for two years he commanded a group of the 1st company of the 154th special forces detachment of the GRU General Staff and was the deputy commander of the company of the 334th detachment, who worked effectively during ambushes on caravans with weapons coming from Pakistan and raids on Mujahideen strongholds. In Tajikistan, Musienko led partisan movement"People's Front". In Chechnya and Dagestan, he developed operations to eliminate three of the most odious field commanders and took a direct part in them. For almost 20 years of military life, he participated in more than 150 combat operations.
During the period of hostilities in the Caucasus about operations Russian special forces little was known. Only the facts of punctures that happened in Russian troops special purpose during the Chechen campaign.
The first major failure occurred on January 7th. On this day, a special forces detachment of the Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) from the 22nd Special Forces Brigade was surrounded. In captivity, the militants turned out to be 48 people, plus the Chechens captured the latest types of silent weapons. Such as the Vintorez sniper rifle, which was previously considered secret. On the evening of January 24, a tragedy occurred with the battalion, from the 16th separate brigade special forces. In an instant, as a result of the explosion of a three-story house, 45 people were buried alive under the rubble, and another 28 scouts were shell-shocked and injured.
Everything else is shrouded in the darkness of mystery. Although the special forces took an active part in the storming of Grozny and in other operations of this war. At the end of February, at the airport in the city of Mineralnye Vody, I talked with an officer from Chechnya, on whose sleeve there was a special forces patch. A young, strong-looking guy with a bandaged head was badly shell-shocked and pondered for a long time what was said to him. He also uttered response phrases for a long time, strongly stuttering and drawing out words. How little he looked like the iron Rambo or other heroes of Western action films, thanks to which the civilian man in the street had an image of an omnipotent superman far from reality.
What are civilians? Some of the military during the fighting in Grozny advocated the capture of the Chechen capital exclusively by special forces units. In fact, by proposing to entrust the functions of conventional combined arms units to the scouts. Which in itself is stupidity. Special Forces can do a lot, but not everything. Moreover, they serve in it for the most part yesterday's schoolchildren, not professional soldiers like the American "green berets" and rangers. But the "green berets" were pierced and made mistakes many times, let's remember at least October 1993, Somalia. In two days, 18 Yankees from the Special Forces were killed there.
My interlocutor, who identified himself as Konstantin, fought in Chechnya, in a GRU special forces battalion. He agreed to talk about some of the events that he witnessed and participated in.
Before Chechnya, Konstantin served for almost a year in the Samara special forces brigade, which was withdrawn from Germany. Our countryman was a squad leader in a company of special measures. What is a special event? Mining, ambushes, all kinds of sabotage on enemy territory, capture of prisoners. I had to skydive.
In total, Kostya made 6 jumps. Is it a lot or a little? Given the lack of funding for combat training, just right. Much attention was paid to maintaining sufficient physical fitness. Marches of 10 kilometers were made every Saturday. Every day the soldiers ran at a distance of 3-5 kilometers. There were classes in hand-to-hand combat and many other things that can be useful in combat conditions. Konstantin was very helped by the fact that he went in for sports before being drafted into the army. Although, according to Kostya, hand-to-hand combat was taught rather superficially, and the classes were mostly focused, such as the silent removal of sentries. Twice a week there was fire training - shooting from small arms.
Konstantin believes that the level of knowledge he received was sufficient. In any case, he exceeded the training of soldiers of motorized rifle troops by many times. Many motorized riflemen before Chechnya did not even hold a machine gun in their hands.
The 33rd Special Forces Battalion was formed in Yekaterinburg. Kostya and several other guys from Mordovia were transferred there. The guys did not know exactly where they would be sent, but they guessed that it would be a hot spot - Georgia or Chechnya. Moreover, events in the latter began to develop with catastrophic speed. At the new duty station, emphasis was placed on mine-blasting training, and orientation skills were improved. Conducted survival courses.
In mid-January, a battalion of 200 soldiers was transferred to Chechnya. They settled in the Severny district, in the building of a hostel. The first time they went to battle on January 23. The front line at that time passed along the Sunzha River. And a group of 10 people went to the Dudayev Palace area. The streets were full of gunfire. Before reaching the place, they dismounted, and a little later they ran towards the institute building. Bullets streaked over their heads. We safely reached the building and sat there for two days - they corrected the artillery fire. And they returned without loss.
Again, the most serious battles flared up in mid-February, when the assault on Minutka Square began. The group, in which Konstantin was during this operation, for the first time got into serious trouble. It happened at one of the checkpoints. At night, two groups of special forces were located on the front line. Hiding behind a brick wall. Voltage last days It had an effect, and the commandos relaxed - they lost their vigilance: they began to talk, someone even lit a cigarette. According to Konstantin, the area was not monitored at all.
They heard that it was moving in their direction large group of people. From the post they shouted: “Stop! Password!" In response, silence. And the sound of fire translators being removed from the fuses. To the repeated shouting of the soldiers from the post, they shouted in response: “Allah Akbar!” and opened fire on the commandos. Ours lay down and began to shoot back. The militant who yelled "Allah Akbar" was the first to get shot. It was shot by a Russian sniper with a rifle with a night sight. One of the officers at first demanded a ceasefire. Another reconnaissance group was supposed to return from the mission, and it could come under fire. Of course, no one listened to him. Someone even sent away in their hearts.
The shootout went on for twenty minutes. Some of the militants tried to attack ours by entering a nearby house. Special forces threw several grenades into its windows, loud groans of the wounded were heard, they were finished off with a couple more grenades. In total, the Chechens lost about a dozen killed. The spetsnaz lost two seriously wounded. One guy was hit in the chest by three bullets, miraculously not hitting the heart. In another, a bullet entered the head behind the ear and flew out in the area of the coccyx. The guys were bandaged, injected with parmedol so that they would not die from pain shock. The wounded were left under the cover of one group, and Kostya's unit went on a mission. In the morning they reported that the guys were safely evacuated. Later it became known that they were operated on in the hospital, nothing threatens their lives.
Their group suffered the most serious losses later, when the Chechen capital was liberated. The army was advancing towards Gudermes. A group on an armored personnel carrier went on reconnaissance - to the rear of the Chechen bandits. Their task was to penetrate as deep as possible behind the front line. Moving forward, from time to time they stopped and contacted the command. The commanders ordered them to move on. Having driven to one of the hills, they saw that a ZiL truck was driving with cows in the back. The Chechens who were sitting in the cockpit tried to “make legs”. One was killed, the other was caught. A plan came up quickly. The group included a 27-year-old contract soldier, an ethnic Armenian. Putting on an Olympian over his uniform, he got into the cabin with the Chechens. Other commandos plunged into the body, the armored personnel carrier followed. The road twisted, and the armored personnel carrier lagged behind.
After some time, their "ZiL" was stopped by militants. There were three of them. A Chechen grenade launcher took aim at a car. The second militant was armed with a machine gun, the third held a machine gun at the ready. The officer sitting in the back said that he would hit the Chechens with a grenade launcher. Another soldier was supposed to open fire with a machine gun. Others are required to leave the truck as soon as possible.
The officer jumped up and fired at the militants from a disposable fly grenade launcher. But a jet stream of hot gases touched the ear of that fighter in the back, who was supposed to cover everyone with automatic fire. The stunned soldier, having risen, began to randomly “water” the area from his Kalashnikov. A contract soldier sitting in the cab killed another Chechen. Only three people managed to jump out of the car. Heavy fire was opened on the truck, and all the rest - 7 people - were injured varying degrees gravity. The survivors began to pull out the seriously wounded. The lightly wounded also helped each other. At this time, an armored personnel carrier jumped out from behind a rock and began to hit the positions of the militants from a heavy machine gun. A few moments later, the armored personnel carrier was knocked out from an RPG. The gunner sitting behind the machine gun was also injured, the driver saved him. Everyone took cover behind the armored personnel carrier.
Another group rushed to their aid. In the beginning, the guys tried to get around the Chechens from the rear, but they also ran into fire and were forced to go the same way as the previous group, in which Konstantin was. The battle flared up hot. Chechen bandits, realizing that they were dealing with insignificant forces of Russian troops, stretched out in a chain, went on the attack. The situation became critical, especially since the commandos began to run out of ammunition. The approaching armored personnel carrier took the damaged car in tow, and the special forces began to retreat, hiding behind armored personnel carriers. There was a continuous roar from the bullets hitting the sides. We went up the hill. One of the officers tried to help the driver of the car get out onto the road. The bullet hit the senior lieutenant in the head, and he fell dead in front of the shocked fellow soldiers. Another soldier suddenly began to gasp for air. Bloody foam appeared on the lips. The guy groaned: "I was hurt." They tried to help him, but it was too late, he died.
Due to the lack of communication, half an hour later, a third reconnaissance group ran into the same ambush. These guys were lucky - they had no losses.
According to Konstantin, the army in Chechnya was not allowed to really fight. If it weren't for the constant "ceasefire" made on orders from Moscow, the Chechen campaign would have been over in two months.
My interlocutor honestly admitted that the army special forces were jealous of the riot police, the way they were equipped. The army did not have such equipment. But the fighters had to make many details of the uniform themselves, often taking a thread with a needle in their hands. The commando believes that the infantry bore the brunt of the fighting on their shoulders. The Marines fought well. Kostya treats the internal troops with disdain.
Konstantin has a good opinion of most of the officers who served with him. Many of them went through Afghanistan and these people were on an equal footing with the soldiers. They ate, in fact, with them from the same pot. They equally shared all the hardships and hardships with their subordinates. They did not hide behind the backs of their subordinates. The battalion was high discipline. As for alcohol, they did not abuse it too much there. The commanders said: “Boys, don't drink. If you really want to, come up, we'll sit together, but remember that at any moment we can go to the fighting, and the head must be fresh.
Returning home, Kostya quickly moved away from what he saw there, although for the first weeks he had nightmares, and he often woke up at night.
In Chechnya, two battalions of the GRU special forces are being disbanded - "East" and "West". Against the backdrop of recent all-Russian practice, the event is at first glance an ordinary one: it is no secret to anyone that the Russian army is waiting for a reduction. But there is one unpleasant touch: these GRU units were the only armed formations in Chechnya that were directly subordinate to the Moscow authorities, and not to the president of the republic, Ramzan Kadyrov. They say that everything is as planned: the battalions, they say, were disbanded in order to further strengthen the power of Kadyrov. Is this so and what this decision can lead to, the correspondent of Our Version found out.
To understand the meaning of what is happening with the "West" and "East" and to evaluate possible consequences, let's first say a few words about what kind of units these are. "Vostok" - battalion of the 291st motorized rifle regiment 42nd Guards Motor Rifle Division of the Ministry of Defense Russian Federation. It was formed five years ago from the militants of the Gudermes group of the Yamadayev brothers, who were part of the 2nd battalion National Guard self-proclaimed Ichkeria, but later sided with the federal forces. The personnel are Chechens, as is commonly believed, loyal to Moscow. The battalion is part of the main intelligence agency(GRU) of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, directly reporting to the head of the General Staff Russian army. Until May this year, Sulim Yamadayev, Hero of Russia, commanded the battalion.
“West” is a much more serious structure. It was formed, like Vostok, in 2003, but not from the National Guard "freemen" of yesterday's separatists, but on the basis of the 305th Separate detachment special purpose GRU. Only those who did not stain themselves with cooperation with Dudayev and Maskhadov served in this unit. The West was headed by Said-Magomed Kakiev, a truly legendary person: Hero of Russia, holder of two Orders of Courage, Kakiev opposed the separatist policies of Dzhokhar Dudayev back in 1992 and was one of the organizers of the armed anti-Dudaev resistance. In 1993, he personally participated in the assassination attempt on Dudayev and lost his left arm and eye.
A year later, after undergoing treatment in Moscow, he stormed Grozny, his detachment captured the republican television center and lost almost all of its personnel during the assault - 80 people. Aslan Maskhadov offered a $200,000 reward for Kakiyev's head. Kakiev participated in the defense of Grozny in 1996, and in the second Chechen campaign that began in 1999. I remember the words of Kakiyev at the ceremony of awarding the Golden Star of the Hero of Russia: “I swear by Allah, my fighters and I are ready to die for Russia!” Note: for Russia, not for Chechnya. What, in general, most strikingly distinguished the fighters of the "West" and "East".
So, Ramzan Kadyrov, who gradually cleared the entire republican perimeter of federal armed structures, remained alone with only these two GRU units, which theoretically could pose a danger to his sole power. Moreover, the disciplined and well-managed "West" seemed to Ramzan Kadyrov much more dangerous than the anarchic "East"; it was with him that they dealt with in the first place, and in a Jesuit way.
Kakiyev was “promoted” to the position of Deputy Military Commissar of Chechnya for the military-patriotic education of youth. And he was forced to obey. Kakiev handed over the command to his deputy Bislan Elimkhanov, and somewhere since November last year, the actually decapitated "West" was just waiting for disbandment, and its personnel partially went to work in the police.
With Vostok, the situation was more complicated: Sulim Yamadayev is not a disciplined Lieutenant Colonel Kakiev, and he will not obey any command. The teip of the Yamadayevs, in terms of wealth and influence, could well be compared with Kadyrov's, and Sulim felt himself no less important person than Ramzan. After in April of this year two motorcades of Heroes of Russia - Yamadayev and Kadyrov - could not pass on a narrow mountain path and started a shootout, the fate of the Vostok commander was a foregone conclusion. His command was extended only by the August South Ossetian campaign, in which the detachment took the most active part.
The fighters of the “Vostok” were among the first to enter Tskhinvali and, by their appearance, largely predetermined the imminent outcome of hostilities. But military successes still did not save Sulim and his detachment, although they looked impressive: out of 215 Vostok fighters who took part in the campaign, no one was killed or wounded, only one soldier was shell-shocked. The rest, despite the fact that they fought on the most advanced approaches to the city, in the very heat, did not receive a scratch. Combat training. Now it is clear what Ramzan was afraid of.
And now "Vostok" and "West" are going to be transformed into two motorized rifle companies and included in the 42nd motorized rifle division stationed in Chechnya. Any military man can easily explain what “transformation of two battalions into two companies” means: this means that the personnel of each unit will be reduced by about three times. Accordingly, the combat effectiveness of these units will also decrease by a factor of three. Although, of course, it is not at all about the wishes of the President of Chechnya. As the Deputy Commander-in-Chief explained ground forces The Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation Vladimir Moltenskoy, the reorganization is being carried out in the framework of the formation of a new image of the Ground Forces. And not at all on the order of Kadyrov, as you might think.
General Moltenskoy stressed that "selection for motorized rifle companies will be carried out in the most thorough manner." Translated from military into Russian, this means this: during the “purge” in the detachments of fighters, they will check for loyalty to the president Chechen Republic and the disloyal will be "cleaned out" on the simple grounds that they don't know how to ride a motorcycle. And then a commission specially created by the Ministry of Defense will deal with the victims of the "purge", which, together with the military prosecutor's office, will conduct an "investigation into the crimes alleged by former servicemen of the battalions." However, it is not a secret for anyone that the commission will deal directly with Sulim Yamadayev in the first place.
Yamadayev has been “brought under the article” since about May of this year, when the Gudermes Interdistrict Investigation Department initiated a case against him under part 1 of article 105 of the Criminal Code (murder). As part of the criminal investigation, he was removed from command of the battalion and even put on the federal wanted list. Although it was stupid to look for him: until August he was in Grozny and did not hide from anyone, and after that he was in Tskhinvali.
In other words, no one is particularly looking for him, although the Investigative Committee under the Prosecutor's Office even turned to the Ministry of Internal Affairs with a demand that he be brought by force. However, in reality, no one is going to continue to “nightmare” Yamadayev: moreover, according to our information, he was given a chance to justify himself in absentia before federal structures, in return promising a good position in the Southern Federal District. On the one hand, Sulim is pleased, on the other hand, Ramzan is not at a loss.
Now there are rumors that the disbandment of the "East" and "West" are not Kadyrov's intrigues at all, but just an interdepartmental "exchange". Allegedly, the GRU, in exchange for the appointment to Ingushetia of the "Geraushnik" Yunus-bek Yevkurov, is ready to give up its "instruments of influence" in Chechnya. Like, in the North Caucasus there is a kind of bargaining, at the epicenter of which is the possible unification of Chechnya and Ingushetia. Obviously, the rumors of a merger are nothing more than speculation. Yevkurov was appointed two weeks ago, and the same "West" has been disbanded for a year already - a discrepancy comes out.
So the point here is not the exchange of Chechnya for Ingushetia, but rather an attempt to further strengthen the current government in the republic. Why Moscow needs this is not entirely clear, because by maintaining the existing counterbalances in the person of the commanders of the same "East" and "West", it would be much easier to achieve the maintenance of constitutional order in the republic than by handing over Chechnya to the sole ruler. In addition, the "East" and "West" often (and, oddly enough, quite harmoniously) acted on the border with Dagestan, ruthlessly destroying representatives of the Dagestan terrorist underground. Now all this is in the past: a motorized rifle company will clearly not be able to perform such tasks.
Author: On Tuesday news agencies reported that a group of militants had been destroyed in Ingushetia. The so-called "suicide belts" were found on the bodies of two of them by the special services. Many are familiar with the work of the Moscow riot police only from rallies. Although this special unit is needed not at all to disperse the demonstrators. Few people know that for more than 15 years these people have been constantly going on business trips to the North Caucasus.
Be careful, under the cut there is one corpse.
Now the Consolidated Detachment of the TsSN of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia for Moscow is stationed in several places: in the suburbs of Grozny, Khankala, in Mozdok, in the Baksansky district of Kabardino-Balkaria and in the Republic of Ingushetia. At the end of March from the region North Caucasus returned another batch of fighters. Information about their work there very rarely gets into the media. mass media, but special forces groups do risk their lives almost daily. And largely thanks to their work, a large number of weapons and explosives are seized.
The photos I post today are exclusive. They were made by a special purpose group of the Central Security Service of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia for Moscow during special operations. The faces of these people cannot be shown. During a special operation, photos and videos are usually taken by a sniper. Journalists are simply not allowed to these events, not only for security reasons, but also because most of these special operations are secret. This group is one of the most prepared. They have the best equipment and weapons. In Moscow, this group travels mainly to work with the criminal investigation department to capture armed criminals. The fighters of such groups are constantly involved in sports and are the elite of the special forces. By the way, the average salary of an elite special forces officer is only 40,000 rubles.
The fighters tie white ribbons so that their own can be seen in battle. Many fighters wear the same uniform.
Explosive hunting dog.
Rock hammers are used for operations in the mountains.
A fighter practices knife fighting techniques. On the board is the face of an average enemy.
Departure for a mission. Kalashnikov assault rifle 100 series. Armored helmet with armored glass fighters buy themselves. The state gives them ZSh-2 helmets, but they are heavy and uncomfortable to work in. In general, employees buy many items of equipment with their own money.
There are 18 people in the group, but not everyone likes to be photographed.
And this group leaves for an ambush.
Machines with silencers.
See what a beauty. But behind each stone there can be a villain.
Ambush view. In an ambush, fighters can sit from 5 hours to 3 days.
Preparing for a special operation.
Almost everything that is worn by the fighters - they buy themselves. American camouflage, only on the left is a fighter in ours. Shoes that are issued by the state cannot be worn at all. Unloading, too, everyone buys or makes themselves. In general, I was very surprised that the state cannot properly provide even special forces. What can we say about ordinary troops. The situation reminded me of Iraq - where the police are forced to buy everything themselves, even weapons. There are even special arms markets where Iraqis can buy a machine gun or a grenade launcher. It's good that we still issue weapons.
The operation area is blocked along the perimeter. The villains won't run away. All roads are blocked.