After the uprising in Badaber, the dushmans decided not to take Shuravi prisoners anymore.
Thirty years ago, Soviet soldiers captured in Afghanistan organized an uprising. After an unequal battle, they blew themselves up along with an arsenal of dushmans
An event destined to become a bleeding wound in the history of the Afghan war took place in the Pakistani village of Badaber near Peshawar. On April 26, 1985, a dozen Soviet prisoners of war revolted. After a 14-hour battle, they blew themselves up along with the arsenal of dushmans - a huge amount of shells and missiles prepared to be sent to the Mujahideen in Panjshir. The sacrificial feat then saved many soldiers and officers of the 40th Army. But the state tried not to notice and forget the merits of the heroes. The reason is the absence of their names in the lists of dead soldiers-internationalists and documentary confirmation of the feat. Today we are filling this gap.
AGENT REPORT
Information about this tragedy was collected bit by bit by the staff correspondent of the Red Star in Kabul, Alexander Oleinik. Using informal contacts at the headquarters of the 40th Army, he obtained a report of radio interception of the directive of the leader of the Islamic Party of Afghanistan (IPA) G. Hekmatyar, who on April 29, 1985 reported on an incident in one of the camps in northwestern Pakistan.
“97 of our brothers were killed and wounded,” said Hekmatyar and demanded from the commanders of the IPA fronts “from now on, do not take Russians prisoner, but destroy them on the spot.”
A few years later, Oleinik published this radio interception in Krasnaya Zvezda along with another declassified document addressed to the chief military adviser in Afghanistan, General of the Army G. Salamanov. An undercover report gave details of the armed uprising that our prisoners of war had raised.
“On May 23, 1985, agent *** arrived from Pakistan, who had the task of obtaining information about the incident in the Badaber Afghan refugee camp. The source reported the following on the fulfillment of the reconnaissance mission: on April 26 at 21.00, when the entire personnel of the training center was lined up on the parade ground to perform prayers, the former Soviet military personnel removed six sentries from the artillery depots (AB) on the watchtower and freed all the prisoners. They failed to fully realize their plan, since from among the Soviet military personnel, nicknamed Muhammad Islam, at the time of the uprising, he defected to the rebels.
At 23.00, on the orders of B. Rabbani, a regiment of Khaled ibn Walid rebels was raised, the positions of the prisoners were surrounded. The leader of the IOA offered them to surrender, to which the rebels responded with a categorical refusal. They demanded the extradition of the escaped soldier, to summon representatives of the Soviet or Afghan embassies to Badaber. 
Rabbani and his advisers decided to blow up the warehouses of AB and thus destroy the rebels. On the morning of April 27, Rabbani ordered to open fire. In the assault, in addition to the rebels, artillery units and combat helicopters of the Pakistani Air Force participated. After several artillery salvos, the AB depots exploded. The explosion killed: 12 former Soviet servicemen (names, ranks not established); about 40 former servicemen of the Armed Forces of Afghanistan (names not established); more than 120 rebels and refugees; 6 foreign advisers; 13 representatives of the Pakistani authorities. According to the source, the government of Ziyaul-Khak was informed that the rebellious prisoners themselves blew themselves up in the warehouses of AB.
Colonel Yu. Tarasov,
The Pakistani authorities and the leader of the IOA (Islamic Society of Afghanistan) B. Rabbani did everything to hide information about the tragedy. Speaking in Islamabad, Rabbani inspiredly lied to journalists that internecine strife among the Mujahideen led to the explosion in Badaber. To the strong protest of our embassy in connection with the death of compatriots near Peshawar, the Pakistani Foreign Ministry sent a note in response, stating that there were no Soviet military personnel on the territory of their country and never were.
ENCRYPTED NAMES
Our special services in Afghanistan were ordered to find out: who were the other prisoners of the camp, what were their surnames and military ranks, where and under what circumstances were they captured, why did they end up on the territory of Pakistan?
FSB Colonel Valery Belorus, in 1986 an investigative adviser to the military counterintelligence of the Ministry of State Security of the DRA, remembers how he “filtered” an Afghan named Gol Ahmad for a whole month.
Gol Ahmad was detained while crossing the Pakistani border. He escaped from Dushman captivity and passed an investigative check at the MGB. Valery Grigoryevich talked with the detainee through an interpreter, but he understood the word "Badaber" anyway. The Afghan confessed that he escaped from this camp during a series of powerful explosions, when the Shuravi began shooting trucks loaded with shells with grenade launchers. The guards fled, and there was no one to chase him.
We reported about the Afghan sergeant to the department of search for our prisoners, - says Colonel Belorus, - and they came with a file of missing persons. Gol Ahmad positively identified seven people from photographs. Unfortunately, I don’t remember their names now - so many years have passed! ..
In total, according to Gol Ahmad, at the time of the uprising, there were eleven Soviet prisoners of war in Badaber. He confirmed that they had indeed seized the armory and taken control of trucks loaded with weapons and ammunition ready to move towards the Afghan border. The rebels planned to break through to their own, but a traitor prevented the plan from being carried out.
B. Rabbani, who arrived in a jeep, tried to persuade the prisoners to lay down their arms, promising not to punish anyone. But the leader of the rebels said that he would stop resistance only in the presence of representatives of the Soviet embassy.
During the negotiations, Pakistani army units managed to pull up to the camp. They deployed two guns in the direction of the arsenal, but did not have time to load - both artillery crews were destroyed. The rebels resisted with the despair of the doomed - they knew that the dushmans would not leave any of them alive. The battle lasted 14 hours. When only three rebels remained alive, they opened fire on the crates of rockets.
In 1986, Gol Ahmad was the only witness to the uprising, whose testimony largely coincided with intelligence reports. Thus, the first list of Badaber's captives was compiled, in which there were only Muslim names and special signs.
The prisoners of the camp in Badaber, encrypted as Muslims, were our compatriots. And their real names could remain unknown. But photographs of captured Soviet soldiers appeared in the foreign press. Some of them had already been transferred to Pakistan by that time, from where they were promised an easy road to the American way of life. The main condition is to renounce the Motherland and the Soviet government.
"NOW THERE IS SOMETHING TO FIGHT"
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the investigation into the Badaber tragedy was discontinued. The feat of our guys was remembered only when the representative of the Pakistani Foreign Ministry, Sh. Khan, in 1992 handed over to the commission of Alexander Rutskoy a list of Soviet servicemen who died during the uprising: Vaskov, Dudkin, Zverkovich, Korshenko, Levchishin.
Where the rest went was a mystery. It was up to the Committee for the Affairs of Internationalist Warriors, headed by the Hero of the Soviet Union, Lieutenant General Ruslan Aushev, to unravel it. In 2006, an employee of the committee, Rashid Karimov, with the assistance of the secret services of Uzbekistan, went on the trail of a man named Rustam, who appeared on the initial list of the Afghan Ministry of State Security.
Uzbek Nosirzhon Rustamov was captured in October 1984 on the eighth day of service in Afghanistan. He was sent to a camp near the fortress of Badaber and put in the basement, where there were already two prisoners from the Afghan army. From them, he learned that ten Soviet prisoners of war were kept in the camp, they made bricks from clay and erected fortress walls. Later, a Kazakh named Kanat, who had gone mad from slave labor and bullying, was transferred to them.
Abdurakhmon was considered the main among the Soviet prisoners - strong, tall, with a direct piercing look, he often dared the Mujahideen and demonstrated his superiority over them. For several days of the uprising, Abdurakhmon challenged the camp guard commander to a duel - with the condition that if he wins, the Russians will have the right to play football with the Mujahideen. The fight was short. According to Rustamov, Abdurakhmon threw the commander of the Mujahideen over himself with such force that he ... burst into tears.
All the cadets of the training center gathered to cheer for the Mujahideen for the football match. Plotting an escape, Abdurahmon obviously wanted to find out how much strength the enemy had with the help of playing football. By the way, the match ended with the score 7:2 in favor of Shuravi.
And in early March, 28 trucks with weapons were brought to the camp - shells for rocket-propelled mortars, grenades, Kalashnikov assault rifles and machine guns. Abdurakhmon, putting his shoulder under the heavy box, winked encouragingly: “Well, guys, now there is something to fight ...”
But there were no bullets. We had to wait more than a month before trucks with ammunition appeared. During the traditional Friday evening prayer, when two guards remained in the fortress, the lights went out in the mosque - the generator in the basement where our prisoners were kept went out. The guard came down from the roof to see what had happened. Abdurahmon stunned him, took a machine gun, started the generator and gave electricity to the mosque so that the Mujahideen would not suspect anything. The Afghan army officers released from behind bars also joined the rebels. The sentries were disarmed and locked in a cell. There was desperate shooting, mortar explosions interspersed with bursts from heavy machine guns and the crackle of machine guns. Our prisoners tried to go on the air using a radio station captured from the Mujahideen, but it is not known whether anyone received their signal for help.
HEROES - "AFGHANS"
I give Rustamov a photograph that I brought on behalf of the Committee of Internationalist Warriors. In the picture, three figures in sand-colored uniforms are hiding from the scorching sun in a canvas tent. Nearby - a woman in a silk skirt to the toes. This is Lyudmila Thorn, a former Soviet citizen. She came to Pakistan through the American human rights organization Freedom House to interview three Soviet prisoners of war. The main condition is that no one knows that they are in Pakistan.
The man sitting to her left introduced himself as Harutyunyan, and the one to her right, Matvey Basayev. Harutyunyan was in fact Varvaryan, and Basayev was Shipeev. The only one who did not hide his last name was a gloomy bearded man in the back of the tent - Ukrainian Nikolai Shevchenko, recruited by the Kyiv regional military registration and enlistment office to work as a driver in the OKSV in Afghanistan.
Rustamov, peering into the bearded faces, smiles happily. It turns out that he remembers everyone: “This is Abdurakhmon! - pokes a finger at the picture, pointing to Nikolai Shevchenko. - And this is Islomutdin! - transfers his finger to Mikhail Varvaryan, and then points in the direction of Vladimir Shipeev: - And this is Abdullo, fitter!
Now two names could be added to the list of participants in the uprising - Shevchenko and Shipeev (Varvaryan did not participate in the uprising). But was Rustamov wrong? After returning from Ferghana, we sent a request to Lyudmila Thorn: can she confirm to the committee that this picture was taken in Badaber? A few months later, she sent a reply confirming both the location of the camp and the names of the children in the picture. In the same letter, Lyudmila Thorn made an important clarification: in addition to Nikolai Shevchenko and Vladimir Shipeev, three more people should be considered dead in Badaber - Ravil Sayfutdinov, Alexander Matveev and Nikolai Dudkin. In December 1982, in Peshawar, they submitted applications for political asylum to French journalist Olga Svintsova. For them, it was probably the only way to survive. Later, Svintsova reported that these guys did not leave Peshawar, as they died on April 27, 1985.
Thus, it was possible to find out that nine fighters participated in the uprising of prisoners of war in Badaber: Nikolai Shevchenko, Vladimir Shipeev, Ravil Sayfutdinov, Alexander Matveev, Nikolai Dudkin, Igor Vaskov, Alexander Zverkovich, Sergey Korshenko, Sergey Levchishin. All of them died the death of the brave.
An invitation to execution
A real propaganda war was launched against the soldiers and officers of the Limited Contingent of Soviet Forces in Afghanistan (OKSVA), the main tool in which was Radio Free Kabul. It spread calls for desertion. The activity of the radio station was supervised by the anti-communist organization "Resistance International" (IS), behind which the "ears" of the CIA stuck out. The London-based radio station was run by the well-known Soviet dissident Vladimir Bukovsky, who was once exchanged by Moscow for the General Secretary of the Chilean Communist Party, Luis Corvalan.
For propaganda among Soviet soldiers, the IS published a newspaper that looked like the Red Star. Incidentally, the then employee of Radio Liberty, the former Russian, and now Ukrainian TV presenter Savik Shuster, participated in the special operation for its manufacture and delivery.
Calls for voluntary surrender addressed to our servicemen in Afghanistan were, in fact, a disguised invitation to execution. Soviet soldiers who fell into the hands of dushmans were rarely released. Most often, a painful, full of bullying and humiliation, a slavish existence awaited them. The "Resistance International", which received $600 million from the US Congress for its activities, managed to smuggle only a dozen people to the West. The rest chose to die in captivity.
The rebels destroyed 3 "Grad" and 2 million rounds of ammunition
According to the documents of the General Staff of the USSR Armed Forces, more than 120 Afghan Mujahideen and refugees, a number of foreign specialists (including 6 American advisers), 28 officers of the Pakistani regular troops, 13 representatives of the Pakistani authorities died during the uprising. The Badaber base was completely destroyed, as a result of the explosion of the arsenal, 3 Grad MLRS installations, over 2 million rounds of ammunition, about 40 guns, mortars and machine guns, about 2 thousand rockets and shells of various types were destroyed. The office of the prison also perished, and with it the lists of prisoners.
Afghanistan has always been a bleeding point on the map. First, England in the 19th century claimed influence over this territory, and then America turned on its resources in order to resist the USSR in the 20th century.
The first operation of the border guards
To clean up the territory from the rebels in 1980, Soviet troops conducted a large-scale operation "Mountains-80". About 200 kilometers - this is the territory of the region, where secular border guards, with the support of the Afghan special services of the KhAD (AGSA) and the Afghan police (tsarandoy), entered with a swift march. The head of the operation, the chief of staff of the Central Asian border district, Colonel Valery Kharichev, was able to foresee everything. The victory was on the side of the Soviet troops, who were able to capture the main rebel Wakhoba and establish a control zone 150 kilometers wide. New border cordons were established. During 1981-1986, more than 800 successful operations were carried out by border guards. Major Alexander Bogdanov received the title of Hero of the Soviet Union posthumously. In mid-May 1984, he was surrounded and in hand-to-hand combat, having received three severe wounds, was killed by the Mujahideen.
Death of Valery Ukhabov
Lieutenant Colonel Valery Ukhabov was ordered to occupy a small foothold in the rear of the enemy's large defensive line. The whole night a small detachment of border guards held back the superior forces of the enemy. But by morning, the forces began to melt. There were no reinforcements. The scout sent with a report fell into the hands of the "spirits". He was killed. His body was laid out on the rocks. Valery Ukhabov, realizing that there was nowhere to retreat, made a desperate attempt to break out of the encirclement. She succeeded. But during the breakthrough, Lieutenant Colonel Ukhabov was mortally wounded and died when he was carried on a canvas cape by the soldiers he saved.
Salang pass
The main road of life passed through the pass with a height of 3878 meters, along which the Soviet troops received fuel, ammunition, transported the wounded and the dead. One fact speaks of how dangerous this route was: for each passage of the pass, the driver was awarded the medal "For Military Merit". Mujahideen constantly ambushed here. It was especially dangerous to serve as a driver on a fuel truck, when the whole car instantly exploded from any bullet. In November 1986, a terrible tragedy occurred here: 176 soldiers suffocated here from exhaust gases.
Private Maltsev rescued Afghan children in Salanga
Sergei Maltsev drove out of the tunnel when suddenly a heavy vehicle drove out towards his car. It was full of bags, and about 20 adults and children were sitting on top. Sergey sharply turned the steering wheel - the car crashed into a rock at full speed. He died. But peaceful Afghans survived. At the site of the tragedy, local residents erected a monument to the Soviet soldier, which has survived to this day and has been carefully cared for for several generations.
The paratrooper was given the first Hero of the Soviet Union posthumously
Aleksandr Mironenko was serving in the Parachute Regiment when they were ordered to reconnoiter the area and provide cover for the helicopters carrying the wounded. When they landed, their group of three soldiers, led by Mironenko, rushed down. The second support group followed them, but the gap between the fighters widened every minute. Suddenly, the order to withdraw came. But it was already too late. Mironenko was surrounded and, together with three of his comrades, fired back to the last bullet. When the paratroopers found them, they saw a terrible picture: the soldiers were stripped naked, they were wounded in the legs, all their bodies were stabbed with knives.
And looked death in the face
Vasily Vasilyevich was extremely lucky. Once in the mountains, Shcherbakov's Mi-8 helicopter came under fire from dushmans. In a narrow gorge, a fast maneuverable vehicle became a hostage of narrow rocks. You can't turn back - to the left and to the right are the cramped gray walls of one terrible stone grave. There is only one way out - to row the propeller forward and wait for a bullet in the "berry bush". And the "spirits" have already saluted all types of weapons to the Soviet suicide bombers. But they were able to escape. The helicopter, miraculously flying to its airfield, resembled a beetroot grater. Ten holes were counted in the gear compartment alone.
Once, flying over the mountains, Shcherbakov's crew felt a strong blow to the tail boom. The follower flew up, but saw nothing. Only after landing, Shcherbakov discovered that only a few "threads" remained in one of the tail rotor control cables. As soon as they break off - and remember your name.
Somehow examining the narrow gorge, Shcherbakov felt someone's gaze. And - measurement. A few meters from the helicopter, on a narrow ledge of rock, a dushman stood and calmly aimed at Shcherbakov's head. It was so close. That Vasily Vasilyevich physically felt the cold muzzle of the machine gun resting on his temple. He was waiting for a merciless, inevitable shot. And the helicopter was climbing too slowly. Why this strange mountaineer in a turban never fired remains a mystery. Shcherbakov survived. He received the star of the Hero of the Soviet Union for saving the crew of his comrade.
Shcherbakov saved his comrade
In Afghanistan, Mi-8 helicopters became a lifesaver for many Soviet soldiers, coming to their aid at the very last minute. Dushmans in Afghanistan have not seen helicopter pilots fiercely. They cut the wrecked car of Captain Kopchikov with knives at the moment when the crew of the wrecked helicopter was firing back and was already preparing for death. But they were saved. Major Vasily Shcherbakov on his Mi-8 helicopter made several covering attacks on the brutal "spirits". And then he landed and literally pulled out the wounded captain Kopchikov. There were many such cases in the war, and behind each of them stands an unparalleled heroism, which today, over the years, has begun to be forgotten.
Heroes are not forgotten
Unfortunately, during perestroika, the names of real war heroes began to be deliberately forgotten. There are slanderous publications in the press about the atrocities of Soviet soldiers. But time has put everything in its place today. Heroes are always heroes.
Senior Sergeant Alexander Mironenko was among the first to be awarded the highest combat award in Afghanistan - the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. Posthumously.
We served with him in the same 317th parachute regiment, only I was in the 2nd battalion, and he was in a reconnaissance company. The number of the regiment at that time was almost 800 people, so I personally did not know him - I found out about him, however, like all the other paratroopers of the regiment, only two months after his death, on the day when an official message was read before the whole formation about conferring the title of Hero to our brother-soldier.
The feat that Mironenko accomplished was known to everyone in our regiment, but only in general terms: that while performing a combat mission, he and two other scouts were surrounded, fired back for a long time, and at the end of the battle, when his comrades died and the cartridges ran out, Mironenko, so as not to to be captured, blew himself up and the approaching enemies with an F-1 grenade. No more details, no details - even the names of the comrades who died with him - and they were also our fellow soldiers - were never mentioned.
… Years passed. Soviet troops were withdrawn from Afghanistan, and later the Soviet Union itself collapsed. At this time, I just started writing the novel "Soldiers of the Afghan War", where I shared my memories of service in the airborne troops and Afghanistan. About the death of Art. I mentioned Sergeant Mironenko there only briefly, outlining the well-known story in the chapter "Kunar operation", because I knew nothing more.
Twenty-five years have passed since the death of Mironenko. It would seem that nothing foretold that I would have to stir up long-past events, when one day a message from a former countryman and friend Mironenko came to the guest book of my novel, published on the Internet. He asked me if I knew Mironenko and asked me to write everything that I know about him. Since it was about the Hero, I took this request with all responsibility. At first, I collected all the information about Mironenko on the Internet - but there were no memories of his colleagues, and the description of his last fight was clearly fiction. Therefore, in order to make the answer more complete and reliable, I decided to find those who, together with Mironenko, served in the reconnaissance company, and write memoirs about the first Hero of Afghanistan from their words.
I was lucky from the very beginning: several former colleagues of Mironenko lived just in my city - Novosibirsk - and it was not difficult to find them. Meetings have begun. From colleagues, I learned the names of the two soldiers who were part of Mironenko's troika: they were the gunner, corporal Viktor Zadvorny, and the driver, corporal Nikolai Sergeev. Both served in a reconnaissance company in the Mironenko squad and were drafted into the army in November 1978.
But in the course of the conversations, quite unexpectedly, other, very strange, circumstances of Mironenko's last fight began to open up. The most surprising thing was that not everyone in the Mironenko group died at all: one of this trio still managed to survive. He was found in the mountains a day after the battle, alive and unharmed. The survivor was Nikolai Sergeev. Since there were no other eyewitnesses to the death of Mironenko, in the future, the whole feat of Mironenko was described only from his words. After demobilization, Sergeev went to his home in Nizhny Novgorod. I tried to get in touch with him, but unfortunately I was not able to talk to Sergeyev: I was informed that ten years ago (in 1997) he drowned. It was a pity, because he was the only eyewitness to the feat of Mironenko and no one except him could tell all the details of that battle.
But I kept looking and got lucky again. Another eyewitness of those events responded to my ad on the Internet - the deputy platoon commander of the 6th company, Sergeant Alexander Zotov, who was sent to reconnaissance for the duration of that military operation. He saw Mironenko alive one of the last. Here are his memoirs:
"Early in the morning of February 29, 1980, we were brought to the Kabul airfield, given an additional set of ammunition, built and determined a combat mission, which was to" clear "the area in the landing area. They also said that there should not be any serious resistance , since aviation will "work" the entire territory well beforehand, we only need to go down and finish off those who survive.
We got into helicopters and flew. I flew in a helicopter with Mironenko. There were seven of us: my four, where I was the eldest, and Mironenko's troika, in which he was the eldest.
After about an hour of flight, our Mi-8 descended and hovered a meter above the ground. We quickly jumped down. None of us were around. Unexpectedly, Mironenko, without even saying a word to me, immediately ran with his group along the path, which was going down. Realizing that in this situation it would be better to stick together, I led my group after them. But the Mironenko group ran very fast and we were constantly lagging behind. So we ran down almost half a mountain, when an order came over the radio - everyone urgently returned to the landing site and helped the paratroopers who were ambushed, which were already seriously wounded. Mironenko and I, like the older groups, had Zvezdochka walkie-talkies, which worked only for reception. I turned my group around and we went back, and Mironenko's group at that moment was 200 meters away from us and continued to move down. I never saw Mironenko alive again."
Everything that happened to the Mironenko troika further was already memories from the words of the only survivor of that group, Sergeev. Here is what Sergeev said from the words of his colleagues:
“Mironenko heard the order to go upstairs on the radio, but still ordered us to go down. We went down and saw a small village consisting of 5-6 duvals (the soldiers called the primitive adobe dwellings of the Afghans the duvals). As soon as we entered it, as for us opened heavy fire. We realized that we were surrounded. Mironenko and Zadvorny ran into one duval and began to shoot back, and I lay down outside and began to cover.
The fight went on for a long time. I hear Zadvorny shouting to Mironenko: "I'm wounded! Bandage it!", and Mironenko shouted back: "I'm also wounded!" The shootout continued. Then the fire from the duval stopped. I look - the Afghans entered this duval, and immediately an explosion was heard.
Realizing that everything was over there, I crawled away and hid behind the stones. Of course, the Afghans saw that there were three of us, but they did not comb the area - apparently they were afraid to stumble upon my fire, and decided to wait until I showed myself when I tried to go back. They climbed up and hid. I saw it and therefore began to wait for the night.
Finally it got dark, and I already wanted to go upstairs, but suddenly, a little further away, by the light of the moon, I saw the shadow of an Afghan and realized that they were still guarding me. At night, the Afghans made an attempt to find out where I was - they drove cattle at me, hoping that I would get scared and start shooting. And so I lay behind the stone until the morning. And when it dawned, I see - 5-6 people who were tracking me, got up and left. After waiting, I went to make my way to my own."
A day later, Sergeyev is found. A helicopter is sent to the place of Mironenko's death. Alexander Zotov recalls:
"A total of 10 people flew, including myself and Sergeev. Soon the village was found. The helicopter descended, landed troops and flew away. Sergeev showed the duval where Mironenko and Zadvorny took the fight. But their bodies were not there. Nothing was found in others They began to look around and found the body of Zadvorny not far away. There were three deep stab wounds on his neck. Then, lower in the bushes, they found the body of Mironenko. One arm was torn off from him, and only the back of the head remained from his head. We went to the duval, brought two wooden beds, wrapped the bodies in blankets, laid them on the beds, and carried them down to the base."
But one of the scouts, who was in that village, remembered some other details: in addition to stab wounds, Zadvorny's legs were shot through his neck. He also noticed that there were few spent cartridges at the battlefield. And most importantly, Mironenko had a wound under his jaw from a 5.45 caliber bullet. A participant in that Kunar operation, a gunner from the reconnaissance company, Corporal Vladimir Kondalov, told me about this.
All this was said in a general conversation, without any further conclusions. However, when analyzing these details, I found that they contradict other basic facts and do not fit into the well-known picture of the battle. Indeed, if Mironenko had a fatal bullet wound to the head, this meant that he died not from a grenade explosion at all, but from a bullet. Moreover, someone of their own shot, since the Afghans did not yet have our captured 5.45 caliber assault rifles (only two months had passed after the troops were brought in, and that Kunar military operation was the first). Of course, if Mironenko had blown up a grenade that had blown off part of his head, then there would have been no point in shooting him in the head after that.
Bayonet knifefrom AK-74
Yes, and Viktor Zadvorny, who died along with Mironenko, judging by the description of his injuries, did not die at all from bullets (since wounds in the legs are not fatal) and not from a knife (since the throat is cut with a knife) - he received a mortal blow with a bayonet-knife. The bayonet-knife from the machine gun that every paratrooper had was so blunt that it was impossible to cut anything with it - you can only stab - it was the stab wounds that were on Zadvorny's throat.
And the last thing: a small number of spent cartridges indicates that the battle was short, in any case, the paratroopers did not run out of ammunition - after all, everyone had more than 1000 rounds of ammunition in stores and in a backpack.
Now the story of the death of Mironenko began to take on the form of a real detective story. All my suspicions about the death of Mironenko and Zadvorny fell on Sergeyev, who miraculously survived. Hazing could well have been the motive.
Indeed, Sergeev was younger than Mironenko, and Mironenko, according to the recollections of his colleagues, was a very stern "grandfather". Strong, and also having a sports rank in boxing (candidate for master of sports), Mironenko was a zealous guardian of wild army traditions - hazing - and planted cruelty and "hazing" not only in his platoon, where he was deputy platoon commander, but and in all intelligence.
This is how Vladimir Kondalov recalls one "conversation" with Mironenko (in the reconnaissance company he was called "Mammoth", since Kondalov was the tallest and largest in build):
“We served in different reconnaissance platoons: I served in the first, and Mironenko was a “castle” in the second. Somehow Mironenko and another sergeant took me to a room where there was no one. Mironenko moved forward, squeezed my tunic at the throat : "Mammoth! When are you going to fuck young people?! - and struck me in the jaw with an elbow.
In the foreground on the left is Vladimir Kondalov, on the right is Nikolai Sergeev, the only surviving paratrooper from the group of Alexander Mironenko. Afghanistan, Kabul, summer 1980.
Yes, due to hazing, Sergeyev could have accumulated resentment against Mironenko, but what motive could Sergeyev have to kill Zadvorny - after all, Zadvorny was of the same call as Sergeyev? I found an explanation in a conversation with Pavel Antonenko, who then served as a driver in a reconnaissance company. He said that Mironenko's relationship with Zadvorny was the best, even more than that - they were real friends, which means that Sergeyev could have the same feelings for one-conscript Zadvorny as for "grandfather" Mironenko. Now it all fits together. Analyzing all the collected material, the following picture of events began to emerge in my mind.
When Mironenko's group moved far away from the landing site, Sergeyev approached Mironenko and shot him from below in the head - the bullet blows the upper part of the skull (bullets with a displaced center have a special characteristic wound - a large lacerated wound forms at the exit from the body). The only thing Zadvorny manages to do is turn around and run, but Sergeyev shoots at the most unprotected place - at the legs (since he was wearing a bulletproof vest on his body and a helmet on his head). Then he comes up to the fallen and still alive Zadvorny and plunges the bayonet-knife into his throat three times. After that, Sergeev hides the weapons and ammunition of the dead, and he himself hides in the mountains for a while. It is found only a day later by the paratroopers of the 357th regiment, who were located at the foot of the mountains.
But that is not all. One more important question remained unresolved - how, after all, to explain the incomprehensible behavior of Mironenko himself immediately after the landing? Indeed, why did Mironenko rush down so irresistibly? - after all, at that moment he had a completely different combat mission.
Colonel-General Viktor Merimsky, who led the entire Kunar operation, wrote in his memoirs “In Pursuit of the Panjshir Lion” that a capture group, a reconnaissance company of the regiment, was first landed in the landing area, which was supposed to take up defense around the landing sites and cover the landing of the main forces 3 th battalion. And since Mironenko was in the reconnaissance company, it means that for his group the first task was to gain a foothold and hold the defense at the place of their landing. And only after the helicopters landed the entire landing, it was necessary for everyone to move down in an organized manner under the leadership of the officers.
Moreover, why did Mironenko, having voluntarily left the landing site and hearing on the radio that fighting had begun upstairs, that there were wounded and that it was urgent to go upstairs and go to the aid of his comrades, despite everything, did not comply with this order?
I could find only one explanation for this - looting. He wanted to find a village and, using absolute impunity, inflict reprisals on its inhabitants: rob, rape or kill - there simply could not be other targets in the mountains, in the war zone. Mironenko ignores all orders, finds a village, but then events began to develop not at all according to his plan ...
April 2008
continued ... Mironenko submachine gun.
material about Mironenko (descriptions of his feat) >>
Simultaneously with Alexander Mironenko, the title of Hero of the Soviet Union was posthumously awarded to another fellow soldier of ours - senior sergeant Nikolai Chepik, who served in a sapper company. Some of the circumstances under which they died were very similar. Chepik, like Mironenko, was a "grandfather" - he was only two months away from home, they were both senior in their groups, the groups consisted of three soldiers, and they died on the very first day of the Kunar operation - February 29, 1980. As officially reported, their groups were surrounded, and at the end of the battle, in order not to be captured, they blew themselves up, only Chepik blew himself up with a MON-100 directional mine. And just like in the story with Mironenko, there are no details of the last fight. Also, the names of the soldiers who died with Chepik were never mentioned.
The little that I managed to learn about the death of Chepik was told to me by a participant in the Kunar operation, sapper Nikolai Zuev. I learned from him that Chepik's group included two paratroopers from a sapper company: this is Private Kerim Kerimov, an Avar, wrestler from Dagestan (recruitment November-78) and Private Alexander Rassokhin (conscription November-79). They all died.
Zuev did not hear that there were eyewitnesses of how Chepik blew himself up, but he described the nature of the injuries established during the identification of the bodies of the dead: both old-timers, Chepik and Kerimov, had their heads crushed with stones (Kerimov had almost nothing left of his head), and young Rassokhin, who had not served for half a year, had his head intact.
It seemed very strange to me: in fact, why was it necessary to break the head of Chepik, who blew himself up with a mine stuffed with two kilograms of TNT? After such an explosion, nothing should have remained from Chepik's body. It also seemed strange that Rassokhin had no head injuries: how could he have been killed if he was wearing a bulletproof vest? - All these paradoxes, I could find only one explanation.
When the group was in a remote place, Rassokhin shot his offenders-old-timers from a machine gun - and he had to shoot only in the face - there was nowhere else: the body was protected by a bulletproof vest, a helmet was on his head. 5.45 caliber off-center bullets blow their heads to pieces: outwardly it looked like they had been smashed with stones.
But the paratroopers who came to the place of death immediately discovered that it was Rassokhin himself who killed his colleagues. A lynching was arranged right there on the spot: Rassokhin was ordered to take off his bulletproof vest and shot. They shot in the chest, so Rassokhon's head remained intact.
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Here are two stories. Both are written from the words of eyewitnesses, and I gave my own explanations for some strange facts. So far, the pictures of those events have turned out only in the most general terms, but I would like to know the details. Perhaps there are other eyewitnesses of those events that could shed light on these, in many respects still dark stories of their death. But living witnesses can also be cunning so as not to spoil the prevailing bright image of the heroes. Therefore, in an investigation, it is always necessary to rely on physical evidence, and they are. Mironenko and Chepik (and those who died with them) themselves keep the keys to unraveling the mystery of their death - these are bullets and traces of wounds in their bodies.
The version that they were killed by their own colleagues will be confirmed only if Zadvorny has traces of wounds only from a bayonet-knife in his throat, and all the rest have traces of wounds characteristic of 5.45 caliber bullets. If Rassokhin is found to have wounds only in the chest, this will be confirmation that his colleagues shot him.
85 years ago, state security agencies were formed. One of the heroic pages in their history was written by KGB colonel Grigory Ivanovich Boyarinov. He would have turned 80 this year.
He died on December 27, 1979 in Afghanistan during the assault on the residence of President Amin, the Taj Beck Palace. For that battle, the officer was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. Posthumously. He became the first Hero of that 10-year Afghan war.
On the personal instructions of Andropov
On December 24, Boyarinov met with the chairman of the KGB of the USSR, Yuri Andropov, and the head of foreign intelligence, Vladimir Kryuchkov. The conversation was long. The next day, the colonel flew to Afghanistan to lead the Zenit special forces unit. Two days remained before the start of Operation Storm-333, during which a coup d'état was to take place in the country. According to the plan, the Zenit operational-combat groups, acting together with other special forces, were to seize the residence of Afghan President Amin and other strategic facilities.
The assault on the Taj Beck Palace, the main object of the entire operation, was scheduled for 19.30. The signal for its beginning is a powerful explosion at 19.15 in one of the main wells of the telecommunications network. The explosion was supposed to deprive Kabul of communication with other regions of the country and the outside world.
Boyarinov, having arrived in Kabul late in the evening on December 25, the next day managed to conduct reconnaissance with the special forces soldiers on the ground. Rising to one of the nearby heights and assessing the situation, he, according to eyewitnesses, said only one thing: "Die Hard". And he was silent for a long time.
There was something to think about. Taj Beck was an almost impregnable fortress with a careful, thoughtful security system. Inside the palace, Amin's personal guard, consisting of his relatives and especially trusted people, served. She had approximately a fourfold numerical superiority over the special forces who were about to attack the palace. The second line consisted of seven posts, each of which had four sentries armed with machine guns, grenade launchers and machine guns. The outer ring of protection formed the points of deployment of the battalions of the security brigade: three motorized infantry and tank. On one of the dominant heights, two T-54s were dug in, which could freely shoot through the area adjacent to the palace from cannons and machine guns. In total, the security brigade consisted of about 2.5 thousand people. Nearby there was an anti-aircraft regiment, armed with twelve 100-mm anti-aircraft guns and sixteen anti-aircraft machine gun mounts (ZPU-2), as well as a construction regiment (about 1 thousand people armed with small arms).
On our side, a little more than 60 special forces soldiers were supposed to participate in the assault and capture of Amin's residence. They were divided into two groups under the code names "Zenith" and "Thunder". The Zenit group was headed by Major Yakov Semenov. Group "Thunder" - Major Mikhail Romanov. The overall leadership of the actions of these two special forces groups was entrusted to Colonel Boyarinov.
Poison for the President
A few hours before the start of the operation, a reception was held in Amin's palace, which was attended by almost the entire leadership of Afghanistan. One of the illegal Soviet officers introduced into Amin's entourage during the reception carried out food poisoning, but not fatal poisoning of the Afghan President Amin and his closest associates. It was necessary to put the country's leadership out of action at least for a while. Meanwhile, dressed in Afghan uniforms with white identification armbands on the sleeves, special forces soldiers going to storm the Taj Beck Palace were accommodated in four armored personnel carriers (Zenit group) and six infantry fighting vehicles (group " Thunder"). Colonel Boyarinov was stationed in one of the BMPs along with a group from the Grom.
The armored personnel carriers were the first to move at 18.45 along the only mountain road leading to the site in front of the Taj Beck Palace, and after them, after a certain period of time, infantry fighting vehicles with Thunder fighters. The steep mountain road was so narrow that armored vehicles could literally move along it one after another. All roadside slopes and approaches were mined by the Afghans.
Due to the attackers' lack of superior numbers and heavy artillery and air support, surprise remained one of the few keys to success. But the bet on him did not materialize. Under a hail of bullets and shrapnel
As soon as the first armored personnel carrier passed the turn, a large-caliber machine gun hit it from the palace building. And immediately, heavy fire from all types of weapons that only the defenders had on board fell on the column of armored vehicles with special forces on board. According to eyewitnesses, even Amin himself, who was in a semi-conscious state, picked up a machine gun. As a result, one of the armored personnel carriers, which was the second in the column, was almost immediately shot down and could not continue moving, blocking the narrow road and preventing the rest of the attacking armored vehicles from moving further towards the palace.
At this time, the Shilka and the so-called "Muslim battalion" of the Soviet troops opened fire on the palace, which had been transferred to Kabul in advance to provide cover for the special forces that stormed the Taj Beck palace. However, this flurry of fire, as it became clear almost immediately, could not cause tangible harm to the enemy and losses in manpower and equipment, except for the moral impact. As the participants in the assault later recalled, the Shilok shells simply bounced off the walls of the palace and posed a real threat to the attackers. The same can be attributed to the indiscriminate machine-gun and automatic fire, which was conducted, especially at the beginning, by the "Muslim battalion".
Realizing that the further movement of the column of armored vehicles is impossible, the commanders gave the order to land. But, having opened the hatches of the armored vehicles, the fighters came under heavy machine-gun and automatic fire. It seemed as if the night itself had fallen on them like a hail of shrapnel and bullets. The first dead and wounded appeared.
Here is how the fighter of the Grom group, Hero of the Soviet Union Viktor Karpukhin, recalls this battle: “We came under fierce fire from the guards, took up positions and fired back at the fire. Thus began a bloody clash of professionals. I must admit, we did not have the proper psychological stability. Yes, and where does it come from? Probably, only war can teach you how to fight, no matter how cruel it may sound. And we are used to seeing war in the cinema. It was perceived "in a cinematic way. But everything had to be seen in reality. Here your comrade falls, with an explosion he tears off his arm, leg, he himself is wounded, but we must act, we can’t relax even for a second. They will kill us. We were helped by a powerful pressure and, oddly enough, hopelessness. No one could help us out, there was no rear."
Madness of the brave
As the participants of the battle testify, Colonel Boyarinov twice stood up under the most severe fire of the enemy to his full height, trying to raise the fighters to the attack. But the heavy fire of the Afghan guards again and again forced the special forces soldiers who rose after their commander to lie down.
In the end, realizing that nothing could be achieved under such fire with frontal attacks, Boyarinov made, perhaps, the only right decision at that moment. He crawled up to two special forces soldiers who were close to him and ordered them to follow him. Where by crawling, where by dashes, using the natural terrain and shelters, they managed to reach the walls of the palace under heavy enemy fire. Moving along them with all precautions, taking advantage of the ensuing darkness, the three of us crept up to the main entrance to the building. There they threw grenades at the entrance and the vestibule of the first floor and, under their explosions, burst into the building, pouring fire from automatic weapons all around them.
When the smoke from the grenade explosions dissipated, the following picture presented itself to their eyes. A rather steep staircase led from the lobby to the second floor, next to it in the corner was the elevator door. Shouts in Farsi and the sounds of gunfire could be heard from behind the tightly closed doors on the second floor. On both sides of the vestibule (passages to the corridors, where the battle was also going on), explosions of grenades and shells thundered, machine-gun and automatic bursts were heard. Throughout the building, the light, sometimes flickering from grenades and shells, continued to burn.
It was pure madness to take the second floor together, there were at least 100-150 guards - Amin's bodyguards. It was necessary to wait for the approach of the main forces. But above all, now they were faced with the task of trying to clear the first floor, help their comrades break into the building and - most importantly - destroy the communications center that was located here.
In the direction of the communication center, they moved along one of the corridors. They made their way from room to room, throwing grenades at the premises, reacting with short bursts from machine guns to the slightest movement or rustle. Boyarinov beat from his favorite Stechkin submachine gun, somewhat reminiscent of the Belgian Mauser, with which he did not part during the Great Patriotic War, only for sure, at accurately identified targets, together with the fighters bursting under grenade explosions into the rooms they met on the way. All three had fragments of their own grenades cut their faces and hands, blood flooded their eyes, but they moved further and further along the corridor, closer to the communications center. When the barrels of machine guns overheated from the almost incessant firing, they froze for a moment in some kind of shelter, listening to the incessant roar of battle that seemed to be going on everywhere. Machine guns and machine guns were loudly beating their shot, shells and grenades rattled, and through this already monotonous battle music, shouts in their native Russian, accompanied by selective obscenities, occasionally broke through.
It seemed like an eternity had passed, but in fact only a few minutes, when at last all three of them reached their cherished goal - the premises of the communications center, which they thoroughly bombarded with grenades, and then smashed the telephones and pulled out the cords.
Having destroyed the communication center, Boyarinov and the soldiers who were with him returned to the main entrance. At this time, about 15 commandos had already gathered near the stairs leading to the second floor. All of them entered the palace building in different ways - some through the windows, some through the entrance. But now it was strength, and each of them burned with only one desire - to win, to avenge the killed and wounded comrades.
Bulletproof vest did not save the hero
The last command of Colonel Boyarinov, which the soldiers heard before breaking into the second floor, was: "Grenades under the door!" But the first one didn't explode. They threw the second - there was a terrible simultaneous explosion of two grenades, from which heavy doors flew out that closed the entrance, and everyone rushed up the stairs to the second floor, swearing and shooting on the go.
A truly fierce battle flared up - first for the second floor, and then for the third, where every corner, every room was snarled with automatic fire. The guards fought desperately, but the pressure of the special forces, which sowed death and death around them, was so strong and powerful that the defenders had no choice but to die or surrender. Amin was killed, his bodyguards were almost completely destroyed, prisoners were taken. But even among the attackers, the number of wounded and killed grew. According to the participants in the assault, Boyarinov was seen fighting on the second floor, then on the third. When everything was over and there was relative silence, occasionally interrupted by distant shots and explosions, the soldiers rushed to look for the commander.
Boyarinov was found not far from the main entrance, lying unconscious on the platform in front of the palace. As it turned out later, during the autopsy, apart from cuts and abrasions from fragments of offensive grenades and granite chips, which almost completely covered his face and hands, only one bullet hit the colonel. This deadly bullet, fired from a machine gun, hit the upper edge of the body armor that covered the body, and ricocheted inside, under the vest, into the very body and, like a drill, turned it around, hitting the most important thing - the heart.
Afghanistan has always been a bleeding spot on the map of the Asian continent. First, England in the 19th century claimed influence over this territory, and then America connected its resources in order to resist the USSR in the 20th century.
The first operation of the border guards
In 1980, in order to clear the 200-kilometer territory from the rebels, Soviet troops carried out a large-scale operation "Mountains-80". Our border guards, with the support of the Afghan special services KhAD (AGSA) and the Afghan police (Tsarandoy), during a swift march, occupied the desired area. The head of the operation - the chief of staff of the Central Asian border district, Colonel Valery Kharichev - was able to foresee everything. The victory was on the side of the Soviet troops, who captured the main rebel Wakhoba and established control in a zone 150 kilometers wide. New border cordons were equipped. During 1981-1986, more than 800 successful operations were carried out by border guards. The title of Hero of the Soviet Union was posthumously received by Major Alexander Bogdanov. In mid-May 1984, having been surrounded, he entered into hand-to-hand combat with the Mujahideen and died in an unequal battle.
Death of Valery Ukhabov
Lieutenant Colonel Valery Ukhabov received an order to occupy a small foothold in the defensive line behind enemy lines. For the whole night, a small detachment of border guards held back the superior forces of the enemy. But they did not wait for reinforcements in the morning. The scout sent with a report fell into the hands of the "spirits" and was killed. His body was put on display. Valery Ukhabov, realizing that there was nowhere to retreat, made a desperate attempt to break out of the encirclement. And it succeeded. But during the breakthrough, the lieutenant colonel was mortally wounded and died when he was carried on a canvas cape by the soldiers he saved. [С-BLOCK]
Salang pass
The main road of life passed through the pass with a height of 3878 meters, along which the Soviet troops received fuel, ammunition, transported the wounded and the dead. About how dangerous this route was, says at least the fact that for each of its passage the driver was awarded the medal "For Military Merit". Mujahideen constantly ambushed here. It was especially dangerous to serve as a driver on a fuel truck: the whole car instantly exploded from one bullet. In November 1986, a terrible tragedy occurred at the pass: 176 soldiers suffocated from exhaust fumes.
Private Maltsev rescued Afghan children in Salanga
When Sergey Maltsev was leaving the tunnel by car, a heavy vehicle unexpectedly appeared on his way. It was full of bags, about 20 adults and children were sitting on top of them. Sergey sharply turned the steering wheel - the car crashed into a rock at full speed. He died. And peaceful Afghans remained alive. At the site of the tragedy, local residents erected a monument to the Soviet soldier, which has survived to this day, and has been carefully cared for for several generations.
Alexander Mironenko, who served in the parachute regiment, was ordered to lead a group of three soldiers to reconnoiter the area and provide cover for helicopters carrying the wounded. After landing, they immediately began to move in a given direction. The second support group followed them, but the gap between the fighters widened every minute. Suddenly, the order to withdraw came. However, it was already too late. Mironenko was surrounded, and, together with three of his comrades, fired back to the last bullet. When the paratroopers found them, they saw a terrible picture: the soldiers were stripped naked, and their bodies were stabbed with knives.
And looked death in the face
Vasily Vasilyevich Shcherbakov was extremely lucky. Once in the mountains, his Mi-8 helicopter came under fire from dushmans. In a narrow gorge, a fast maneuverable vehicle became a hostage of narrow rocks. You can't turn back, but to the left and right are the narrow gray walls of a terrible stone grave. There is only one way out - to row the propeller forward and wait for a bullet in the "berry bush". And the "spirits" have already saluted all types of weapons to the Soviet suicide bombers. But they were able to get out. The helicopter, miraculously flying to its airfield, resembled a grater. Ten holes were counted in the gear compartment alone.
Once, flying over the mountains, Shcherbakov's crew felt a strong blow to the tail boom. Wingman flew up, but found nothing. Only after landing, Shcherbakov discovered that only a few threads remained in one of the tail rotor control cables. As soon as they break off - and remember your name.
Once examining a narrow gorge in a helicopter, Shcherbakov felt someone's gaze. And measured. A few meters from the helicopter, on a narrow ledge of rock, a dushman stood and calmly aimed at Shcherbakov's head. It was so close that Vasily Vasilyevich physically felt the cold muzzle of a machine gun near his temple. He waited for the merciless, inevitable shot while the helicopter climbed too slowly. But the strange highlander in the turban never fired. Why? It remains a mystery. Shcherbakov received the star of the Hero of the Soviet Union for saving the crew of his comrade.
Shcherbakov saved his comrade
In Afghanistan, Mi-8 helicopters became a lifesaver for many Soviet soldiers, coming to their aid at the very last minute. Dushmans in Afghanistan hated helicopter pilots fiercely. For example, they cut the wrecked car of Captain Kopchikov with knives while the crew of the helicopter was firing back and was already preparing for death. But they were saved. Major Vasily Shcherbakov on his Mi-8 helicopter covered them, attacking the brutal "spirits" several times. And then he landed and literally pulled out the wounded captain Kopchikov. There were many such cases in the war, and behind each of them stands an unparalleled heroism, which today, over the years, has begun to be forgotten.
Heroes are not forgotten
Unfortunately, during the Perestroika period, the names of real war heroes began to be blackened. Publications about the atrocities of Soviet soldiers appeared in the press. But time put everything in its place. Heroes are always heroes.
On the same topic:
What feats did Soviet soldiers perform in Afghanistan? The main exploits of Soviet soldiers during the war in Afghanistan What feats did the pioneer heroes accomplish?
