Yaryshmardy's battle: a list of the dead, eyewitnesses

The dual power in Chechnya, which emerged in 1991 and declared itself a sovereign republic, led to 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 military leaders of the country wanted to participate. But if the generals could resign and avoid sending to the North Caucasus, then the soldiers-conscripts and junior officers had no choice. In a hurry, the regiments were completed and sent out to carry out a combat mission in Chechnya. This fate was not avoided by the 245th SME (motorized rifle regiment), which lost a significant part of its personnel during the hostilities. The most dramatic battle was at the village of Yarishmardy on April 16, 1996, which occurred exactly twenty years ago.

245th SME

The 245th regiment has the title of Guards for the 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 recruits in wartime conditions. Its contingent has grown 10 times and amounted to 1,700 people due to a set of KDVO (Red Banner Far Eastern Military District). In addition to the recruits, volunteers who did not receive the necessary training were also called upon. On the eve of the entry into Chechnya, the fighters did not have a single joint exercise to work out cooperation.

Considering that in the North Caucasus four sets of officers will be replaced in the regiment, it becomes clear by his example that the army was not prepared to participate in the First Chechen campaign and was doomed to loss. Only 245 SMEs killed will be 220 people, including the son of Lieutenant-General Pulikovsky (December 1995) and those guys who lost their heads in another 20 combat operations. The most bloody battle was the village of Yashmardy, which caused a huge public response.

In the war zone

The 245th SME has always been at the forefront, taking part in the storming of Prigorodnoye (Grozny), Goysky, Vedeno, Arkhtan-Yurt, Shatoi and Gotov. Since the spring of the 95th the regiment has settled not far from Shatoi, carried out protection of roads and watch at roadblocks. The soldiers accompanied transport columns carrying fuel, food and humanitarian assistance to civilians. Beginning in February 1995, after encircling and blocking Dudayev's main troops in the South-East military grouping, strange events related to concessions to separatists began to occur more often.

During the operation to capture Shatoi in June 1995, the column 245 of the regiment was ambushed near the village of Zone in the Argun gorge. This happened because of careless leadership and lack of foot reconnaissance. Despite the losses, this fact remained almost without attention in the general jubilation associated with the taking of Shatoi. But this was the first bell to the tragedy, which went down in history as a battle with Yaryshmardy. On March 31, 1996, a column of paratroopers near the village of Benoi, which was going to Vedeno, was shot, but this did not inspire the command to increase security measures while passing through the gorge.

What preceded the April events

On April 4, the administration of Yaryshmardy village signed a peace treaty with federal troops, which imposed a ban on fighting in the area. Based on the document of the chief of staff of the 324th SME, under whose control the road section on Shatoi was located, a roadblock was removed 500 meters from the village. The commander of the regiment was not informed.

The battle against Yaryshmardy will take place in the circumstances of the order of the Minister of Defense on the use of artillery only in case of self-defense and complete refusal of participation of aviation in the territory of Chechnya. He came on secret communication channels about ten days before the exit of the column from Khankala.

The shot column

The central base of the 245th SME prepared a column on Shatoi, the purpose of which was the delivery to the military of material and technical means, fuel and young replenishment. The column was joined by demobilized and sent home for family reasons. There are reports that there were also soldiers' mothers searching for their missing children. From Goisky they were joined by 4 cars of the 324th SME. The rear column under the command of Major Terzovets came out on April 15, right after the celebration of Easter. After spending the night in Khankala, by the middle of the next day, cars and military equipment passed through Dacha Borzoy and Yarishmardy, stretching for 1.5-2 km. Ahead was a narrow mountain serpentine, which in its everyday life was called "mother tongue".

The reconnaissance 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 of Yaryshmardy was shot on video by the militants themselves, whose material became public. Against the backdrop of singing birds and conversations of the detachment of the Jordanian Khattab and Ruslan Gelaev, the roar of cars is heard. It is visible because of the branches from the cliff, how the tilt "Ural" appears, the lining, the BTR. Between the machines the distance is about 20 meters. Suddenly, explosions burst out the silence, and then a firing. Dense fire from a height, invisible behind the "green" and a veil of smoke, the militants shot at close range the Russian column. The video recorded the time - 13 hours 23 minutes. These are the minutes when the battle began with Yaryshmardy.

Battle Scheme

The diagram shows that the militants were waiting for the column deliberately, equipping up to 20 points for a fire attack. In the rocks specially dug trenches, which is a very time consuming business. All the locations of the Khattab and Gelayev gang are equipped with a sufficient number of weapons. They are located on two sides, which allows you to shoot through all sections of the road. On the road, radio-controlled landmines were installed along the road. Ideally, a place for attack is chosen thanks to a 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 liquidators or trucks to turn around to leave the battlefield.

On the left is a steep rock, on the right - a cliff about five meters high, under which flows the Argun River. During squall fire some soldiers managed to jump into the parched river. Do not crash at the time of finishing off the snipers, which eliminated the opportunity to escape. The trap for the transport column slammed when a tank headed at the bomb landed and an explosion was heard at the end of the procession. Bandits were beaten accurately on the target, having shot in the first minutes of the battle the BMP and BRDM, heading the column. The elder Major Terezovets, a radio operator and an artillery spotter, died. The company of 245 SMPs was not connected with the outside world (in the VHF band there was a special obstacle), without control and support from the artillery and aviation. In a real slaughter for the Russian soldiers and officers, the battle with Yaryshmardy turned into a battle.

1996: tragic events through the eyes of eyewitnesses

According to the 245th SME, during the bloody events 73 people were killed, 52 wounded, 6 infantry fighting vehicles, 1 BRDM, and 11 cars were destroyed. "Komsomolskaya Pravda" published an article in which 95 people were killed in view of the demobilized and joined the column, whose presence was not officially registered. This is easy to believe, because the mother of the deceased machine gunner Oleg Ogoreltsev, one of the demobilized, had to search for his son in Chechnya for a month and was able to identify the corpse in Rostov only after meeting with surviving participants in the dramatic events. 30 bodies were removed from the battlefield without the possibility of identification: the guys were burned like torches after direct hits from grenade launchers into the fins and BMP. Eyewitnesses about the fight at Yaryshmardy?

Sniper Denis Barber, a contractor, says that after the smoke had dissipated, the surviving soldiers resisted the last bullet in conditions of almost zero visibility. After the battle will be found seven corpses of militants - residents of the Shatoi region. Only at 6 o'clock in the evening the armored group of Miroshnichenko and the 324th SME broke through to the column, as well as the tattered reconnaissance squadron. By this time, Chechens and Arab mercenaries participating in the Khattab gang had already fled. Only one question was asked: why did the help come so late? Head BRDM resisted to the last, the guys could stay alive. To which the answer came: the regiment command waited for instructions from above, and the groups began to make their way to the aid only in the fourth hour. Flying turntables were hitting the mountains, artillery was beating, but there were no more militants on the slopes.

Igor Izotov, who was in the third truck, said that those who managed to squeeze into the patch between the front infantry fighting vehicle and the rocks, which became the only dead zone for the enemy, survived. The guys from under the cars took snipers, shooting ricochets on the asphalt.

The wounded Sergei Cherchik remembers that, despite the fire, there was mutual assistance between the soldiers. He, wounded with a splinter, pulled out a contractor from under the car, and when that person was in the knee cap, two of them were saved by a soldier-conscript.

Eternal memory to the deceased

The fact that the column was waiting and Khattab had full information about its composition is indicated by the fact that the most important vehicles were killed with land mines and grenade launchers. The medical car remained untouched. The wounded were collected in it, and the bodies of the dead were laid on the armor. When the MTLB began to unfold, its wheels hung over the precipice. The driver miraculously managed to straighten the car, but the bodies of the dead guys fell into Argun. All morning of the 17th they cleared the road, finding seven more unexploded bombs. Burnt trucks were dropped from the cliff, searched for things and personal numbers of soldiers. Thus ended almost four-hour battle with Yaryshmardy.

The death toll list of 245 SMEs includes 11 officers, including artillery spotters captain Vyatkin, who met his death in the first minutes of the battle, Captain Lakhin, Major Milovanov, 2 warrant officers and 27 soldiers and sergeants. Among them there are 8 conscript soldiers. 33 remained unidentified, and for a long time their names, like the machine gunner Ogareltsev, were installed with the help of parents and loved ones. On the site of 245 SMEs there is a memory book, and in the Nizhny Novgorod region a monument is erected to those who fulfilled their military duty at the cost of their lives.

Official investigation

The mass death of 245 SME personnel was the subject of an official investigation, following which the State Duma delivered speeches by Lieutenant-General Rokhlin and the prosecutor's office, who did not discern the corpus delicti in the actions of officials. Rokhlin blamed the country's leadership and the Ministry of Defense, which do not control the situation in Chechnya and allowed a manifestation of disorganization that caused the death of the military. He pointed to a loss of vigilance, tactical illiteracy and 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 Yaryshmardy.

20 years later

On May 5, 1996, the first article about the tragedy with a column of the 245th SME appeared on the pages of the newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda, which was immediately called sold on the sidelines. Khattab in the video message openly speaks about the venality of a part of high-ranking officers. But you can not believe him, you need a thorough judicial investigation, which should answer the question of the causes of terrible coincidences and the mass death of soldiers. But to date no such proceedings have been conducted. One of the riddles of the First Chechen is the April battle in Yaryshmardy. The military secret has been carefully guarded since the time when participants in the events were strictly forbidden to pass details and details of the terrible tragedy to everyone, including journalists. Today their memories are published, but they do not have answers to the main question: why is the command not responsible for the lives of its soldiers? ..