Ghazni battalion - Kotya67 — LiveJournal. Kapchagay battalion Combat composition and design
Directorate of the 15th separate special forces brigade (1st separate motorized rifle brigade - “Jalalabad”)
Location: Jalalabad, Nangarhar province.
Time spent in Afghanistan: March 1985 – May 1988.
Directorate of the 22nd separate special forces brigade (2nd separate motorized rifle brigade - “Kandahar”)
154th separate special forces detachment (“Jalalabad”) (1st separate motorized rifle battalion)
In pursuance of General Staff Directive No. 314/2/0061 of April 26, 1979, Commander Turkvo No. 21/00755 of May 4, 1979 included a separate special forces detachment of 538 people in the staff of the 15th Special Forces Regiment. Directive of the General Staff of the USSR Armed Forces No. 4/372-NSh of October 21, 1981 - 154th Special Forces. An annual holiday was determined - April 26 by General Staff Directive No. 314/2/0061.
Time spent in Afghanistan: November 1979 – May 1988.
Locations: Bagram-Kabul, Akcha-Aybak, Jalalabad, Nangarhar province.
Commanders:
Major Kholbaev Kh. T.;
Major Kostenko;
Major Stoderevsky I.Yu. (10.1981–10.1983);
Major Oleksenko V.I. (10.1983–02.1984);
Major Portnyagin V.P. (02.1984–10.1984);
Captain, Major A.M. Dementyev (10.1984–08.1984);
Captain Abzalimov R.K. (08.1985–10.1986);
Major, Lieutenant Colonel Giluch V.P. (10.1986–11.1987);
Major Vorobiev V.F. (11.1987–05.1988).
Squad structure:
Detachment headquarters;
1st special forces company on BMP-1 (6 groups);
2nd special purpose company on BTR-60pb (6 groups);
3rd special purpose company on BTR-60pb (6 groups);
The 4th heavy weapons company consisted of an AGS-17 platoon, an RPO “Lynx” platoon and an engineer platoon;
Communications platoon;
Platoon of ZSU "Shilka" (4 "Shilka");
Automobile platoon;
Material support platoon.
177th separate special forces detachment (“Ghazni”) (2nd separate motorized rifle battalion)
Formed in February 1980 from the Northern Military District and Moscow Military District troops in the city of Kapchagay.
Location: Ghazni, since May 1988 - Kabul.
Time spent in Afghanistan: September 1981 – February 1989.
Commanders:
Captain, Major Kerimbaev B.T. (10.1981–10.1983);
Lieutenant Colonel V.V. Kvachkov (10.1983–02.1984);
Lieutenant Colonel V.A. Gryaznov (02.1984–05.1984);
Captain Kastykpaev B.M. (05.1984–11.1984);
Major Yudaev V.V. (11.1984–07.1985);
Major Popovich A.M. (07.1985–10.1986);
Major, Lieutenant Colonel Blazhko A.A. (10.1986–02.1989) .
173rd separate special forces detachment (3rd separate motorized rifle battalion - “Kandahar”)
Location: Kandahar.
Time spent in Afghanistan: February 1984 – August 1986.
Commanders:
Major Rudykh G.L. (02.1984–08.1984);
Captain Syulgin A.V. (08.1984–11.1984);
Captain, Major Mursalov T.Ya. (11.1984–03.1986);
Captain, Major Bohan S.K. (03.1986–06.1987);
Major, Lieutenant Colonel V.A. Goratenkov (06.1987–06.1988);
Captain Breslavsky S.V. (06.1988–08.1988).
The structure of the detachment in March 1980:
Squad management;
Separate communication group;
Anti-aircraft artillery group (four Shilkas);
1st reconnaissance company on BMP-1 (9 BMP-1 and 1 BRM-1K);
2nd reconnaissance company on BMP-1 (9 BMP-1 and 1 BRM-1K);
3rd reconnaissance and landing company on BMD-1 (10 BMD-1);
4th company AGS-17 (three fire platoons of three sections - 18 AGS-17, 10 BTR-70);
5th special weapons company (RPO “Lynx” flamethrower group, mining group on BTR-70);
6th company – transport.
Each of the combat (1st–3rd) companies, in addition to the commander, political officer, deputy for technical affairs, senior mechanic, BRM gunner-operator, sergeant major and clerk, included three special forces groups.
The group consisted of three squads, each of which consisted of a squad commander, a senior reconnaissance officer, a driver, a gunner-operator, a sniper, a reconnaissance corpsman and two machine gunners.
668th separate special forces detachment (4th separate motorized rifle battalion - “Barakinsky”)
The detachment was formed on August 21, 1984 in Kirovograd on the basis of the 9th Special Forces Brigade. On September 15, 1984, he was transferred to the subordination of Turkvo and introduced into Afghanistan in the present day. p. Kalagulai. In March 1985, he became part of the 15th Special Forces Brigade in the village of Sufla. The battle flag was presented on March 28, 1987. Released to the USSR on February 6, 1989.
Location: Sufla, Baraki district, Logar province.
Time spent in Afghanistan: February 1985 – February 1989.
Commanders:
Lieutenant Colonel Yurin I.S. (09.1984–08.1985);
Lieutenant Colonel Ryzhik M.I. (08.1985–11.1985);
Major Reznik E.A. (11.1985–08.1986);
Major Udovichenko V.M. (08.1986–04.1987);
Major Korchagin A.V. (04.1987–06.1988);
Lieutenant Colonel Goratenkov V.A. (06.1988–02.1989).
334th separate special forces detachment (5th separate motorized rifle battalion - “Asadabad”)
The detachment was formed from December 25, 1984 to January 8, 1985 in Maryina Gorka from the troops of the BVO, DVO, Lenvo, Prikvo, Savo; transferred to Turkvo on January 13, 1985. On March 11, 1985, it was transferred to the 40th Army.
Location: Asadabad, Kunar province.
Time spent in Afghanistan: February 1985 – May 1988.
Squad leaders:
Major Terentyev V.Ya. (03.1985–05.1985);
Captain, Major G.V. Bykov (05.1985–05.1987);
Lieutenant Colonel Klochkov A.B. (05.1987–11.1987);
Lieutenant Colonel Giluch V.P. (11.1987–05.1988).
370th separate special forces detachment (6th separate motorized rifle battalion - “Lashkarevsky”)
Location: Lashkar Gah, Helmand Province.
Time spent in Afghanistan: February 1984 – August 1988.
Squad leaders:
Major Krot I.M. (03.1985–08.1986);
Captain Fomin A.M. (08.1986–05.1987);
Major Eremeev V.V. (05.1987–08.1988).
186th separate special forces detachment (7th separate motorized rifle battalion - “Shahjoysky”)
Location: Shahjoy, Zabol province.
Time spent in Afghanistan: April 1985 – May 1988.
Squad leaders:
Lieutenant Colonel Fedorov K.K. (04.1985–05.1985);
Captain, Major Likhidchenko A.I. (05.1985–03.1986);
Major, Lieutenant Colonel Nechitailo A.I. (03.1986–04.1988);
Major, Lieutenant Colonel Borisov A.E. (04.1988–05.1988).
411th separate special forces detachment (8th separate motorized rifle battalion - “Farakh”)
Location: Farah, Farah province.
Time spent in Afghanistan: December 1985 – August 1988.
Commanders:
Captain Fomin A.G. (10.1985–08.1986);
Major Krot I.M. (08.1986–12.1986);
Major Yurchenko A.E. (12.1986–04.1987);
Major Khudyakov A.N. (04.1987–08.1988).
459th separate special forces company (“Kabul company”)
Stationed in Kabul.
Formed in December 1979 on the basis of a special forces training regiment in the city of Chirchik. Introduced into Afghanistan in February 1980.
During the hostilities, the company's personnel took part in more than six hundred combat missions.
Withdrew from Afghanistan in August 1988.
Second Muslim Battalion
Formation of the 177th separate special forces detachment
Kerimbaev Boris Tukenovich
Commander of the 177th separate special forces detachment in 1981-1983
Following the results of the Sino-Vietnamese War in February - March 1979, in January 1980, on the basis of the 22nd Special Forces Special Forces, the 177th separate special forces detachment was created
(177th ooSpN). For this task, 300 soldiers of Uighur nationality (indigenous to the XUAR of China) are selected from among the military construction units of the Moscow Military District. Turkic-speaking graduates of combined arms schools are selected for officer positions in the 177th Special Forces Command School, mainly the Almaty Combined Arms Command School named after Konev
(up to 70%) by nationality - Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, Uzbeks, Turkmens.
An accelerated Chinese language course was introduced for the officers of the detachment.
...Somewhere in September '81, they announced that we would take the autumn test to the Moscow commission, and that in addition to combat training subjects, they would also test knowledge of the Chinese language. A Chinese language instructor arrived from the district intelligence department and we quickly began to study it, that is, Chinese. The topic is the interrogation of a prisoner of war. They wrote down Chinese words in Russian letters and learned them by heart. So, learning Chinese in a month is not a myth, at least for us military men, we can. But it didn’t last long, after two weeks the language study was canceled...
- "Kara Major's Detachment." Zhantasov Amangeldy. Memoirs of an officer of the 177th Special Forces
Captain Kerimbaev Boris Tukenovich, a graduate of the Tashkent General Arms School, who served in command positions in reconnaissance units of motorized rifle troops, was appointed commander of the detachment.
In connection with the selection of personnel on a national basis, the 177th special forces unit at that time among the military would be called the 2nd Muslim battalion, in association with the 154th special forces unit (1st formation), which participated in the Assault on Amin’s palace, personnel which was recruited from Uzbeks, Tajiks and Turkmens and which was unofficially called the Muslim Battalion.
Like the 154th special forces unit (1st formation), the 177th special forces unit will be a combined battalion of 6 companies. In the history of special forces of the USSR Armed Forces, both detachments will be the first formations in terms of the uniqueness of their composition.
The consolidation of the battalions consisted in the fact that the usual staff of a separate special-purpose battalion, consisting of three reconnaissance companies, additionally included (consolidated) three more companies - a grenade launcher, an engineer-flamethrower (engineer-mortar) and a transport company. Also, in addition to the indicated companies, separate platoons/groups were added to the battalion staff - an anti-aircraft artillery group, a repair platoon, a headquarters security group and a medical platoon. There were no similar units of their own for functional tasks, equipment and weapons in the staff of the special forces brigades, so the recruitment of military personnel and the supply of military equipment to additional units was carried out from other military units belonging to various branches of the military. The purpose of such a change in the organizational structure of the battalion was to increase the firepower of the units and increase the autonomy of the battalion during combat operations.
By the end of January 1980, the recruitment of the 177th Special Forces was completed and combat training began according to the special forces training program. In April 1980, the GRU General Staff commission conducted the first inspection of the 177th special forces unit.
In May 1980, a comprehensive inspection was carried out during a forced march to the regional training ground of the SAVO ground forces in the village. Otar, Zhambyl region of the Kazakh SSR, with a squad exercise (battalion tactical exercise/BTU).
By the spring of 1981, the time had come for conscripts to be transferred to the reserve. There was a need for a new set. Mostly warriors of Uyghur nationality left. With the new recruitment of the 177th Special Forces, the requirements for Uyghur nationality were no longer required due to the changed international situation. Priority in recruitment was made according to the nationalities of Central Asia (Kazakhs, Uzbeks, Tajiks, Kyrgyz). With this choice, the GRU GSh changed the intended combat mission for the 177th Special Forces. Having completed the unit, we again began combat coordination. The 177th special forces unit was being prepared to be sent to Afghanistan.
In September 1981, the 177th special forces passed a test on combat and political training by the GRU General Staff commission.
Participation in the Afghan War of the 177th Special Forces
Organizational and staffing structure of the 177th separate special forces detachment for the summer of 1982.
On October 29, 1981, the 177th special forces unit (military unit 43151), created on the basis of the 22nd special forces unit, was introduced into Afghanistan and redeployed to the vicinity of the city of Meimen, Faryab province. From that moment on, the 22nd Special Operations Brigade formally began its participation in the Afghan War.
The combat activity of the 177th special forces unit was limited to reconnaissance searches, ambush operations and participation in open combat in the area of location. In January 1982, the detachment participated in a military operation near the village of Darzob, then garrisoned it for four months, conducting reconnaissance and search raids.
In May 1982, the detachment returned to Maymene.
Organizational structure of the battalion
Since February 1984, the 177th special forces unit was redeployed to Ghazni. In March 1985, he was transferred from the 22nd ObrSpN to the 15th ObrSpN[
177th separate special forces detachment of the GRU General Staff was formed in January 1981 on the basis of the 22nd GRU special forces brigade, stationed in the city of Kapchagai (Kazakh SSR).
After intensive training, on October 29, 1981, the detachment was sent to the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan, with a location in the city of Maymen (Faryab province), conducting reconnaissance searches and combat operations in the area of location. In January 1982, the detachment participated in a military operation near the village of Darzob, then garrisoned it for four months, conducting reconnaissance and search raids.
In May 1982 they returned to Maymene. At the end of May 1982, the detachment handed over Meimene to a motorized maneuver group of border guards and went to the Panjshir gorge, which had just been liberated by Soviet troops. Here the detachment performed partly a military-political task: it was necessary to refute the promise of the head of the opposition forces, Ahmad Shah Massoud, that in a month not a single Soviet soldier would be in the gorge. The detachment held out for eight months, although during this time it suffered heavy losses in military and special operations - about 40 people were killed. The special forces left only after a truce was concluded with Ahmad Shah Massoud.
Upon withdrawal from Panjshir, the detachment was stationed in the city of Gulbahor (Parvan province), conducting special operations in the city and its environs. Units of the detachment carried out combat missions in the Salang pass and near Kabul, defended Jalalabad and cleared the Bagram valley. Since 1984, the detachment fought in the province of Ghazni, participating in the creation of the “Curtain” zone. In May 1988, he was transferred to Kabul, where, together with the 668th Special Operations Forces and the 459th Kabul Special Forces Company, he carried out combat missions to cover Kabul and the surrounding areas. These units were among the last to leave Afghanistan in February 1989.
In combat operations in the DRA it was officially called: the 2nd separate motorized rifle battalion.
Losses - 159 people. 
All photos and materials on the site are posted with the permission of the museum staff
in memory of the soldiers - internationalists "Shuravi"
and personally the director of the museum, Nikolai Anatolyevich Salmin.
O. Krivopalov
"GHAZNI BATTALION"
...What is Ghazni?
It is the administrative center of the province of Afghanistan of the same name, located on a high mountain plateau surrounded on three sides by mountain ranges. Lives in the city 32 thousand inhabitants. Traditionally, it is a local center for trade and crafts (here The production of sheepskin coats is developed, as well as the production of copper utensils.) The settlement has no hints of layout, the houses are one-story adobe ormade of mud brick, with flat roofs. The buildings are mostly dense. Streets narrow, dirty, and become impassable in the rain. Sanitary condition from handsthat's bad. The population is supplied with water from a turbulent river less than ten meters wide meters, depth 0.5-1 meter.
Our 177th separate special forces detachment (military unit 43151, call sign "Laura") came to Ghazni province in the spring of 1984 with the aim of blocking the main caravan routes from opposition camps in Pakistan.
Before this, the place of his permanent deployment was the famous Panjshir Gorge, the city of Rukha, where it was the first Soviet part to become permanent garrison. There, the battalion's combat activities had little to do with its direct appointment, but it was in Panjshir that he became battle-hardened. As is known, in that Six large-scale operations took place in the area. The loudest ever - The Afghan war began with the 1982 operation. According to its results, Deputy ChiefSoviet military adviser in Afghanistan, Lieutenant General D. G. Shkrudnev, inin particular, said: “The military operations of troops to destroy the rebels in the area
Panjshir cannot be reduced to an ordinary action to destroy gangs. If in operations carried out before this time, troops, as a rule, had to deal with one or more gangs united in a group that do not have a certain, pre-developed plan for conducting combat operations, then in Panjshare, we met with a well-prepared, well-thought-out
defense and fire system in the mountains, well trained, distinguished by highresilience, quite numerous enemy gangs, united by a single command and a single plan of action. Therefore this the operation must be classified as a military operation carried out in difficult conditions highlands... This kind of combat operations using such forces and means our Armed Forces have not had since 1945...”
In Panjshir, Ahmad Shah Masud, who headed squads "Islamic Society of Afghanistan"(IOA). In a vast river valley Panjshir, stretching for 70 kilometers and 12 kilometers wide, extending all the way to the Pakistani border, with a huge amount of caves, holes, gorges, passes, dominant heights, passages adjacent to the main valley and having free access to various areas and to the main highway, connecting Kabul with the USSR through the Salang Pass. That is why Panjshir, besides also having significant wealth of emeralds, rubies and lapis lazuli, allowing the rebels are free to trade them and purchase the necessary weapons and ammunition and equipment, and was chosen to house the so-called centralguerrilla base of Ahmad Shah. He created a well-equipped system heredefense, fire and control of rebel forces operating on a huge vital important territory.
It was decided to prepare and conduct a large-scale operation to destroy the existing base of rebel formations there.
The general plan of hostilities was to deliver the main blow to to the enemy in the Gorband River valley. The decisive role was to be played by tactical airborne assaults with simultaneous actions of ground forces. In general complexity, 12 thousand soldiers were involved.
The total depth of the operation reached 220 km, the width of the offensive zone taking into account artillery and aviation actions - 60 km., the duration of the operation is 13-15 days.
By the end of the day on May 15, the first Soviet units, having marched, concentrated in Charikar area. By this time, people began to arrive at Bagram airfield. landing units. Acting according to plan, on the night of May 16, our scouts(including 177 ooSpN) captured almost without a fight all the dominant heights near entrance to the Panjshir valley. At 4 a.m. on May 17, a large-scale Panjshir operation. First, the most powerful aviation and artillery fire to the maximum possible depth occupied by the enemy territory, then it was destroyed by ground forces in the valley, andmass landings on the path of retreating and approaching rebel groups.The capture of commanding heights by scouts helped a lot.
The operation involved 104 Soviet helicopters and 26 aircraft, as well as some Afghan vehicles. 4,200 paratroopers were landed. In the valley decisively motorized rifle divisions operated. At the same time, the battalions marched through the mountains, with supported by artillery and helicopters, they captured heights, gorges, paths leading to the valley, and covered the advance of the advanced regiment, moving along the valley at BMP and armored personnel carrier.
Do not think that Ahmad Shah's people did not resist. They provided, and what else! Defense in the Hindu Kush mountains was organized at the regular level army, and the fanaticism of the rebels, perhaps, exceeded everything that had previously our soldiers collided. Two well-trained armies practically fought.
Our scouts and paratroopers, having gained a foothold on the recaptured heights, with the main forces fought on the outskirts and in populated areas, where they were taken by surprise "perfume"
they tried to escape from the encirclement, even engaging in hand-to-hand combat. It was barely dark how they desperately began to storm the heights, trying to regain what they had lost advantage. Several hundred Mujahideen with wild, terrifying roars every now and thenrushed at our guys. But the special forces stood firm, repelling
"mental" attacks.
Did our troops succeed in everything during the operation? Of course not. Frontal The offensive in certain directions sometimes did not lead to success. "Ironing" artillery in the mountains did not justify itself. Tactics and forms of maneuver gradually changed. The main thing was to capture the dominant heights. It was done by helicopters landings and so-called outflanking detachments. But they often did not achieve what they wanted,every now and then bumping into rocks and deep gorges that they could not overcome.We had to go back and look for detours. Special ones were desperately needed mountaineering units, but there were none. And here Afghan nature tested our special forces on endurance and psychological stability. Scoutswere forced to operate for about 20 days in very difficult high mountain conditions at altitudes of 3-4 thousand meters, as a rule, on foot, with full combat display up to 40 kg.The uncertainty of the situation, when you don’t know where the attack will come from, put pressure onintelligence psyche. The scouts' weight loss during a week in the mountains was up to ten kg.
Another special feature was that for the first time landing forces flew through passes at altitudeup to 5000 meters, for the first time they were supplied with ammunition, water, and food at an altitude of up to 3500 meters. Not all it was debugged here, loads were dropped from 70-100 meters, some of them were lost,water containers were broken.
Intelligence data, without which there was no point even dreaming of carrying out the operation, into a certain extent were confirmed, but not all. Much remains in defense not identified. As the then deputy chief self-critically admitted Army Intelligence Lieutenant Colonel I. P. Ivanenko, “...due to fragmentary and often conflicting data, as well as their untimely receipt by army intelligence, did not managed to identify the location of the leadership of the gangs led by A. Shahand ensure its capture." But these and other mistakes and miscalculations in the final result did not affect the outcome Panjshir operation.
“During the operation, we destroyed several thousand rebels,” summed up the NS Army Lieutenant General N.G. Ter-Grigoryants - many were captured and sent to Kabul. Our losses turned out to be insignificant, only the wounded, mostly in the legs, there was quite a lot. They took huge trophies, especially ammunition. Ahmad Warehouses The Shahs were stocked with food, primarily wheat and sugar. They gave it away residents of the Panjshir Valley."
The operation ended, and the question arose, what to do? As it became known, management counter-revolution issued a cry: to take revenge on the Soviet soldiers when they left Panjshir. Some of the surviving rebels hid in caves, holes, and cracks rocks and made surprise attacks on our units. This required increased vigilance and extreme caution from special forces who covered the exit of Soviet troops. It was this operation that convincingly showed army command the need to revise the methods of operational use inconditions of DRA special forces. Subsequently, largely thanks to the successful actionsspecial forces against the troops of the field commander Ahmad Shah Massoud, the rebels went for a truce in this area, but the detachment’s losses there amounted to about 30% of all losses during 7 years of stay in Afghanistan. For example, in 1982 alone, the detachment lost 50 people killed and two were missing. Chief of Intelligence Ground Forces Lieutenant General F.I. Gredasov about that dramatic periodrecalled:
“I think it is appropriate to talk about the feat of intelligence officer V.G. Radchikova from 177 ooSpN. In Panjshir, as a result of an explosion in a minefield in battle, he had the feet of both legs were torn off. After being cured in the hospital, Valery found strength and the courage to get into Afghanistan again. I asked the commander of the troops for a long time TurkVO Yu.P. Maksimov leave him in Afghanistan, sending him to his native company, “Whose guys” carried him out of the battlefield. And yet Yuri Pavlovich had to give in. Radchikov withstood with honor all the unimaginable physical and moral trials and difficulties, participating in combat operations and overcoming on prosthetics inmountain paths are littered with rubble, in order to re-establish oneself in life and continue the militaryservice. I personally had to report to Marshal S.L. Sokolov about him. Somehow Having arrived at the headquarters of the 40th OA, Sergei Leonidovich personally saw Valery at the moment when he stubbornly climbed the steep stairs of the Topaya Tajek Palace, heading towards service in the intelligence department of the army. Radchikov later successfully graduated from the military academy. With the rank of colonel, he died in a car accident.”
But the battalion was rarely in one place. Every now and then divisions of the detachmentcarried out private combat missions to implement intelligence data in many provinces Afghanistan. So January 13, 1984 became memorable for intelligence officers, when a reinforced company of the detachment with an attached tank platoon and two companies of Afghan The Republican army blocked the village of Waka in the Surubi region. Like laterexplained the head of that operation, the detachment commander, Lieutenant Colonel V. Kvachkov named after The task was set to discover and capture a caravan with weapons and ammunition. However, the intelligence data was not confirmed, and the special forces stumbled upon a largean armed gang with which they entered into battle. At the moment of encirclement detachment with superior Mujahideen forces, Afghan soldiers without permission left the positions they indicated and left. For a day and a half our scouts conducted unequal battle surrounded and only supported by Soviet artillery and aviation allowed the detachment to leave the area of combat conflict, while losing fourteen people killed. Shortly after these events, Lieutenant Colonel V.A. Gryaznov, who replaced the wounded and shell-shocked detachment commander, successfully
completed its relocation to a new location in the highlands near Ghazni. INNovember 1984, Captain B.M. Kastykpayev was replaced by Major Paratrooper Vyacheslav Vasilievich Yudaev (who died of wounds in May 1987 in Pskov). It was a difficult time for replacing officers and the beginning of great personnel confusion.
During the summer and autumn of 1985, there was a rotation of personnel in the detachment, as a result of which Almost the entire officer corps was replaced, including the battalion commander and all his deputies. A situation arose when the bulk of the officers of that detachment staff, before serving in Afghanistan had, with rare exceptions, not the slightest idea about the specifics actions of special forces.
Gredasov F.I. recalled: “All this leapfrog with the organizational shake-up of units and formations special forces testified to the underestimation by the command at that moment of the role and the meaning of special forms of combat.”
The fact of transfer played a major role in improving the quality of the command staff detachment of the 15th Special Purpose Brigade under the command of the brigade commander Lieutenant Colonel Vladimir Matveevich Babushkin, whose headquarters was relocated from Chirchik to Jalalabad. As time has shown, this reorganization was beneficialmatter and gave greater meaning to the actions of the intelligence officers. The battalion startedofficers come, most of whom already had experience serving in units special purpose. Some of them came to promotion from those fighting in the DRA special forces units.
Provide all possible assistance to commanders in training personnel and maintaining morale, strengthening military discipline were provided by senior lieutenant V.M. Emelyanov, Major M.Z. Muratov, captains V.A. Bondarenko, V.A. Movenko, majors V.V. Volosh and I.B. Myasnikov, who in different years were political officers of the detachment.
Having settled in Ghazni, with the onset of cold weather the battalion began to carry out its main tasks. The cold winter left its mark on the specifics of combat detachment activities. At this time, it was reduced to flying over the area from the air inspection teams and rare trips to search and destroy warehouses. At climbing into the mountains surrounding the plateau, special forces groups were sent to carrying out ambushes, especially suffered from the cold. The scouts complained that by morning
one and a half liter flasks of water froze by almost a third, no matter how hard they triedprotect from frost. I had to break the ice through the neck with a ramrod.
Due to heavy snowfalls, the mountain passes were impassable for motor vehicles. technology "spirits", and pack caravans were rare in this area. After all the province of Ghazni was located in the interior of the country, and to drag weapons and ammunition to the rebel command apparently considered such a distance on camels inappropriate.
Winter had a depressing effect on the enemy; spirits at this time of year did not undertakeintense action. The scouts joked about this, that we had rebels winter truce until spring. In this regard, the detachment was engaged in reconnaissance on themselves, and the main type of combat operations became the cleaning of villages and basic enemy areas in the mountains with the forces of the entire detachment.
In addition to our special forces unit, not far away, five hundred meters from each other, there were there are 191 separate motorized rifle regiments, as well as a medical and sanitary battalion. Twelve kilometers from the detachment there was a field airfield 239 mixed helicopter squadron.
What was our military town like, or, as was customary then? should we say, permanent deployment point (PPD)?
It was located on a flat plateau near Mount Pachangar, 2424 m above sea level.Summer on the plateau was hot. The air temperature during the day was 25-30 degrees, at night 20-25, which was significantly different from the subtropical climate The Jalalabad lowland was easier to bear. The vegetation was very scanty, mostly drought-resistant grasses (wormwood, feather grass, fescue). Is it true Orchards and vineyards grew near Afghan settlements.
The town has changed little since the first years the detachment was stationed here. Personnel lived in a standard tent city. In front of the units' tents stood statutory fungi of orderlies, the soldiers were dressed both in winter and in summer in body armor and a helmet. Scouts of special forces troops never wore body armor, but for orderlies and they stood out as sentries. The soldiers hated them because they were heavy. In summerthey heated like frying pans, but there was little use, especially when the snipers were working.
Over time, a standard metal tent was built next to the tent city.a canteen building and two panel modules for the headquarters and officers' dormitory. Not far behind barbed wire fence housed a car park where there was a parking lot in the open air military and automotive equipment.
In front of the detachment headquarters, commanders and political workers with the help of local craftsmen erected a majestic monument to those killed during combat missions, became one of the best in 15 regional SPNs. One hundred and sixty names on his plates reminded us of the difficult battle path that this battalion went through on Afghan soil. He had to drink more than he could and shed blood. He was one of those very first legendary that they called "Muslim". It is well known that urgently it was formed in Kapchagai in the Central Asian Military District on the basis of the 22nd brigadeSpecial Forces. On October 21, 1981, he was introduced into the DRA by the first commander, Major, and then Lieutenant Colonel Kerimbaev Boris Tukenovich.
On October 29, 1981, the 177th Special Forces began carrying out combat missions in the area n.p. Maymen, then in Rukh, Gulbahar, and finally, since 1984 in Ghazni...
From July 1985 to September 1986, the unit was commanded by Major Alexey Popovich Mikhailovich.
On October 1, 1986, the battalion received a new commander, Major Blazhko. Personality and the charm of this courageous and extraordinary officer played a special role in squad history. We should tell you more about it. Subordinates with love They called him in the Ukrainian manner - Batko Blazhko. They called it that because Anatoly Andreevich was Ukrainian by nationality. The roots of his family came from village of Gumenki, Kamenets-Podilsky district, Khmelnytsky region, where they livenumerous relatives to this day.
The future legendary special forces commander was born on August 12, 1953, in the family professional military man in Samarkand, Uzbek SSR, where she threw them fate and the order of the commander. Tolik grew up as a lively boy who was interested in many sports. But there were also special attachments, for example, he was very played football well, first in the youth team, in the city team, and then areas. He was tall and athletic beyond his years, so at the age of 15 he was full-time player of the national team of the Samarkand educational division in football. A a year later, having completed his studies at school, the young athlete became a cadet of the highesttank command school. He spoke proudly about his family: "I grew up in a military town, my father was an ensign, a veteran of the GreatPatriotic War. Andrey Arsentievich was born in 1924 and after liberation from the Nazis in the Khmelnytsky region, he was drafted into the army. Wars on him the share was more than enough, but in Czechoslovakia my father was seriously wounded and transported to Central Asia by evacuation hospital. There I met my mother Elizaveta Nikolaevna, who became his wife. The young people first lived in Ashgabat, and after an earthquake that destroyed the city to the ground, my father was transferred to Samarkand, we served there almost all our lives. My brother and I followed in our father's footsteps and became officers. I was destined to become a colonel, and my brother a lieutenant colonel railway troops".
Anatoly Blazhko is married to a beautiful Lithuanian woman, Aurelia Antanovna Valyuta. Her Lithuanian father, Antanos Vladislavovich Valius, was categorically against marriage daughters with a Russian officer. “I met Anatoly Andreevich,” Blazhko’s wife recalls - on the holiday of February 23. At that moment I was studying at school of culture, and he served in a local military unit. I liked him like they say at first sight. My image of a real man was formed under influenced by the popular Polish film “Four Tank Men and a Dog” at that time. Among the main characters there was the Georgian Georgiy, I remember his image and, as they say, it sunk into my soul. In his youth, Blazhko had a lot of similarities to this movie character. In general, we met on that memorable evening, and he immediately and proposed to marry him. And I was not yet eighteen then. My acquaintance with a Russian officer was sharply condemned at the cultural school and was even summoned parents for help and proceedings. My father was simply shocked by mychoice. The fact is that he and ten of his relatives were repressed at one time,received long sentences, which they spent in Siberia. So it’s clear - everything thatwas connected with Russia, aroused his fierce hostility. I was a girl then and didn’t really understand military ranks, so she sort of married soldier, and Tolik then proudly corrected me: “I’m not a soldier, I, senior lieutenant Soviet army!".
I withstood the pressure of the family, expressing my convincing arguments that this I love a man, and he will be my husband. The father gave in, after which all our our relatives amicably and peacefully played us a real national Lithuanian wedding, and After the wedding, we lived for some time on the Gilchay farm. By that time I had already graduated from the school of culture, and then in 1980 Blazhko was transferred to the North to Pechenga, where our son Oleg was born. Anatoly has a purely masculine character, with him It’s not easy to live, but he is completely different at home than at work, and only I know about it.I know how to influence him, he can be harsh, first he will flare up, and then he will doeverything you ask of him.
It is characteristic that he still yearns for his time in Afghanistan. This is the most expensive period in his life. Now, when he doesn’t sleep well, I ask him in the morning: "What dream did you have?".
He answers: "War".
- What war?
- "Afghan".
By pure chance, a professional tanker, operating engineer armored vehicles and vehicles ended up serving in reconnaissance. And this happened in Baltic Military District, where personnel officers in September 1979 appointed starley commander of the reconnaissance company of the 287th Guards Motorized Rifle Regiment of the 3rd Guards motorized rifle division. This decision turned out to be fateful. In the eightieth year he commands the reconnaissance company of the 19th motorized rifle regiment of the 131st motorized rifle division of the 6th combined arms army LenVO. From the post of chief of reconnaissance of the regiment in August 1982 Blazhko moves to Moscow to study at the Military Academy of Armored Forces named after. R.Ya. Malinovsky. After graduation, he receives distribution to the Far East, where he June 1985 to October 1986 commands a special forces detachment in Ussuri special forces brigade. And then his Afghan epic begins. Exactly at TurkVO saw his rise in the special forces, he was in demand -led a detachment, and later a special forces unit. Having served for two years inGhazni, he was already waiting for a deputy when he was unexpectedly invited to a conversation withChief of Army Staff, Major General Yu. Grekov. In the office, except for him, there was the head of the GRU department, Hero of the Soviet Union, ColonelV. Kolesnik. The chief of staff of the army invited the battalion commander to stay for a third year.
“Okay, I agree,” Blazhko replied, “but I have one condition.”
- What other condition? - turned purpleGrekov. - What do you think about yourself? What other conditions can you set for us?
“Let him speak,” the reserved Colonel Kolesnik stopped the chief of staff.
- I ask permission to go on vacation to the Union for two weeks. - said Blazhko.
“No questions,” Grekov immediately changed his tone.
After vacation, Lieutenant Colonel Blazhko A.A. returned to his native 177th detachment, which withMay 1988 relocated to the Kabul airfield and conducted ambush operations against the Mujahideen in the vicinity of the capital. He also removed the detachment from Afghanistan. At the same time, it should be noted that the detachment was entrusted with the honor cover the exit of the army commander, General B.V. Gromov. For courage and heroism, skillful leadership of the detachment units Colonel Blazhko A.A. was awarded threeSoviet military orders ( "Red Banner", and two "Red Star"). The Afghan government noted the courage and merits of the Soviet battalion commander with the highest Military Order of the Red Banner of the DRA.
Karen Tariverdiev. Winter in Ghazni
177 ooSpN began its formation in January 1980 on the basis of 22 obrSpN in the city of Kapchagai near Almaty. When forming, the same principle was used as when forming musbat. The first commander of the detachment is Major B. T. Kerimbaev. The detachment was introduced into the DRA in October 1981. Just like the 154th detachment, until 1984, it was guarding the entrance to the Panjshir gorge in the area of the settlement. Roc. In 1984, the detachment was transferred to Ghazni and began performing special tasks in its area of responsibility. The area where the detachment fought was highland. This left a certain imprint on the tactics of the detachment. The range of action of the detachment's reconnaissance organs operating on armor was no more than 40-50 kilometers. To work at a greater distance from the security forces, groups and detachments were transported by helicopter. The detachment used both the tactics of raids on individual warehouses and the tactics of capturing base areas. Search and ambush operations were also widely used. The detachment was withdrawn to the Union in 1989, and became part of the 2nd Special Operations Brigade of the Leningrad Military District. Stationed in the Murmansk region. In 1992 it was short-circuited, but soon re-staffed.
Local features
Our 177th separate special forces detachment arrived in the province of Ghazni in the spring of 1984. Prior to this, the place of its permanent deployment was the city of Rukha, where the battalion’s combat activities had little connection with its direct purpose - the fight against caravans. Having settled in a new location, the battalion began to carry out its main tasks. However, by the winter of 1984-85. combat activities were almost completely curtailed. This happened due to local climatic conditions for which we were simply not prepared. The fact is that the province of Ghazni is a high mountain plateau, surrounded on three sides by mountain ranges. Moreover, the height of the plateau in the Baltic system of heights was about 2 thousand meters, and the point of permanent deployment itself was at around 2,197 meters. Therefore, our climate was cold, there was often loose snow, and when the snow melted on rare warm days, the area instantly turned into an impassable swamp.Under these conditions, our armored group simply sat up to its belly in mud and moving away from the PPD to any significant distance was more than problematic for it. It goes without saying that the “spiritual” automobile equipment - and the main part of the caravan routes passing through our zone of responsibility were automobiles - was also stationed in villages or holed up in Pakistan, and the caravan routes were empty. At that time we did not have reliable information about the presence of warehouses with weapons and ammunition somewhere in our province.
Therefore, the entire combat activity of the detachment was reduced to flying over the area from the air by inspection groups, and rare trips to search and destroy warehouses, as a rule, did not lead to anything concrete, and they were carried out rather reluctantly.
In other words, we spent January-February 1985 in a state of a kind of “peaceful respite,” and only from mid-March did we move on to more or less meaningful military operations.
As part of the brigade
During the summer and autumn of 1985, almost the entire officer corps in the detachment was replaced, including the battalion commander and all his deputies. Before serving in Afghanistan, the bulk of the detachment's officers did not, with rare exceptions, have the slightest idea about the specifics of the actions of special forces. As I mentioned above, before the redeployment to Ghazni, the battalion was not used for its intended purpose, and therefore was staffed mainly by officers who came from the infantry with the appropriate level of training and tactical thinking. Starting in the spring of 1985, “pure special forces” finally began to join the battalion, most of whom had experience serving in special forces units located both on the territory of the Soviet Union itself, and in Germany, Czechoslovakia, and even Mongolia.The situation with the command staff changed dramatically for the better, and things went uphill for the detachment. We managed to approach the next winter much more prepared, and the winter of 1985-86. was sharply different from the previous one.
A big role in this, in my opinion, was played by the fact that the detachment ceased to be separate, but was included in the 15th special forces brigade, the headquarters of which was formed in Jalalabad under the command of Colonel Babushkin. This reorganization benefited us and gave our actions greater meaning. In addition to organizational changes, a big role was played by the fact that by the fall of 1985 we managed to establish excellent cooperation with the 239 mixed helicopter squadron (12 Mi-8 transport helicopters and 8 Mi-24 fire support helicopters), the airfield of which was located on the outskirts of the city of Ghazni. This immediately had the most favorable effect on all our actions. We stopped being tightly tied to our own armored group, and the radius of our actions increased to 150-180 kilometers.
In the conditions of our very rugged terrain and the extreme density of mining, which was used by the “spirits” in our area, the march of the “armor” even 50-60 kilometers from the PPD could be safely equated to a feat. Moreover, these unfortunate half hundred kilometers of “armor” sometimes covered in 6-8 hours, or even more. It was possible to develop normal speed only in one place - on the Kabul-Kandahar highway - but there was nothing for us to do there. When escorting army columns to the south, tankers and motorized riflemen “swept out” the villages along the road so much that there was nothing left for us. So, in these conditions, good relations with the “air” were simply necessary for us.
A source of information
Our second achievement in preparing for winter was that through the efforts of our intelligence chief, senior lieutenant Igor Yashchishin, and the commander of the third company, captain Pavel Bekoev, we managed to find an extremely valuable source of information. It became the operational intelligence group "Urgun". Unfortunately, I forgot the names of the GRU officers who worked in it at that time, but their information was always so reliable that we almost never returned empty if we flew out to implement it. This group of three or four officers was sitting many hundreds of kilometers from the nearest Soviet units in extremely poor conditions. But it worked in a way never dreamed of, for example, the OAGr “Klen”, which worked in Ghazni itself in conditions of complete comfort. We also often contacted Klen, especially since it was just a stone’s throw away from us, but in my memory we were able to implement their information only a few times in two years.From the beginning of December 1985, for six months, all our main successes were associated with the Urgun province and, accordingly, with the information that local agents provided us. And this despite the fact that our “armor” could not reach the Urgun Gorge, as they say “by definition.”
In that area, located in close proximity to the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, in nine years of war, in my opinion, an army operation has never reached, not to mention our insignificant (by infantry standards) armored group of seven or eight infantry fighting vehicles and Armored personnel carrier. As a rule, we did not display a larger number of combat vehicles at once.
Therefore, we can rightfully say that we owed our successes during this period of the war to the agents from Urgun and the helicopter pilots from Ghazni.
December "strife"
Throughout December 1985, our reconnaissance groups quite successfully beat the “spiritual” caravans on Urgun. Particularly effective were the ambushes in the gorge north of the city of Urgun, which were carried out by the 1st company under the command of Captain Stepanov, and the ambush of the 3rd company of Captain Bekoev in the area of the Gumalkalai fortress - the farthest point in terms of distance where our helicopters could fly.In the first case, we captured about 60 small arms, several recoilless rifles and DShK. We also captured a ZIL-130, stuffed with artillery shells and rocket launchers, as they say, to the brim. But the ammunition had to be detonated, because not a single helicopter could lift them on board in such quantities.
And in the area of the Gumalkalai fortress, in addition to all other good things, they managed to capture several Chinese Strela MANPADS, which, at that time, was considered an outstanding result in itself. Subsequently, the agents said that in that ambush, an American adviser who was illegally heading to Afghanistan was also shot, but, unfortunately, in the darkness and confusion, his corpse was not identified at the site of the ambush and no documents were found in this regard. Therefore, this serious success of the 3rd company was not counted.
In January, the Urgun passes, as nature intended, were completely covered with snow and the movement of caravans stopped. Conducting ambushes became useless, but there could be no talk of stopping combat activities, as was the case a year ago.
Under these conditions, it was urgent to find new ways to combat “spirits” or, as they are called today, “militants.” At this moment, our new advantages came into play - the availability of accurate information about the enemy and smooth interaction with helicopter pilots.
Preparing for the campaign against Urgun
In February 1986, I replaced our intelligence chief Igor Yashchishin, who was on vacation. In this regard, I had the opportunity to be directly involved in the planning and implementation of the operation that I am about to talk about.In the Urgun Mountains, the militants felt like full-fledged masters. Our units were not in that area; the Afghan army and Tsaranda, if they were stationed somewhere there, behaved extremely quietly and did not go into the mountains. Closer to us in this area was the Gardez 56th Airborne Assault Brigade, but, in my opinion, they were little concerned about this zone.
So the spirits had peace, quiet and God's grace. Our agents somehow miraculously managed to draw up a detailed map of the location of the gangs in this area and determine where their warehouses with weapons and ammunition were located. Moreover, when I saw this map, I couldn’t believe my eyes and decided 5 that the scouts were greatly exaggerating. Next to each icon, C; indicating the location of the warehouse, such numbers were put down that my eyes just popped out of my head in surprise.
If in the province of Ghazni, in which we also sometimes dealt with caches of weapons, the number of guns did not exceed 10-15, and we considered them worthy of attention, then the Urgun warehouses had numbers that were an order of magnitude larger. As it turned out later, this was indeed the case. True, the number of security detachments also made an impression - sixty, eighty, sometimes more than a hundred people.
The warehouses themselves, according to the information we received, were located outside populated areas, which was convenient for us, but, as a rule, they were located in tactical proximity to them. Therefore, it could be assumed that large spiritual detachments were stationed in nearby villages for the winter, ready to quickly provide assistance to the warehouse security detachments.
We spent quite some time thinking about how we could neutralize them. This was a serious question, because the use of an armored group, for the reasons described above, was excluded, and, as we know, the approach of enemy reserves cannot be prevented by one bomb attack. Moreover, in this part of Afghanistan the mountains are entirely forested, and coniferous, and therefore do not fall during the winter, and this circumstance greatly limited the possibility of observing movements on the ground from the air.
However, this issue was resolved on its own and in a way that was most unexpected for us. At the beginning of February, we received information that, on the orders of the local leader (his name has slipped out of my memory), most of the spiritual detachments left the mountains for Pakistan, supposedly for retraining.
Of course, the risk was great, and we did not have enough confidence in the reliability of the information, but our battalion commander, Major Popovich, decided to take a risk. The commander of the third company, Pavel Bekoev, also played an important role in his decision.
Popovich trusted the experience of Bekoev, who by that time had served in Afghanistan for the second term, i.e., had fought for more than three years. When talking about the combat activities of our detachment in the winter of 1985-86, one cannot ignore the peculiarities of his personality.
Pasha Bekoev
Before becoming the commander of our third company, Bekoev successfully commanded a group in the Jalalabad battalion, and then served as deputy company commander there. In our battalion he didn’t really go down well with the court because of his absurd character, but it was impossible to take away his fighting qualities.However, he had one very serious drawback - he constantly unnecessarily risked both himself and his people. In addition, he did not always bother to inform others about his plans. That is, in part he was a kind of “anarchist” and did not pay due attention to issues of organizing interaction. Such disorganization often led to sad consequences. Perhaps it was due to the fact that Bekoev was a “jacket” - that is, he did not graduate from a normal officer school, but became a lieutenant at the military department (if I’m not mistaken) of the Orzhdonikidze Radio Institute.
Once, while combing a village at night, without enemy opposition, an emergency occurred in his company. A very nervous young machine gunner in the dark did not understand the situation and shot a radio operator from the communications group assigned to Bekoev at point-blank range. Then it was considered an absurd accident.
A month later, Bekoev received some “leftist” information about the location of an ammunition depot north of Ghazni. Having reported this only to the battalion commander, he alerted his company and rushed to the area of upcoming hostilities, without informing either the battalion headquarters or even the operational duty officer about where he would be located. As a result, the reserve armored group was not prepared in a timely manner. The helicopter pilots also knew nothing about this, since the third company drove off on its own “armor.” Bekoev considered it unnecessary to check the information received.
According to the law of meanness, one of his reconnaissance groups was ambushed and shot at point-blank range from a distance of ten to fifteen meters from a green gun. This ambush was unlikely to have been prepared in advance. Most likely, when moving to the supposed location of the warehouse, the group was discovered by the “spirits” earlier than they themselves were able to detect the enemy, and since the “spirits” knew the area better than we did, they managed to prepare faster than Bekoev. They did not manage to provide timely assistance to the third company, since no one was prepared for such a turn of events.
By the time the hastily assembled reserve finally found the place where Bekoev’s company was stuck, the battle had already ended, and the “spirits” calmly left, considering their job done. This incident cost the third company six killed and one seriously wounded. Plus, the reserve armor, rushing to help without any precautions, lost one armored personnel carrier to mines. I must say that before this day we had never suffered such losses.
But Bekoev got away with this incident too. The battalion commander continued to favor him, and on the issue of conducting a series of raids on the Urgun warehouses, the voice of the commander of the third company carried great weight. However, by this time Captain Bekoev had managed to carry out several successful raids and ambushes, and one could hope that the story of the seven lost scouts had taught him a lot.
An object
A weapons and ammunition warehouse located in the mountains about sixty kilometers southwest of Gardez was chosen as the primary target. From Ghazni to the target the distance was twice as great and we expected to use the Gardez airfield as a jump airfield. Or like a waiting airfield, so to speak.According to our plan, the transport helicopters, having landed our detachment in the warehouse area, were not supposed to return to their airfield in Ghazni, but were supposed to land in Gardez. Thus, within fifteen to twenty minutes they could return to the raid area and evacuate us from there. The warehouse was located near the village of Loy-Mana, which could well contain spiritual reserves.
According to our information, the number of guards was reduced from sixty people to fifteen. Moreover, it was reduced precisely in connection with the notorious retraining. However, no one could guarantee that in the near future it would not be brought back to its original composition.
Combat composition and design
The 239th helicopter squadron could only allocate us six Mi-8mts for this operation. The number of helicopters determined our combat strength - 60 people, ten on each side.The entire operation took no more than one hour from the moment the detachment landed. We hoped that during this time the “spirits” would not have time to gather and pull up enough strength to successfully fight us. The landing was supposed to take place on a flat area at the foot of the mountains, which was located in close proximity to the warehouse. The pilots had doubts about its suitability, since the aerial photography of the area we ordered could not tell us anything worthwhile. The entire area of upcoming operations was heavily covered with snow, so the aerial photograph was of little use for normal work. We expected that the snow cover would not exceed 10-15 cm and would not complicate our actions too much. However, in reality it was about 50 cm and greatly influenced our actions at the final stage of the operation.
It was planned to suppress possible fire from anti-aircraft weapons (DShK and ZGU) from the air, but still we pinned our greatest hopes on the surprise of the attack and the transience of the battle.
As far as I know, the brigade headquarters agreed with the headquarters of the 40th Army that if we got into serious trouble, the 56th infantry brigade in full force would move to our aid.
But this issue was no longer within my competence, and I do not know for certain whether such an agreement was reached or not. In any case, we didn’t have to bring in paratroopers, and thank God. In an unfavorable development of events, we would have to remain surrounded for at least 10-12 hours, and this was fraught with unpredictable losses on our part.
The intelligence group placed at our disposal an Afghan guide who knew the terrain and the location of the firing points. It must be said that he earned his reward in full, which usually rarely happened with guides.
Raid
The raid took place on February 14. At the first stage, everything went according to plan. The security did not expect an attack, the anti-aircraft weapons were not prepared to immediately open fire, and after a short bomb attack by the Su-25 and Mi-24, all six “eights” successfully landed us on the landing site.We had to jump from a hovering position from a height of a meter and a half, maybe a little more, but the deep snow helped us here. In addition, the landing site was hidden from the “spirits” by a dense snow cover raised by the helicopters’ rotors. We found ourselves on a small area a few tens of meters from the foot of the mountains. At first, no one fired at us, and the detachment managed to climb to the supposed location of the warehouse in a fairly organized manner.
On site it turned out that the warehouse area consisted of several single buildings scattered in complete disorder over a limited area. We managed to capture all of them quite quickly and without losses, except one.
The capture method was extremely simple: the support subgroup opened hurricane fire on the houses from a distance of 30-50 meters and, under its cover, two or three scouts approached the houses. As soon as they took a safe position in the “dead zone” near the walls, the fire on the windows and doors stopped, the attack subgroup got up from the ground and threw grenades at the house through the window. This impact on the enemy was quite enough to completely suppress resistance.
The only alarming thing was that we could not find anything particularly significant inside these buildings, and it began to seem to me that there was no large warehouse here, all this was the gunner’s invention and we had started this whole operation in vain. True, the gunner warned us in advance that he did not know exactly where the main warehouse was located, since he had been in the area where it was located, but not specifically in the warehouse.
But we were very lucky here. A young guy, about fifteen years old, tried to escape from one house. He had no weapons, and with the help of Ensign Verbitsky, I managed to quickly catch him. The language does not dare to call it a valuable “spirit” - so, some kind of “little soul”. The boy was very frightened, and after a couple of preventative slaps, he immediately agreed to take us to the desired warehouse.
Hooray! Stock!
It turned out that the main storage facility was a strange-looking structure of three walls on the reverse slope of a large hill. I call this slope reverse because it was such in relation to the place of our landing and the starting line for the attack. Our main forces simply slipped past it, without attaching much importance to this structure. As I already said, the structure had only three walls, and the mountain served as the back wall. That is, the house was buried inside the rock so that only something like a dressing room stuck out.Initially, a squad of soldiers from Captain Bekoev’s company remained near him, and everyone else ran past. This building was the only place from which we received resistance. It was partially suppressed only after one of the soldiers, apparently remembering Comrade Sukhov from the film “White Sun of the Desert,” climbed onto the roof and lowered several grenades inside through the chimney pipe.
Having burst into the “dressing room”, we realized that we were in some kind of artificially made cave, because a small crooked corridor led deep into the mountain. Behind the corridor there was another room, where the “spirits” from the “dressing room” went.
Bowling in the dark
It turned out to be very difficult to smoke them out of there, because they were actively shelling the exit from the corridor. Taking advantage of the fact that the corridor was not straight, but had a turn behind which we could be in relative safety, we began to roll hand grenades into the far cave. And not to throw them, but to roll them up - you stick your hand out around the corner, roll it along the floor, and back.Judging by the echoing sound of the explosions, the cave was of impressive size. Soon, someone noticed that the defenders had stopped firing at the exit from the corridor, and several soldiers carefully entered the cave. There were no “spirits” in it, and in the back wall we found the entrance to another corridor, which led even further into the depths of the mountain. The soldier who thrust himself into this next corridor immediately came under a machine gun fire fired almost at point-blank range. The fact that he remained safe and sound is luck of the highest category. We were again forced to go bowling, but soon stopped this activity: the “spirits,” apparently, had nowhere to retreat and they settled down firmly in that corridor. We never found out what was built there or dug further, because we were unable to advance further. However, as subsequent events showed, there was no need for this.
We didn’t expect to have to fight in caves, so no one had a basic flashlight with them. All the fuss described above took place in the light of lit matches or lighters (by the way, this circumstance became a positive experience for us for the future: subsequently we strictly ensured that the groups had several working “mouse-eye” flashlights). Someone thought of using a signal squib with a torch as a lighting device.
Cave of modern Ali Baba
And that’s when a cold sweat broke out on us, at least it definitely broke out on me. It turned out that we were playing bowling with hand grenades in the explosives and military warehouse. The cave we captured was literally filled with shelves with two-kilogram packages of American-made plastid. And there was at least several tons of it there. In addition, directed-action Claymore anti-personnel mines, several dozen Italian TS-6.1 anti-tank mines and similar “trifles” were piled up in disorder in the corners. However, if the plastid had detonated, then the presence or absence of other mines would no longer matter. It immediately became clear to us why the defenders retreated deep into the mountain so quickly.It must be said that the “spirits” decided to answer us in kind and rolled several grenades in our direction, but it was inconvenient for them to do this, and the grenades exploded around the corner of the second corridor. One of our machine gunners remained in the corridor to block the militants, and we began feverishly dragging our trophies into the light of God.
At first we tried to pull out the plastid, but quickly realized that we couldn’t take it with us in such quantities. Therefore, they took only small arms, several copies of mines as samples, and any other little thing that seemed useful. For example, we managed to obtain two Chinese-made shortwave radio stations. Subsequently, signalmen claimed that these radio stations had at least 5 thousand kilometers of communication range, and the range width was one and a half times greater than our radio stations. We sent them “up” for study. But there were some oddities.
Antifreeze is poison
Personally, an almost anecdotal incident happened to me in this cave. With, to put it mildly, insufficient lighting, I discovered some rather heavy box, on which skulls and crossbones with some warning signs in English were drawn on all sides, and four hefty bottles were gurgling inside. I didn’t have time to figure out what exactly was written there, but at that time there were many rumors circulating in Afghanistan about the enemy’s readiness to use chemical weapons against us. So I grabbed this box in the confusion with the hope of a high reward.When I got out, it turned out that our affairs were taking an unhealthy turn - the enemy nevertheless managed to organize and took a dominant position in relation to us. That is, he straddled or began to straddle the tactical ridge above us. From the very beginning we were afraid of such a development of events, but we still could not prevent it due to the small number of our detachment.
At first the fire was not very dense and targeted, but the “spirits” quickly increased the rate of fire. They were adding more firing points every minute. And with this box in my hands, it was not very convenient for me to hide from bullets, but I stubbornly did not want to throw it away. In the end, it turned out that it says “ANTIFREEZE”. It’s easy to imagine how I swore when I discovered why exactly I was risking my life. This became clear, however, already in our PPD after returning from the operation. The only thing I managed to do to make my life easier in the fight against this box was that I forced that damned non-freezing liquid to be carried by that same “little soul” who at that moment was ready to carry anything just to stay alive. However, no one was going to shoot him, and the antifreeze eventually went to our deputy commander, who was very pleased with this circumstance.
The bet on surprise paid off
The bet on the surprise of the attack fully justified itself. At the very beginning of the battle, Bekoev’s company, which formed the backbone of the detachment, slipped through, as I already said, the main storage facility, climbed higher up the slope and captured a mountain gun at a prepared firing position. The gun was most carefully camouflaged from observation from the air and turned towards the very site that we used for landing. During the first bomb attack, this position was not damaged at all. However, when the 3rd company reached it, it turned out that there was no crew at the position. One can imagine what our operation could have turned into if the crew of the gun had been ready to open fire at the moment the helicopters hovered to drop off the detachment. In addition, Bekoev’s soldiers also destroyed the ZGU crew, who were able to run to their anti-aircraft installation, but did not have time to open fire. I am absolutely sure that the site where we landed was targeted in advance, and if the crews had managed to take their places on time according to the combat schedule, we would have had more than a hard time. In this regard, Pavel Bekoev, who most of all counted on the success of surprise and was firmly convinced that we would be able to suppress the enemy before he had time to turn around for battle, turned out to be absolutely right. ^When time costs life
Unfortunately, we spent too much time finding the warehouse and flushing out the guards. In the end, we realized that we could deal with the “spirits” much simpler than trying to penetrate deep into the cave: we just need to place a charge set to non-removable directly on the rack with the plastid. Our sappers quickly created this charge from captured plastic and gave it a half-hour slowdown. What exactly happened as a result of the explosion of several tons of plastic in a cave can be imagined without additional explanation.However, all this took time, and the operation dragged on for almost half an hour longer than planned. Therefore, despite the most active air support that we were provided by the pairs of Mi-24s that replaced each other above us, there were still some losses.
The most vulnerable point of our plan was that we had to evacuate from the same place where we landed. There was simply no other helicopter landing site nearby. The “spirits,” who were also well versed in military affairs, quickly realized this and tried to take advantage of this circumstance to their maximum benefit. Even before the military transport helicopters arrived for us, the “spirits” who had arrived managed to organize very effective fire from a recoilless rifle, the position of which we could not determine in any way. Perhaps this position was prepared in advance, but we missed it during the first, most favorable phase of the battle for us. But maybe the enemy’s reserve detachment brought this recoilless weapon with them - fortunately it doesn’t weigh that much. Be that as it may, she caused us a lot of trouble. Because of this, the G8s were unable to land for a long time. A helicopter on the ground makes an ideal target for shooting. While we were losing time, the enemy intensified the fire of their small arms.
The recoilless attack was eventually suppressed by the fire support helicopters, but after completing the combat mission we had to retreat to the G8s through completely fire-raised terrain. Moreover, the snow cover at the evacuation site was about 50 centimeters. This circumstance made our movement very difficult. Especially considering that we were leaving heavily laden with our trophies.
All this cost us two seriously wounded soldiers, and the doctors managed to save the life of one of them only by a miracle. Both of them were injured literally right next to the helicopter ramps. And the helicopter hulls were quite heavily riddled, although
There were no casualties among the helicopter crews. However, this operation was considered successful and became one of the most beautiful operations our detachment carried out that winter.
In a trap
Several times we followed a similar pattern of attacking weapons and ammunition depots, and did so not without success. But in the end, the brigade command and army headquarters (represented by the deputy chief of staff of the 40th Army, Colonel Simonov, who was responsible for our actions) considered that the success of our raids on the Urgun warehouses was, as they say, “on the razor’s edge” every time and stopped such our activities.The reason for this was the fact that during the next such raid, due to an error by the Afghan gunner, we landed at a great distance from the next warehouse and were forced to comb the gorge to a depth of five kilometers from the landing site. We found and captured the warehouse, but enemy reserves managed to block our escape route to the plain. An extremely dangerous situation was created in which our entire detachment of eighty people was practically cut off from the evacuation site. According to the law of meanness, on this day we were assigned several helicopters from the Kabul Helicopter Regiment, which were not trained to fly in high altitude conditions. In order to make it easier for us to break through to the plain, we asked the pilots to sit on our ridge and rid us of trophies - and, as usual when operating in the Urgun Mountains, there were quite a lot of them. One of the crews of the Kabul Mi-8 managed to land at an altitude of about 3000 meters and load our trophies, but when trying to take off, due to a pilot error, he lost control and crashed into the gorge. Moreover, he fell extremely unsuccessfully. When I saw it, the helicopter was lying on its right side with a broken propeller, pinched by two huge boulders. Fortunately, no one was seriously injured - the fall resulted in several lacerations and bruises for the crew members and several of our scouts on board. But it was reported “to the top” that the helicopter was shot down by air defense fire.
This was done, I believe, in order to beautifully justify the loss of the combat vehicle. As a result of all this diplomacy, we, being in a critical situation, were almost left without air support, because the army air force headquarters was simply afraid of new losses and banned flights in the area.
However, our native 239 helicopter squadron, whose pilots could really fly even on a broom, even on a broom, and carry out takeoff and landing in the most conceivable and inconceivable conditions, took a risk and still managed to land their machines for our evacuation. Not the least role, I think, was played here by the fact that many of the pilots were connected with us - those who remained surrounded in the mountains - by elementary male friendship, and therefore they could not do otherwise. In a word, we managed to safely get out of this gorge and even bring all our trophies with us.
"Dizziness from success"
But after this incident, all our plans to strike the enemy in the area southeast of Ghazni invariably ran into a ban from higher command. Unfortunately, these prohibitions could not protect us from heavy losses, although we did run into things where we least expected it.The overestimation of our capabilities caused by the victories at Urgun also played an important role in one of our most unsuccessful operations that winter. It’s just that our sense of danger and the necessary respect for the enemy have dulled to some extent, and here again the personality and character traits of Pavel Bekoev came to the fore.
On March 18, 1986, the battalion headquarters received information that in the village of Sakhibkhan, located about 60 kilometers south of Ghazni, there was a small gang of “spirits” accompanying the French adviser. I still don’t know whether there were advisers from France in Afghanistan or all these were just rumors, but on that day such information acted on Bekoev like a red rag on a bull. The battalion commander, Major Popovich, was away that day and his duties were performed by his deputy, Major Fedor Niniku.
I don’t know what happened at the battalion headquarters that day, since the head of intelligence, senior lieutenant Yashchyshyn, was in his place by this time. Accordingly, I returned to my native first company of our battalion, commanded by Captain Stepanov.
The village of Sahibkhan was located on the territory of the province of Ghazni, that is, it was not separated from our border control point by mountain ranges impassable for vehicles. This probably played a fatal role in the planning, or rather, any lack of planning of this operation.
Around noon, Bekoev’s company was alerted and loaded into helicopters. Moreover, she loaded up lightly - without taking with her any heavy weapons, or a sufficient amount of ammunition, or even warm clothes in case she had to spend the night in the field. Let me remind you that even in March there was snow here, and the temperature remained below zero at night.
It was believed that the entire raid would take no more than two hours, the day was relatively warm, and it seemed unnecessary to stock up on anything in case of unforeseen circumstances.
By that time, after the successful raids on Urgun, in which Pavel Bekoev took the most direct, and often the main part, his authority with the command of our battalion was indisputable. In any case, Major Niniku could hardly restrain him, although he was nominally listed as deputy battalion commander, and Bekoev was still only the commander of one of the companies.
Our first company was also alerted and received an order to move to the Sakhibkhan area with a combined armored group of five BMP-2s and two BTR-70s assigned to us from the second company. Our task was to get to the combat area of the third company and pick it up from there after completing the combat mission.
Formally, the combat order indicated that we should support Bekoev with fire if such a need arises, but no one attached any importance to this point. In any case, Bekoev put his company on helicopters and flew away long before our combat vehicles left the park. So no interaction was organized between the companies. In any case, our “armor” could arrive in the combat area no earlier than three hours after the third company had already begun the battle.
In addition, unlike the raids on Urgun warehouses, the third company initially entered a populated area, which we carefully avoided in Urgun, and at that time we had no experience in conducting combat operations on the streets of a relatively large village.
Under fire
At approximately 3 p.m., Bekoev’s company, which had been unsuccessfully combing the village for two and a half hours, inside which it initially had not been offered the slightest resistance, reached its outskirts, opposite from the landing site. There was a large fortress there, one side facing the last street of the village. No longer expecting to find the enemy and considering his flight to be fruitless, Bekoev managed to request that he be evacuated by helicopters, since there was still daylight left, and our “armor” was still churning through deep mud at a snail’s pace just barely approaching the target. Captain Stepanov, who commanded the armored group, even managed to assume that any minute there would be a command to return to the PPD, and we had not even managed to appear in the vicinity of Sakhibkhan. This circumstance, I remember, irritated him greatly.And at that moment, fire was opened from the fortress on Bekoev’s company. The dead and wounded immediately appeared. Having heard about this on the air, the “armor” increased its speed to maximum, but arrived in the battle area almost like a no-brainer.
The third company lay in some kind of ditch on the outskirts of the village, firing indiscriminately at the fortress from small arms. The distance between this ditch and the near wall of the fortress was about 50-70 meters. Therefore, several Mi-24s circling in the air could not properly support the company with fire for fear of hitting their own.
The nominal commander of the detachment, Major Niniku, stubbornly did not give the command to move further away in order to allow the helicopter pilots to raze the fortress to the ground.
Our “armor” turned into a chain, and we dismounted. At the same time, it turned out that we turned around strictly in the rear of the third company, and also could not use all our firepower for the same reason as the helicopter pilots.
Naturally, the “spirits” from the fortress fired at us too. As a result, the infantry combat formations of the first and third companies were mixed up with each other, and all reasonable fire control was lost. The Mi-24s continued to circle above us, occasionally firing volleys of NURS, but, by and large, it was shooting to clear their conscience, because no one gave them any target designation, and they themselves would figure out the turmoil that was happening below them on the ground, were unable to.
Death of an Adventurer
Bekoev, who was not used to retreating and whose personal courage often came to the detriment of the common cause, nevertheless decided to storm the fortress. Abandoning control of the company to the mercy of fate, he crept to the nearest wall and climbed inside through the gap. He was followed by one soldier from his company and captain Oleg Sevalnev, who was the commander of the third platoon of our first company. However, after the companies were mixed, Sevalnev climbed into the fortress together with Bekoev, despite the fact that his platoon, like the entire first company, had the task primarily of covering the actions of the third company and providing it with fire support, and not participating in any way in unplanned assault.To some extent, Captain Sevalnev is justified by the fact that any day now we were expecting an order to appoint him to the position of Bekoev’s deputy, and he followed him as his new commander. Subsequently, the soldiers of the third company next to them said that Bekoev shouted to Sevalnev: “Oleg, let's go! The two of us will strangle them there with our bare hands!”
Bekoev climbed onto the roof of the fortress and ran along it. The "spirits" opened fire at the sound of footsteps through the adobe ceiling and wounded him in the thigh. Bekoev fell into the courtyard and was finished off by machine gun fire from the window. Sevalnev managed to jump down, but he did not have time to help Bekoev, because he was immediately shot in the back. The soldier who dropped into the fortress with them managed to get out and report the death of both officers.
From that moment on, our main task was the operation to extract their corpses from the fortress. I tell you about this with pain in my soul, because Oleg Sevalnev was my best friend, although I cannot justify his actions in that battle even after so many years. Unfortunately, he succumbed to Bekoev’s adventurism, and this led to his unjustified death.
A mess that produces corpses
Our disorganization that day led to tragic consequences. Already on the retreat from the outskirts of the village, when the corpses of Bekoev and Sevalnev were removed from the Sahib-Khan fortress, and the fortress itself was destroyed to the ground with all those who tried to defend it, one of our infantry fighting vehicles opened fire on the flank of a moving group of several people . In the gathering twilight they were considered to be the enemy trying to reach our rear. When we managed to figure out that these were not “spirits”, but our own squad, leaving the village on the outskirts, one soldier was killed and several more were wounded.In the ensuing darkness, the pilots of our squadron managed to land several helicopters, which took away the dead, wounded and some of the surviving soldiers and officers of the third company who happened to be nearby.
But the battle didn’t end there for us. During the time that our “armor” fought so unsuccessfully on the outskirts of Sakhibkhan, the “spirits” managed to lay mines on our retreat route. A very good place was chosen for this - the only gap in a long riverbed, reminiscent of an anti-tank ditch. There was no other passage through this channel, and we had difficulty finding this passage on the way to Sakhibhan. Now, in the darkness, the enemy managed to plant anti-tank mines there. There were no dogs or sappers with us (another indicator of our unpreparedness for that operation - usually such things were foreseen in advance), so we had to force this obstacle at random.
As a result, the lead infantry fighting vehicle exploded. Several people, including the battalion intelligence chief, Igor Yashchyshin, received severe concussions. Two of them - Yashchishin himself and my platoon commander, Sergeant Alyshanov - subsequently became disabled precisely as a result of traumatic brain injuries received at that moment.
To top off all our troubles, after the lead vehicle was blown up, the trailing infantry fighting vehicle lost its track and stopped. Thus, our entire armored group found itself tightly locked on a narrow piece of land for several hours. Moreover, the cars stood strictly one after another, and not one of them could move a meter. Of course, this did not go unnoticed by the enemy, and we were soon subjected to mortar fire, which was quickly joined by a recoilless rifle. The night was cloudy, and the helicopters could not provide us with any support.
Fortunately, the shelling was extremely inaccurate, and we did not suffer any new losses in this phase of the battle. Only at dawn we managed to get out onto the Kandahar Highway, along which, more or less normally, we got to our border control point.
The result of headlessness
Having again replaced Yashchishin as chief of intelligence, this time due to his serious injury, I was forced to start counting our losses.They amounted to four people killed (among them two officers - Bekoev and Sevalnev), twenty-nine people were injured of varying degrees of severity. The BMP-2 that was blown up was lost forever, although we managed to drag its remains to the police station.
Such was the price of our arrogance and the disrespect we showed towards the enemy. The lesson turned out to be bitter, but the right conclusions were drawn from it.
As far as I can remember, our battalion headquarters no longer allowed itself such liberties when planning operations, and we subsequently no longer suffered such losses.
