The dual power in 1991 in Chechnya, which declared itself a sovereign republic, led to a confrontation with the federal government and internal conflicts in the struggle for power, which ended with the introduction of Russian troops in December 1994. Thus began the First Chechen War, in which not all of the country's military leadership wanted to participate. But if the generals could resign and avoid being sent to the North Caucasus, then conscripts and junior officers simply had no choice. In a hurry, the regiments were understaffed and sent to carry out a combat mission in Chechnya. The 245th SME (motorized rifle regiment), which lost a significant part of the personnel during the hostilities, did not escape this fate. The most dramatic was the battle near the village of Yaryshmardy on April 16, 1996, which occurred exactly twenty years ago.
245th SME
The 245th regiment has the title of guard for heroic history during the Great Patriotic War. Housed in the Nizhny Novgorod region, during the ten January days of 1995 after the failed operation of the federal forces to capture Grozny, he begins to actively replenish conscripts under wartime conditions. Its contingent grew 10 times and amounted to 1700 people due to recruitment from the KDVO (Red Banner Far Eastern Military District). In addition to new recruits, volunteers who did not receive the necessary training were called up. On the eve of entering Chechnya, the fighters did not have a single joint exercise to work out the interaction.
Considering that already in the North Caucasus 4 regiments of officers will be replaced in the regiment, it’s clear from his example that the army was not prepared for participation in the First Chechen campaign and was doomed to losses. They will comprise 220 people alone, killed by 245 SMEs, including the son of Lieutenant General Pulikovsky (December 1995) and those guys who laid down their heads during another 20 military operations. The bloodiest battle was near the village of Yashmardy, which caused a huge public outcry.
In the war zone
The 245th SME has always been at the forefront, participating in the assault on Prigorodny (Grozny), Goiskiy, Vedeno, Arkhtan-Yurt, Shatoy and Gotov. Since the spring of the 95th, the regiment settled near Shatoy, guarded roads and duty at checkpoints. The soldiers escorted transport convoys carrying fuel, food and humanitarian aid to civilians. Beginning in February 1995, after encircling and blocking the main troops of Dudayev in the group of forces "Southeast", increasingly strange events related to concessions to the separatists began to occur.
During the operation to capture Shatoy in June 1995, a convoy of 245th regiment was ambushed near the village of Zony in the Argun Gorge. This happened due to the carelessness of the leadership and the lack of pedestrian intelligence. Despite the losses, this fact remained almost without attention in the general glee associated with the capture of Chatoy. But this was the first bell to the tragedy that went down in history as a battle at Yaryshmarda. On March 31, 1996, a convoy of paratroopers near the village of Benoy, who was going to Vedeno, was shot, but even this did not prompt the command to increase security measures when passing through the gorge.
What preceded the April events
On April 4, the administration of the village of Yaryshmardy signed a peace treaty with federal troops, which imposed a ban on the conduct of hostilities in the area. On the basis of the document of the headquarters of the 324th SME, under whose control the section of the road to Shatoy was located, a checkpoint was removed 500 meters from the village. The regiment commander was not notified.
The battle at Yaryshmarda will take place in an atmosphere of an order of the Minister of Defense on the use of artillery only in the case of self-defense and the complete refusal of air force participation in Chechnya. He came through secret communication channels about ten days before the convoy left Khankala.
Shot column
The central base of the 245th SME prepared a convoy at Shatoy, the purpose of which was to deliver military equipment, fuel and young replenishment to the military unit. Demobilized and sent home for family reasons joined the convoy. There is evidence that there were soldiers' mothers looking for their missing children. From Goisky 4 cars of the 324th SME joined them. The rear column under the command of Major Terzovets came out on April 15, immediately after the celebration of Easter. After spending the night in Khankala, by the middle of the next day, vehicles and military equipment passed Dachu-Borzoi and Yaryshmardy, stretching for 1.5-2 km. Ahead was a narrow mountain serpentine, commonly used in the name of "mother tongue."
Intelligence controlled the Argun Gorge, the artillery spotter maintained contact with the 324th SME, and that was all that was done to protect people and military equipment. The battle at Yaryshmarda was filmed by the militants themselves, whose material became public. Against the background of birdsong and the conversations of the Jordanian detachment, Khattab and Ruslan Gelayev, the hum of cars is heard. It can be seen from behind the cliffs as the tented “Ural”, the cove, APCs appear. Between the cars the distance is about 20 meters. And suddenly the explosions burst the silence, and then the firing. Dense fire from above, invisible behind the "green" and a curtain of smoke, the militants shoot at close range Russian column. The video recorded the time - 13 h. 23 min. These are the minutes when the battle at Yaryshmarda began.
Battle pattern
The diagram shows that the militants were waiting for the convoy intentionally, equipping up to 20 points for a fire strike. Trenches are specially dug in the rocks, which is a very time-consuming task. All places of deployment of the gang of Khattab and Gelayev are equipped with a sufficient quantity of weapons. They are located on both sides, which allows you to shoot all sections of the path. On the road in the direction of transport installed radio-controlled land mines. The place to attack is ideally chosen due to the bend that hides the head transport from the tail of the column. The road in this place is so narrow that it is impossible for the carpenters or trucks to turn around to leave the battlefield.
On the left there is an almost sheer cliff, on the right there is a cliff about five meters high, under which the Argun River flows. During a flurry of fire, some soldiers managed to jump into a dry river. Snipers did not crash during the fall, which excluded the possibility of escape. A trap for a transport convoy slammed shut when a tank coming at the head of a mine exploded and an explosion occurred at the end of the procession. The bandits clearly hit the target, shooting in the first minutes of the battle BMP and BRDM, heading the convoy. Killed Major Major Terezovets, radio operator and artillery spotter. Rota 245 SMEs found themselves without communication with the outside world (in the VHF range there was deliberate interference), without control and support from artillery and aviation. The battle at Yaryshmarda turned into a real slaughter for Russian soldiers and officers.
1996: tragic events through the eyes of eyewitnesses
According to the 245th SME, during the bloody events 73 people were killed, 52 injured, 6 infantry fighting vehicles, 1 armored personnel carrier, 11 vehicles were destroyed. "Komsomolskaya Pravda" published an article in which 95 deaths are indicated, taking into account the demobilized and joined the convoy, whose presence has not been officially recorded by anyone. This is easy to believe, because the mother of the dead machine gunner Oleg Ogoreltsev, one of the demobilized, had to search for his son in Chechnya for a month and she could identify the corpse in Rostov only after meeting with the surviving participants in the dramatic events. 30 bodies were taken out of the battlefield without the possibility of identification: the guys burned like torches after direct hits from grenade launchers into tankers and infantry fighting vehicles. What do eyewitnesses say about the battle at Yaryshmarda?
Sniper Denis Barber, a contract soldier, says that after the smoke had cleared, the surviving soldiers resisted until the last bullet in conditions of almost zero visibility. After the battle, seven dead bodies of militants - residents of the Shatoi region, will be found. Only at 6 o’clock in the evening the armored group of Miroshnichenko and the 324th SME, as well as a battered reconnaissance squad, made their way to the convoy. By this time, Chechens and Arab mercenaries participating in the Khattab gang had already disappeared. Only one question was asked: why did the help come so late? The head BRDM resisted to the last, the guys could stay alive. To which the answer followed: the regiment's command was waiting for instructions from above, and the groups began to make their way to help only in the fourth hour. Turntables that came flying hit the mountains, artillery hit, but there were no more militants on the slopes.
Igor Izotov, who was in the third truck, said that those who survived were able to squeeze on a patch between the front BMP and the rocks, which became the only dead zone for the enemy. Guys from under the cars snipers, shooting a rebound on the asphalt.
Wounded Sergei Cherchik recalls that, despite the fire, there was mutual assistance between the soldiers. He, wounded by a shrapnel, was pulled out from under the car by a contractor, and when he himself got into his kneecap, the two soldiers were saving them.
Eternal memory to the fallen
The fact that the convoy was waiting and Khattab possessed complete information about its composition is evidenced by the fact that the most important vehicles were hit by HE and grenade launchers. The medical car remained untouched. The wounded were gathered in it, and the bodies of the dead were laid on the armor. When MTLB began to turn around, its wheels hovered over a cliff. The driver miraculously managed to straighten the car, but the bodies of already dead guys fell in Argun. All morning on the 17th, they cleared the road, finding seven more unexploded landmines. Burnt trucks dumped off a cliff, looking for things and personal numbers of soldiers. Thus ended almost four-hour battle at Yaryshmarda.
The death toll list of 245 SMEs includes 11 officers, including the artillery spotter Captain Vyatkin, who met his death in the first minutes of the battle, Captain Lakhin, Major Milovanov, 2 ensigns and 27 soldiers and sergeants. Among them, 8 soldiers of military service. 33 remained unidentified, and for a long time their surnames, like the machine gunner Ogoreltsev, were established with the help of parents and relatives. A memory book has been posted on the 245 SME website, and a monument has been erected in the Nizhny Novgorod Region to those who have fulfilled their military duty at the cost of life.
Official investigation
The mass deaths of personnel of 245 SMEs became the subject of an official investigation, as a result of which Lieutenant General Rokhlin and the prosecutor's office spoke in the State Duma, who did not see the corpus delicti in the actions of officials. Rokhlin accused the country's leadership and the Ministry of Defense of not controlling the situation in Chechnya and allowing the manifestation of disorder that caused the death of the military. He indicated a loss of vigilance, tactical illiteracy and a lack of interaction between the 245th and 324th SMEs. But no one, including the regiment commander, Lieutenant Colonel Romanikhin, was punished for the dramatic battle at Yaryshmarda.
20 years later
On May 5, 1996, the first article about the tragedy with the convoy of the 245th SME appeared on the pages of the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper, which they immediately began to call on the sidelines a sold. Khattab in a video message openly talks about the venality of some senior officers. But you can’t believe him, a thorough judicial investigation is necessary, which should answer the question about the reasons for the terrible coincidences and the mass death of the soldiers. But so far no such proceedings have been held. One of the mysteries of the First Chechen battle remains the April battle at Yaryshmarda. Military secrets have been carefully guarded since those times when it was strictly forbidden to the participants in the events to pass on the details and details of the terrible tragedy to everyone, including journalists. Today their memoirs are published, but they do not answer the main question: why is the command not responsible for the lives of its soldiers? ..