Fight in May Day. May Day battle. The advance of militants to Kizlyar

9 January 1996, militants attacked the Russian city of Kizlyar (Republic of Dagestan).
The militants with a total number of about 350 people acted under the command of Salman Raduev and Khunkar-Pasha Israpilov. The initial goal is to eliminate the helicopter base of the federal forces and take hostages among the federal security forces. However, it didn't work out. As a result of clashes with federal forces and local police, the militants tried to capture the city, railway station and airport. After local battles throughout the city, the militants took hostages among the civilian population (about 3000 people) and entrenched themselves in the local maternity hospital, because it is much more convenient to fight behind the backs of pregnant women - the militants managed to repeat the Budyonnovsky scenario ...

The next day the troops entered the city. Part of the militants remained to hold the bridge across the Terek on the way to the city. By the end of the day, 32 people were killed and 64 were injured.
At that time, the militants never entered into negotiations with the command of the federal forces, which blocked the quarters near the hospital.

Using the situation, Salman Raduev demanded that the Russian leadership withdraw troops from the territory of Chechnya and the North Caucasus. Of course, no one agreed to this, but the militants were released on buses with hostages from the maternity hospital. Storming it would be madness. For each dead Chechen, the militants threatened to shoot 15 civilians.

The return route of the Raduev group passed through the territory of Dagestan along the border with Chechnya. The militants wanted to go over to their side near the village of Pervomayskoye, located 300 meters from the border.

Near the border river Aksai, a convoy of buses with militants and hostages (165 people) was stopped by warning fire from helicopters (which hit the escort car of the Dagestan traffic police). The federal authorities had no intention of letting the militants with hostages into Chechnya: they were supposed to release people at the border. The militants intended to go further with the hostages, to Dudayev's headquarters in the village of Novogroznensky.

After the shelling, the convoy returned to the village of Pervomaiskoye, where the militants, hiding behind hostages, disarmed a Russian police checkpoint. OMON had an order not to shoot at the buses. As a result, the number of captured militants increased by 37 policemen from Novosibirsk, they seized their weapons, communications and armored personnel carriers.

On January 11-14, the militants fortified themselves in Pervomaisky. The village was blocked by federal troops. The militants began to prepare for the assault, forcing the prisoners to dig trenches. Russian Interior Minister Anatoly Kulikov and FSB Director Mikhail Barsukov arrived at the scene. The negotiations stalled. Raduev constantly changed his requirements. He insisted that Grigory Yavlinsky, Boris Gromov, Alexander Lebed and Yegor Gaidar become either mediators in the negotiations, or voluntary hostages. He demanded that Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin participate in the negotiations.

On January 16, 1996, in the Turkish port of Trabzon, a group of terrorists seized the Avraziya passenger ferry, threatening to shoot the Russian hostages and then blow up the ship. The terrorists demanded to stop the assault on the village of Pervomaiskoye, where the surrounded gangster group of Salman Raduev was located.

On the night of January 18, in the direction of Pervomaisky, a group of militants approached from the side and tried to unblock Raduev's group. She pulled the forces on herself, forcing the Dagestan riot police to move away from Pervomaisky.

In the same place at 3 o'clock in the morning and the militants went on a breakthrough. The bandits carried out a powerful three-minute fire raid, and then shouting “Allah Akbar!” rushed to the attack. On the rampart where our trenches were, it came to hand-to-hand combat. Chopped with knives and shovels. 150 militants in this area were opposed by no more than fifty special forces from the 22nd brigade of the North Caucasus Military District. (memories of Colonel-General Gennady Troshev). When the terrible picture of the night battle opened up in the morning, it turned out that they put down the entire first wave of militants. During the breakthrough, 39 militants were killed. 153 bodies of militants were found at the site of the fighting and on the outskirts of the village, 28 bandits were taken prisoner.

On January 18, the village was stormed. The decision to start the operation was made after the news of the execution of the elders and several policemen. Federal troops lost 26 killed and 93 wounded during the operation. Nothing was known about the fate of the militant leader Salman Raduev in those days.

Scheme of the assault on the village of Pervomaisky.

Later it turned out that Raduev and a small group of militants with hostages still managed to get through the ring and escape to Chechnya. The militants escaped from the encirclement, using a gas pipe laid over the Aksai River.

The GRU "Alpha" detachment lost five dead and six seriously wounded. And then from their own. After the battle in Pervomaisky, they handed over the equipment to conscripts, and one of the soldiers accidentally leaned in the wrong place and pressed the electric trigger of the Thunder gun. A shot immediately "demolished" several people. By that time, Barsukov had already reported that there were no losses in Alfa ...

On February 9, 1996, the State Duma decided to amnesty the participants in the "illegal actions" in Kizlyar and Pervomaisky, provided that the hostages who remained in captivity were released. During the attack, the militants executed about 200 hostages, mostly Avars and Lezgins.

For the attack on the maternity hospital, the Dagestanis nicknamed Raduev "Gynecologist", and the authorities sentenced the ringleader to death. There were hotheads in Dgestan who were planning similar campaigns with the robbery of settlements in Chechnya.

In March 2000, Salman Raduev was arrested by the FSB and transferred to Moscow to the Lefortovo pre-trial detention center. A year and a half later, he was sentenced to life imprisonment, and in December 2002 he died in a strict regime colony in Perm from an internal hemorrhage in the ass.

According to the Moskovskiye Novosti publication, the authorities allocated 250 million non-denominated rubles as compensation to the residents of Pervomaisky, and each family received a VAZ-2106 car ...

Blessed memory of those who died at the hands of terrorists ...

Info and photo (C) internet

21 years ago there was an attack by Chechen fighters on the Dagestan city of Kizlyar - one of the bloody episodes of the First Chechen War, a daring terrorist attack, during which civilians and military personnel were killed. On January 9, 1996, militants under the command of Salman Raduev and Khunkar-Pasha Israpilov attacked the city of Kizlyar (Republic of Dagestan) and, taking hostages, returned to Chechnya on January 18. As a result of the attack on Kizlyar and the battle near the village of Pervomayskoye, about 70 people were killed, more than a hundred were injured.

The reports of various law enforcement agencies provided data on the size of the detachment at 200, 400 and even more than 500, and half of the militants were allegedly "professional Arab mercenaries."

D. Dudayev entrusted the overall leadership of the operation to Kh. Israpilov and S. Raduev, and Kh. Israpilov carried out the military leadership of the operation, and S. Raduev the political one: after the capture of Kizlyar, he had to negotiate with representatives of the Russian authorities and the media.

Plan of attack on Kizlyar

On the night of January 6-7, boats were supposed to cross the Terek River and concentrate in a forest area near the village of Shelkovskaya. There, transfer to other vehicles and, by the evening of January 8, arrive at the administrative border between Chechnya and Dagestan in the area of ​​the village of Borozdinovskaya.

On January 9, at 2 o'clock in the morning, the main forces were to set out on foot from Borozdinovskaya and arrive in Kizlyar through the Kargaly hydroelectric complex. Atgiriev's detachment was supposed to arrive in the city in vehicles with ammunition by a circuitous route through the checkpoints of the federal troops. The detachment was supposed to be in pre-planned positions, and Atgiriev's unit was supposed to deliver ammunition by 4 am on January 9.

The beginning of the assault on Kizlyar was planned for 4 o'clock in the morning.

Aidamir Abalaev’s unit was tasked with attacking the helicopter base, eliminating the guards, seizing helicopters with ammunition, destroying some of them, and transporting the rest to Chechnya with the help of captured pilots or militants who, according to them, knew how to fly helicopters.

The "Naur Battalion" under the command of Musa Charaev was tasked to capture military unit No. 3693. It was necessary to suppress the resistance of the battalion of the Internal Troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia guarding her and try to capture as many military personnel as possible. Then, capturing the ammunition stored in the military unit, together with the prisoners, go to the commandant's office, which was planned to be created in the hospital building.

The "Consolidated Detachment of the North-Eastern Front of the CRI VF" under the command of Suleiman Raduev was tasked with capturing an aircraft factory located not far from the helicopter base, destroying the equipment located there, then, collecting hostages from nearby houses, go with them to the hospital. Upon arrival at the hospital building, this unit was supposed to advance to the railway station and take control of it.

Israpilov's brother's unit was supposed to be in reserve. The control group headed by S.Raduev and Kh.Israpilov was supposed to be in one of the premises located not far from the ROVD. After the capture of the ROVD building, it was planned to organize a headquarters there.

From the moment the operation began, it was decided to gather the residents of Kizlyar in three places: around the administration building, the cultural center and the hospital building. At the same time, the militants were supposed to announce to them that power in the city was passing into the hands of the military administration of the armed forces of the CRI and announce a curfew. After that, it was planned to take up all-round defense and prepare for a possible attack from the federal troops of Russia.

In early January 1996, the operation plan was approved in writing by Dzhokhar Dudayev.

According to some reports, as early as December 23, 1995, the President, Prime Minister and Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation received an official report signed by the head of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Russian Ministry of Defense, General F. Ladygin, which reported on the terrorists' plans to strike at the city of Kizlyar in Dagestan. However, judging by the testimony of Salman Raduev, it was during these days that Dzhokhar Dudayev first introduced him to the plan of attack on Kizlyar.

In addition, according to the Agentura.Ru website, the information received from an unknown source by D. Dudayev turned out to be false - no eight helicopters with ammunition were expected in Kizlyar.

Events in Kizlyar

The advance of militants to Kizlyar

On the evening of January 5, 1996, the entire detachment of militants on buses and cars left Novogroznensky (Oiskhara) and reached the Terek River near the village of Azamat-Yurt past the settlements of Suvorov-Yurt (Noybera) and Kadi-Yurt. On two boats, the militants crossed over to the opposite shore overnight and reached the village of Shelkovskaya on another vehicle. Part of the detachment concentrated in a forest area located near the villages of Shelkovskaya and Grebenskaya, the other part was settled in residential buildings in these settlements. In the period from January 6 to 8, militants in a UAZ-452 car repeatedly went to Kizlyar for reconnaissance.

At about 21-22.00 on January 8, the detachment on buses and cars left in the direction of the village of Borozdinovskaya. They moved mainly along the highway, sometimes bypassing the posts of the federal troops.

The militants arrived in the village of Borozdinovskaya at about 3.30 am, stopped in a field, not far from the administrative border between Dagestan and Chechnya. Here, Salman Raduyev first informed the militants that the city of Kizlyar would be the target of the attack.

January 9

The militants attacked a helicopter base located near the city near Kizlyar. The militants could not hold the airfield, although as a result of the battle they managed to destroy two Mi-8 helicopters, two fuel trucks and plunder a warehouse of unguided rockets (NURS).

A detachment of militants who attacked the military unit was repulsed. The attackers were driven back from the battalion's location and retreated to the city.

As Salman Raduev later admitted, the results of the attacks on the helicopter base and the military unit were not in favor of the militants: they suffered heavy losses in killed and wounded, but could not destroy the attacked objects. It was not possible to achieve complete control over the city.

Armed formations of the CRI retreated into the city and occupied the hospital building, taking hostage the inhabitants of the nearest houses and driving them to the hospital. In total, according to various sources, from 2,000 to 3,000 or more people were taken hostage, among whom were many women and children. The hospital building was mined and warned that in extreme cases it would be blown up along with all the people in it. S. Raduev put forward the following conditions for the release of the hostages: the withdrawal of federal troops from Chechnya, the recognition of the elections in the Chechen Republic in December 1995 (as a result of which Doku Zavgaev was elected president of Chechnya within the Russian Federation) as invalid.

From the hospital building, Salman Raduev contacted the world's largest news agencies by satellite phone and transmitted information about the capture of Kizlyar. Also, S. Raduev contacted D. Dudaev, who, having learned about the heavy losses suffered by the detachment, ordered the hostages to be released and returned to the territory of Chechnya.

January 10

In the course of negotiations with representatives of the authorities of Dagestan, an agreement was reached that the militants would be provided with transport, in which they would leave Kizlyar and go through the village of Pervomaiskoye to the territory controlled by the CRI forces - to the village of Novogroznenskoye. The agreement between the chairman of the State Council of Dagestan M. Magomedov and S. Raduev assumed that all the hostages, except for 10 representatives of the republic's leadership, would be released. However, the militants violated this clause by taking about 50 more hostages from among those who were in the hospital.

S. Raduev promised to release all the hostages as soon as the convoy of militants arrived in Chechnya. Subsequently, discrepancies arose in the interpretation of this promise. The Dagestan and federal authorities believed that the hostages would be released immediately after crossing the administrative border with Chechnya. In this case, there was still a lot of time and space left to launch a military operation against Raduev's militants before they reached Novogroznensky. Raduev also intended to release the hostages upon arrival in Novogroznenskoye.

On January 10, at about 5.30 am, a convoy of vehicles arrived at the hospital building. The column was accompanied by 10 representatives of the authorities of Dagestan, headed by the first deputy minister of internal affairs of this republic, V. Beev. Among them were the Minister for National Affairs of the Government of Dagestan Magomedsalikh Gusaev, the Minister of Finance of Dagestan Gamid Gamidov, the Deputy Chairman of the People's Assembly of Dagestan Abakar Aliyev, the deputy of the People's Assembly of Dagestan Imampasha Chergizbiev (a Chechen by nationality), as well as a number of other members of the government, deputies and representatives of the Khasavyurt administration district.

The column with militants and hostages (according to various sources, from 60 to 160 people) left the hospital at about 7 am on January 10, 1996. Its movement was led by radio by the First Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Dagestan V. Beev.

According to journalists of the Segodnya newspaper, the federals believed that upon reaching the village of Pervomaisky, the hostages would be released, and, after crossing the bus column of the bridge over the Aksai River, an operation to eliminate the militants would begin. From the bridge to the nearest Chechen settlement Azamat-Yurt is about six kilometers. This segment of the path was very convenient for an attack: on the right there was a liquid forest and the non-freezing Terek, and on the left a field covered with a network of ditches. On Chechen territory, a convoy of buses was supposed to be attacked from the air by two Su-25 attack aircraft, stopping it. After that, a link of Mi-24 helicopters was supposed to turn the buses into ruins with missiles. The militants who fled in a panic were to be taken alive or dead by two companies of the 7th Airborne Division, which they intended to parachute on both sides of the highway.

At about 11:00 a.m., the column arrived at a checkpoint of federal forces near the village of Pervomaisky, and headed for the territory of Chechnya. At this time, a message was received on the radio that the bridge had been blown up. By order of Beev, the convoy stopped, and the police car accompanying it went to check this information. Almost immediately, the vehicle was fired upon by rockets from a helicopter. The column returned to the village of Pervomayskoye, the unit of Turpal Atgiriev, which closed it, entered the checkpoint and disarmed the fighters of the Novosibirsk OMON stationed there. Residents of Pervomaisky left the village even before the arrival of the militants. All the hostages we captured were distributed in residential buildings in the village of Pervomaisky and guarded by militants. The village itself was blockaded by federal troops.

Fights for Pervomaisk

January 11-14

From 11 to 14 January, both sides were actively preparing for hostilities. The militants were fortifying the village with hostage forces. The hostages were forced to dig trenches, some of them, despite the cold nights, were deliberately left in buses in order to prevent shelling of terrorist positions.

Federal troops pulled up artillery, additional units, carried out reconnaissance. A group of troops with a total strength of 2.5 thousand people, 32 guns and mortars, 16 flamethrowers, 10 grenade launchers, 3 Grad MLRS, 54 infantry fighting vehicles, 22 armored personnel carriers, 4 armored infantry fighting vehicles, several tanks and combat helicopters were concentrated near Pervomaisky. S. Raduev had from 200 to 300 militants, more than 100 hostages, 82-mm mortars taken from Kizlyar on trucks, as well as a large number of machine guns, grenade launchers, flamethrowers and other weapons and ammunition.

Russian Interior Minister Anatoly Kulikov and FSB Director Mikhail Barsukov arrived at the scene. The negotiations stalled. Raduev constantly changed his requirements. He insisted that Grigory Yavlinsky, Boris Gromov, Alexander Lebed and Yegor Gaidar become either mediators in the negotiations, or voluntary hostages. He demanded that Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin participate in the negotiations.

On January 13, FSB director Mikhail Barsukov announced the next day, January 14, as the deadline for the militants to release the hostages. He promised them safe passage to Chechnya if all the hostages were released and their weapons were handed over.

On January 14, negotiations resumed and continued until about 15:00, after which they were suspended. As stated in the official statement of the Center for Public Relations of the Federal Security Service of Russia, at 16.30 militants from small arms and mortars began shelling federal troops, a helicopter was fired upon.

The structure of the blockade of the village by the federal troops consisted of three rings: two internal - in the village and near it - and one external, stretched over a large territory. A reinforced motorized rifle battalion of the 136th Motorized Rifle Brigade, consisting of 730 people, blocked the village from the northeast, east and southeast, and two tactical groups of the airborne division, numbering 80 people, blocked the village from the west and southwest. The tactical group of the 22nd OBR Special Forces with 876 Special Forces ORs of the 58th Army in the amount of 59 people blocked the village from the north-west. The motorized group of the border detachment in the amount of 80 people blocked the village from the north, interacting with the motorized rifle company.

According to Segodnya correspondents who were present at the scene, the main forces were deployed from the direction of Dagestan, while the western direction, the most threatened for a breakthrough, as it led to Chechnya, was occupied by a brigade of the seventh division of the Airborne Forces, deprived of artillery and air cover. The central position in the western direction was occupied by the second company in the amount of 37 people. The material and technical support of the Russian troops was unsatisfactory.

January 15

In the morning, information appeared that the militants shot Dagestan elders who came to them for negotiations (according to various sources, from 2 to 7) and 6 militiamen-hostages. Attempts to resume negotiations were unsuccessful and a decision was made to storm the village of Pervomaisky using helicopters, tanks and armored personnel carriers, despite the possible losses among the hostages. The overall command of the federal forces was exercised by Viktor Zorin, FSB First Deputy Director Mikhail Barsukov.

On the morning of January 15, after ineffective artillery preparation and an air strike, nine assault groups - the Vityaz special forces detachment, special rapid reaction detachments (SOBR) and units of the 22nd separate special forces brigade of the GRU General Staff - went on the assault. In the second echelon, in full readiness to storm the buildings in which the hostages could be, there was a group of the Alfa anti-terrorist center.

In principle, all these units were not intended for combined arms combat. The special forces were not equipped in sufficient quantities with grenade launchers, flamethrowers and grenade launchers - the most effective of fire weapons when operating in a populated area. There were no armored vehicles, the fire of which they could control themselves.

By 1 pm, the Vityaz fighters, having crossed the canal, captured the first line of defense of the fighters on the outskirts of the village and broke into the southeastern quarter. The rest, having stumbled upon fierce fire resistance in the area of ​​​​the bridge and the cemetery, were forced to stop. Two hours later, having suffered small losses, the Vityaz also stopped. With the onset of dusk, all units were ordered to withdraw to their original positions.

January 16

On January 16, the assault on Pervomaisky was repeated. Again there was an attack along the southern outskirts of the village, the militants put up fierce resistance. The greatest success was achieved on the right flank of the attacking Vityaz units. The unit again captured the southeastern quarter of Pervomaisky, went to the main street and stumbled upon the second line of defense of the militants: trenches of a full profile, cut-off positions, firing points skillfully equipped in houses. Snipers posed a particular danger, knocking out commanders from the ranks of the attackers in the first place. Up to half of all losses in Pervomaisky are attributed to them.

All attempts by the special forces to break through the second line of defense of the militants were unsuccessful. The total losses of the federal troops amounted to about 15 people killed and wounded. At 17.00 the general retreat was given again. Departing, the personnel of the assault units secured themselves on the outskirts of the village, in an open field. They were forced to spend the night in irrigation canals or in unheated buses; they began to give hot food only on the third day of the confrontation in Pervomaisky.

The protracted operation, which led to a prolonged stay of the federal troops in difficult weather conditions, reduced the combat effectiveness of the units blockading the village every day. Overnight in the winter field, without normal rest and heating, the servicemen were in a clearly disadvantageous position in relation to Raduev's militants.

January 17

At 11:30 p.m., scouts reported the appearance in the rear, near the village of Sovetskoye, of a detachment of militants, which was confirmed by a local resident who had arrived from there. Shamil Basayev's militants attacked the outer ring of federal troops. For the commandos withdrawn from the positions, exhausted by the week-long confrontation, the blow of the militants from the rear was unexpected. In a half-hour battle, the Dagestan policemen and servicemen of the North Caucasus Military District who received him suffered serious losses. The helicopter strike dispersed Basayev's attacking militants.

A few hours later, a strike group of militants tried to break out of the encirclement in the same area. Following the militants marching to full height with flamethrowers and grenade launchers, hostages walked and carried wounded Chechens. In this area, the breakthrough failed, however, as it turned out later, it was only a distraction.

Taking advantage of the shootout that broke out near the village of Sovetskoye, the main group of militants, which included all the field commanders participating in the operation, together with the hostages, began to break through towards Chechnya through the checkpoint to the Terek. As a result of a sudden attack by militants, almost all the fighters of the 22nd separate special forces brigade who were on the retreat path of the militants, including the head of intelligence of the 58th Army of the North Caucasus Military District, Colonel A. Stytsina, were killed. The main forces of the militants, including Raduev and Turpal-Ali Atgeriev, managed to break out of the encirclement and return to Chechnya, taking 15 hostages with them.

Capture of the ferry "Avraziya"

On January 16, in the Turkish port of Trabzon, terrorists led by M. Tokdzhan, who, according to him, fought in Basayev's battalion, seized the Avrazia ferry with predominantly Russian passengers on board. The demands of the terrorists were: the lifting of the blockade of the village of Pervomaiskoye and the withdrawal of federal troops from the North Caucasus.

Release of the remaining hostages

On January 23, 20 hostages from among those captured by Raduev's militants during the Kizlyar events, as well as the day before - in the area of ​​the village of Gerzel-Aul, were released in the Chechen village of Novogroznensky, another 12 Novosibirsk policemen remained in the hands of the militants.

A month later, on February 9, 1996, the State Duma of Russia adopted a special resolution, according to which Raduev's militants were amnestied. After that, Raduev released the Novosibirsk policemen he had captured. The militants detained in Pervomaisky were released (actually exchanged for captured policemen), and the bodies of the dead were handed over for burial.

Losses

On March 22, the Russian State Duma Committee on Security disseminated data on casualties among military personnel and civilians during the operation of federal troops in Kizlyar and Pervomaisky.

The certificate, signed by Committee Chairman Viktor Ilyukhin, states that on January 9, during the breakthrough of militants into Kizlyar, 34 people were killed, including 7 police officers and 2 military personnel. In the village of Pervomaiskoye, where the militants took 60 hostages with them, 30 people died, including 16 hostages and 14 police officers. 38 bodies of militants were found, they were handed over to relatives. The number of wounded and killed militants carried out during the breakout from the cordon has not been established.

According to other sources, during the operation to free the hostages in the city of Kizlyar and with. Pervomayskoye, 153 militants were destroyed, 16 hostages were killed, 26 soldiers and officers of federal troops were killed at the hands of terrorists, 93 people were injured, 250 houses were destroyed, 30 militants were captured, 82 hostages were released.

The Russian military said that during the operation in the village of Pervomaisky, 82 hostages were released, and 13 more were killed. In addition, it was announced that the losses among the attackers amounted to 26 people killed and 128 wounded. According to other sources, at least 78 servicemen and police officers were killed in Kizlyar and Pervomaisky.

In Kizlyar, more than 800 houses and apartments were damaged and destroyed, in Pervomaisky - 330 private households, more than 60 cars and tractors were also damaged. The gas pipeline, water supply, power lines were put out of action, the buildings of the mosque and the medical unit were destroyed.

Consequences

On January 19, the State Council of Dagestan issued a decree declaring mourning for the victims of terrorism in the city of Kizlyar, the villages of Pervomayskoye and Sovetskoye: January 19, 20 and 21, 1996 were declared days of mourning in the republic, state flags were flown at half mast throughout its territory, entertainment events and programs were canceled.

Raduev's raid on Kizlyar greatly aggravated relations between the militants and the inhabitants of multinational Dagestan, and the attitude of the local population towards the Akin Chechens living in the republic worsened.

After the end of the First Chechen War, Salman Raduev, as well as a number of field commanders who participated in the "Kizlyar raid", were awarded the highest award of Ichkeria, the order "Kyoman Siy" ("Honor of the Nation") and the title of brigadier generals. Salman Raduev became the commander of the "Army of General Dudayev" (AGD) he created, Khunkar-Pasha Israpilov headed the CRI Anti-Terrorist Center for some time, Turpal-Ali Atgeriev became the Minister of State Security in the government of Aslan Maskhadov, and Aidamir Abalaev was also the Minister of Internal Affairs for a short time republics.

In March 2000, during the "anti-terrorist operation" that began in Chechnya, Salman Raduev was captured by Russian special services in the village of Novogroznensky in the southeast of the republic. In October of the same year, Turpal-Ali Atgeriev was also detained.

In December 2001, Raduev and Atgeriev were sentenced by the Supreme Court of Dagestan to life imprisonment and 15 years in prison, respectively. In 2002, both of them died in colonies under unclear circumstances.

It was officially announced that Turpal-Ali Atgeriev, who was serving his prison term in a colony near Yekaterinburg, died on August 8, 2002 "from leukemia", and Salman Raduev died on December 14 of the same year in the Perm colony "White Swan" " from internal hemorrhage. Meanwhile, many in Chechnya believe that Raduev and Atgeriev were killed.

Two other well-known field commanders: Khunkar-Pasha Israpilov and Aidamir Abalaev died during the Second Chechen War. Israpilov was killed in the winter of 2000 when militants left Grozny, which was surrounded by Russian troops, and Aidamir Abalaev died in May 2002 in the southeast of Chechnya.

On the anniversary of the withdrawal of federal troops from Chechnya, the "Caucasian Knot" has prepared a file " First Chechen: 20 years since the withdrawal of troops", which contains articles about the turning points of the war and the biographies of the main characters. In addition, in the file you can find military video footage and listen to songs about the war, including works by the Chechen bard Timur Mutsuraev.

Notes

1. V.V. Ustinov. Terrorism is blamed. Protocol of interrogation of S. Raduev.
2. Kizlyar-Pervomaiskoye - Agentura.Ru.
3. The terrorist attack in Kizlyar (Dagestan) in January 1996. Help - RIA Novosti, 01/09/2011
4. Alexander Chernitsky - "How to save a hostage or twenty-five famous releases", OLMA-PRESS, 2003
5. "We didn't have a submarine there..." Compiled by: Boris Belenkin, Alexander Cherkasov, "Memorial", Moscow, 1996
6. Website "Agentura.ru": "Kizlyar-Pervomaiskoye".
7. G. Sanin, I. Dvinsky, V. Akopov. Hunting for "lone wolves". - The newspaper "Today" No. 07, 24.1.1996
8. G. Sanin, V. Akopov. May Day. Five days in January - The newspaper "Segodnya" No. 05, 1/20/1996.
9. "We didn't have a submarine there...": Chronicle of smoke: Kizlyar - Pervomayskoye, January 9-16, 1996 / comp. : B.I. Belenkin, A.V. Cherkasov; NPC "Memorial". - M., 1996. - 135 p.
10. A. Saveliev. Bandit raid. - "Russian House", 01/08/2011
11. D.V. Krasnopeev. Chronology of the first Chechen. Site "Art of war".
12. Umalt Chadaev. Salman Raduev's militants attacked the Dagestan town of Kizlyar 11 years ago - Prague Watchdog.

“On January 9, 1996, at 9.45, in accordance with the instructions of the director of the FSB of Russia, General of the Army Barsukov M.I. the personnel of the department "A" was raised on combat alert for further instructions.

The ancient and wise Sun Tzu advised: "Feed a soldier for a thousand days in order to use one hour at the right time and in the right place."

This hour has come in Kizlyar and Pervomaisky. The country is tired of the threats and bloody deeds of Chechen terrorists. Everyone hoped to win. Completely forgetting to feed and train the soldier.

Then they shouted: who is to blame? Talentless generals or gifted terrorists? Fully convince ourselves that generals and colonels are to blame for all our military troubles.

Who spat on and destroyed the army with lack of money, thoughtless reductions, insane conversion? Who yelled from the parliamentary stands that the "black dog" of the KGB cannot be washed away and therefore he must be killed?

It turns out that they are not to blame, who, under the guise of a holy war against totalitarianism, ruined the army and special services. But then who? Until we answer this question, the bloody fingers of the Basayevs will keep holding us by the throat. We will not see victories in the fight against terror. We will not be able to protect our citizens on our land. After all, the guarantee of these victories is in the wise advice of Sun Tzu: feed the soldier for a thousand days ...
... And now let's return to Pervomaiskoye.

“According to primary information, a group of militants in the amount of 300 people, armed with small arms, firing at civilians, took about 350 people hostage in a hospital in Kizlyar, the Republic of Dagestan. At the same time, the militants attacked the helipad of the city of Kizlyar, as a result of which 2 helicopters and a tanker were destroyed, and a residential building was also seized.

At 11.30, one hundred and twenty employees, headed by Major General Gusev A.V., having with them weapons, special means and protective equipment, equipment necessary to carry out the tasks of freeing the hostages, left for the Chkalovsky airfield.

12.00. The personnel arrived at the airport and at 13.00 on two Tu-154 planes took off on a special flight to Makhachkala. At 15.30 and 17.00 the planes landed at the Makhachkala airport.

At 20.00, the personnel arrived by car at the FSB department in Makhachkala, where the head of the Antiterrorist Center of the FSB of Russia, Colonel-General Zorin V.N. brought the operational situation to the current moment.

At 01.20 on January 10, upon the arrival of two armored personnel carriers, the convoy began moving to the city of Kizlyar, where it arrived at 5.30.

What did the Alpha fighters see in Kizlyar? In essence, they saw the tail of a column of terrorists and hostages leaving the city. By this time, the leadership of Dagestan decided to release the Chechen bandits from the city hospital and provide them with unhindered passage to the border of Chechnya. The terrorists promised to release the hostages at the border.

At 6:40 a.m., a convoy of terrorists on 9 buses, 2 KamAZ vehicles and 2 ambulances began to move. The Kizlyar hospital remained mined.

The pursuit began. Initially, it was planned to carry out an operation on the route: to block the convoy and free the hostages. Although, to be honest, there was a considerable risk in this option. Some high-ranking officials, deputies of Dagestan, and a convoy - 9 buses - went hostage. Imagine the death of at least one of the hostages. And it would be inevitable, since there are not one or two terrorists, and they are armed not with guns, but with machine guns, machine guns, and grenade launchers.

Now "impose" these events on that military, bloody, tense situation in the Caucasus - and you will understand what doubts tormented the leaders of the operation.

In a word, Raduev and his terrorists were not stopped or blocked on the route. He safely reached Pervomaisky, disarmed the checkpoint of the Novosibirsk riot police, who resignedly raised their hands, replenished the number of hostages and his arsenal.

From the service report of group "A"

“In the course of further negotiations, the commander of the militants, Raduev, put forward demands to provide an opportunity for the passage of the column to the territory of Chechnya, where he promised to release the hostages. In this regard, the headquarters of department "A" developed a variant of the operation to free the hostages on the route of movement.

The plan of the operation provided for blocking the column with armored vehicles, destroying terrorists with sniper fire and undermining KamAZ vehicles loaded with weapons and ammunition, inducing the terrorists to surrender their weapons and free the hostages.

Employees of department "A" conducted a reconnaissance of the area and selected possible locations for the operation. The unit was assigned a combat mission and a scheme of communication and interaction was worked out, a calculation of forces and means was made.

However, the efforts of the commanders and fighters of the special forces were in vain. Raduev refused the demands put forward, remained in Pervomaisky and began equipping firing positions. I must say that it was a strong move of the bandits. Now the operation from a special one - to free hostages and destroy terrorists - turned into a military one. Or, rather, in a special, Chekist-military. By the way, there is still no consensus among experts on this issue.

The Ministry of Defense considers the operation in Pervomaisky special, and the Federal Security Service - combined arms. Who's right, who's wrong?
Since the hostages were taken prisoner, the terrorists made demands and shot some of the captured, there are all the ingredients for conducting an anti-terror operation.

But terrorists - not one or two, and not even a dozen or two, but more than three hundred bayonets. They are armed with mortars, grenade launchers, heavy machine guns, machine guns, sniper rifles. They dug trenches of a full profile, created a fortified defense area in accordance with all the rules of military science with advanced and cut-off positions, with communication passages and even blocked gaps. Ask any person who has the slightest understanding of military affairs: what is this? This is nothing more than a motorized rifle battalion on the defensive. And since the battalion dug in not in an open field, but in a fairly large village, for the advancing it is also an assault on the settlement. With all the ensuing consequences.

What are the consequences? They can be very deplorable if you do not fulfill a few "ifs".

If you do not carry out artillery preparation and suppress the enemy’s firepower, if you do not create at least a threefold (during the years of the Great Patriotic War, both five and tenfold) superiority of forces, if you do not throw unprepared soldiers and officers into the assault, if ... However, even this seems to be sufficient. In this case, people who go on the attack will simply die, and the attack will bog down.

Which, in fact, happened. By and large, there was no artillery preparation. The shelling from several anti-tank guns, perhaps, looked more like psychological pressure than the actual destruction of firing points.

Wow pressure ... They fired from cannons, destroyed the village. Yes, they fired and destroyed. Everyone saw it on TV screens. But the gunfire did little harm to the militants buried in the ground. When, after the shelling, the first units moved to storm, the terrorists met them with a hurricane of fire. The Dagestan riot police immediately lost several people killed, wounded and retreated. According to the laws of tactics, this meant only one thing - the front line of the enemy's defense was not suppressed, the bandits retained their firepower, and anyone who tries to rush forward will die.

From the service report of group "A"

“On January 15, at 8.30, the personnel of the department took up their original positions. After inflicting a fire strike by aviation and helicopters, the combat groups within the departments, setting up an advanced patrol, in cooperation with the Vityaz unit, entered into battle with Chechen fighters and advanced into "square four" on the southeastern outskirts of the village of Pervomayskoye.

During the hostilities on January 15-18, employees of the department identified and destroyed firing points of militants, provided fire cover for the Interior Ministry units, provided medical assistance, and evacuated the wounded from the battlefield.

There is a lot behind these meager lines of the report. For example, the withdrawal from under fire of the fighters of the Vityaz detachment, who, in fact, ended up in a fire bag. They were helped by the staff of the "A" group.

In the war, when the attack choked, they pulled up artillery and again began to "process" the front line. If possible, aircraft were called in and bombed. Or there was another option: the advancing troops bypassed the center of resistance and moved forward.

The “feds” did not have such an option, as, however, there was no other. They could not resume artillery preparation, since already from the first gun salvos a howl arose: they were killing the hostages.

It turns out that there was only one thing left: to destroy our special forces - "Alpha", "Vympel", "Vityaz", throwing them under the dagger fire of the bandits.

I often think of a terrible dilemma: yes, the state must, must, must save the lives of the hostages. But what is the cost of this salvation?

Recently, we often look at the problem through the eyes of a captured unarmed person. The bitter, humiliating role of a suicide bomber, moreover, innocent. But how humiliated and crushed is a professional, powerless in his main business - the release of captives and the punishment of bandits! What could a fighter of "Alpha" in Pervomaisky? Even the most experienced, first-class fighter? Rise to his full height in the attack and die heroically? But this, at least, is stupidity. Although this is enough in the war.

Do not die yourself, save as many hostages as possible, destroy terrorists - this is the triune task of special units.

The fighters of group "A" successfully know how to storm captured buses, planes, houses in which terrorists have settled, but they are not taught to walk in chains and are not strong in combined arms tactics. It's none of their business. But then whose? Motorized riflemen, artillerymen, tankmen...

“We have arrived,” my opponents will say. “Eighteen-year-old unshooted, untrained boys were thrown into the fire, and excellent shooters, athletes, experienced fighters who have been in more than one alteration will remain on the sidelines.”

This is where the main question arises, from which I began my reflections and which lies at the basis of all our recent defeats: why is the soldier of the Russian Armed Forces not fired, untrained, poorly equipped, or even hungry?

All this, by the way, was present in Pervomaisky. And the drivers who made their first march on the BMP, and many days of cold, and the lack of basic living conditions.

I was told by the employees of group “A” how freezing Russian soldiers asked to get on their buses at night. "Alfovtsy" would be happy to let them in, but they themselves slept sitting, consider, on each other's knees.

And our television uttered everything: cordon, ring, blocking. Forgetting that there are people behind every word. How many days and nights without sleep and rest can you "block" militants while sitting in a trench or in a winter field? Given that the militants were warming themselves at this time in the houses of Pervomaisky.

Now many are asking with surprise the question: how did Raduev slip away? And so he slipped away, breaking through with battles. Because by and large there was no ring there. And not only external and internal, but even the usual environment. Well, except perhaps the “islands” of defense, one of which was defended by three dozen army special forces. A handful of fighters, on which the Radyev gang came out. They killed the bulk of the terrorists, letting them in almost close. However, remember how many people Raduev had - more than three hundred. So the advantage is almost ten times. These Russian special forces guys are undoubtedly heroes. Almost all of them are wounded, there are also dead.

How it was, few people know. There are not many of them left after that battle - the special forces of the 22nd brigade. Who retired to the reserve, who went to other cities, military districts. After those events, I had a hard time finding a few heroes. Here is how one of them tells about that terrible battle:
“Once again we have been set up. The press then wrote - three rings of encirclement, snipers. All this is nonsense. There were no rings. The guys from our 22nd Special Forces Brigade took the hit.

The density of the front was 46 people per one and a half kilometers. Imagine! According to all standards, the excess of the length for each fighter is three times. And the weapons - only small arms, light, and two armored personnel carriers were given.

Our site was the most likely to break through. Why? Yes, because only here, in the only place, you can cross the Terek. I emphasize only one. There, an oil pipeline is stretched across the river, and there is a bridge above it. And it was clear to the fool: there was nowhere else to go.
We suggested blowing up the pipe. No, this is oil, the “grandmothers” are big. People are cheaper. And they would blow it up - and the "spirits" have nowhere to go.

By the way, two Chechen KamAZ vehicles approached from that side. They stood and waited. From our side - nothing, the "turntables" did not work on them.

As such, the terrorists had no training. They began shelling, and their strike group went on the attack. Approaching the stronghold about a hundred meters, the front bandits lay down, began to exert fire pressure. In the meantime, the cover group pulled up, and everyone rushed forward in a crowd.

From a tactical point of view, they acted correctly. Otherwise, they could not. After the battle, we checked the documents of the dead. Afghans, Jordanians, Syrians. About fifty professional mercenaries.

Each, as a rule, has two duffel bags, one contains ammunition and canned food, the other contains drugs, syringes and so on. So they attacked in a state of drug dope. They say fearless suicide bombers. The bandits were afraid.

Yes, Raduev slipped away, but we killed many. About 200 terrorists went into battle. We killed 84 people. Not counting the wounded and prisoners. In the morning I looked at the tracks - twenty people escaped, no more. Raduev is with them.

The brigade also suffered losses: five were killed, six people were injured. If two or three companies had been planted in our sector, the result would have been different. A lot of things were done stupidly. They planted a small handful in defense, did not begin to mine the approaches. What did they expect? Maybe someone needed such a breakthrough?

These are such bitter confessions.

In that battle, the head of intelligence of the 58th Army, Colonel Alexander Stytsina, the commander of the communications company, Captain Konstantin Kozlov, and the medic Captain Sergei Kosachev, were killed.

Group “A” also lost two of its officers in Pervomaisky - Majors Andrei Kiselev and Viktor Vorontsov.

Vorontsov was from the border guards, he served in a separate control unit in Sheremetyevo-2. First he got into Vympel, and in 1994 he moved to group A. He distinguished himself during the release of hostages in the city of Budennovsk, for which he was awarded the Suvorov medal.

Andrei Kiselev is a graduate of the Ryazan Airborne School. He served in a special-purpose company of the airborne communications regiment, was an instructor in airborne training. In 1993, he was admitted to the "A" division.

Both officers took part in complex operational activities and combat operations. For courage and courage shown during the rescue of the hostages, Andrei Kiselev and Viktor Vorontsov were awarded the Order of Courage (posthumously).

On January 9, 1996, a detachment of militants under the command of Salman Raduev attacked the maternity ward and hospital in the city of Kizlyar. The terrorists drove about three thousand residents from nearby houses into the captured buildings. On January 10, militants with some of the hostages began to move towards Chechnya. The operation to free people and eliminate militants has become one of the most disastrous in modern Russian history.
President Boris Yeltsin tried to pretend that the situation was under the control of the federal forces. In an interview given on January 13, he said: “The operation is very, very carefully prepared; say, if there are 38 snipers, then each sniper has a target, and he sees this target all the time. In fact, there were neither the mythical 38 snipers who appeared from nowhere in Yeltsin's speech, nor the careful preparation of the operation.

The goal of the militants was to capture the airfield, where, as they believed, there was a weapons depot. But only two helicopters and empty boxes were found on the territory. The terrorists burned the helicopters. During the battle, they were pushed back from the town by the internal troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. In order to get out of the city, the militants decided to create a human shield. A demand was also voiced: in exchange for hostages, withdraw Russian troops from the North Caucasus.

As soon as the incident became known in Moscow, Yeltsin blamed it on the border service, which allegedly "overslept" and let the militants through the Dagestan and Chechen borders. At the same time, Yeltsin did not take into account that there are no border controls between the subjects of the Russian Federation.

Column movement

On January 10, the militants and a hundred hostages left Kizlyar on dedicated buses. The convoy was not stopped at checkpoints - the order “not to provoke” was announced. Buses with special forces left behind the militants, but the gap of 40 minutes could not be overcome. The decision to chase the Ikarus was ill-conceived; landing special forces from helicopters would have been much more effective.

There was also no interception plan - it was created in the process. When it became clear that the militants were heading towards Chechnya, they tried to stop them with shots from helicopters.

Salman Raduev took advantage of the confusion of the federal forces, deployed the column and occupied the village of Pervomaisky. The order not to open fire cost the freedom of 37 Novosibirsk riot police from a checkpoint near the village.

Negotiation

The negotiations lasted five days. During this time, the gang of militants grew greatly, fortifications appeared in the village. The trenches were dug by the hostages. Buses with hostages also covered the positions of the terrorists. As one of the participants in the assault recalled, “the village was indeed very strongly fortified, and reinforcements constantly approached the Dudaevites. We saw them ourselves, but we could not shoot - there was no order, the negotiations continued. Only on the third day of sitting, we and our neighbors were given tasks to storm the village.

During the negotiations, it was possible to achieve the release of women and children, but the rest of the hostages remained in the hands of the terrorists. It was a human shield of captured riot police and other captured people that prevented the assault on January 14, as originally planned.

First assault

All the weakness of the organization manifested itself at the stage of the assault, which began on January 15th. The soldiers of the special forces had a poor idea of ​​the task, SOBR arrived with ladders that were useless during the assault on the village. According to the recollections of the participants, “there was no equipment and artillery, coordination was only through the headquarters. The connection is poor, since each unit's walkie-talkies operate on their own frequencies. During the entire assault, the helicopter pilots acted generally on their own - to whom they obeyed, we did not understand. Despite the fact that different units took part in the assault, each of them acted almost autonomously - a general plan with the distribution of tasks was never created. According to some sources, neither the layout of the village, nor even its maps and diagrams were used, although it was possible to conduct aerial photography in a few days of negotiations.

The situation was complicated by the nature of the area - the open steppe provided the militants with the opportunity to see all the positions and movements of groups of federal forces. Helicopter support was able to force the terrorists to move deeper into the village.

The militants fired back, Russian units suffered losses. The order was given to retreat. A participant in the events testifies that "they were leaving across a bare field, and the militants fired at them from all types of weapons they had, including mortars."

Decisive assault

The next attempt to capture the militants, carried out on January 16, was also unsuccessful. The Vympel fighters were able to approach the mosque in the center of the village, but were forced to retreat. Artillery arrived at Pervomaisky in the evening. On the 17th federal forces fired.

Realizing that a decisive assault was planned, the militants who came to the aid of Raduev's detachment tried to carry out a diversionary maneuver and capture a checkpoint near the village of Sovetskoye, but were driven out from there. One of the fighters of the federal forces recalls: “A detachment of at least 150 people tried to get into Pervomaiskoye between the villages of Sovetskoye and Teremnoye. Our detachment and units of the North Caucasian Military District destroyed almost half of the militants in a battle that lasted no more than 20 minutes, groups of Dudayevs who were leaving towards Chechnya were destroyed by fire from helicopters.

At the same time, part of the gang began to retreat to the Terek, loading the dead and wounded onto stretchers. The stretcher was carried by the hostages. The 22nd brigade, which suffered heavy losses, tried to stop the militants, but Raduev and part of the detachment managed to escape. How the militants managed to get out of the village unnoticed is still unclear. The director of the FSB answered journalists' questions: the militants used an unexpected trick, took off their boots and walked barefoot in the snow.

Artillery strike helped liberate Pervomaiskoye. During the assault, 65 hostages were rescued. The militants who retreated earlier took 64 people to Chechnya, 17 of them were Novosibirsk riot police. Later they were exchanged for captured militants, and civilians for the bodies of killed terrorists.

According to official sources, the losses of federal forces and civilians in Kizlyar and Pervomaisky amounted to 78 people. Several hundred people were injured. In Kizlyar, 24 civilians were killed. The loss of militants amounted to about 150 people killed.

KIZLYAR, PERVOMAISKOE. NEW TERRORIST ACT

At dawn on January 9, 1996, an armed attack was made on a military airfield in Kizlyar, a military unit of internal troops, a city hospital and a maternity hospital were blocked. The Deputy Commander of the 136th Brigade, Lieutenant Colonel Dianov, told me about this by phone. I immediately reported the situation to A. Kvashnin.

Take a task force with you (several officers) and immediately fly to Kizlyar. Deal with the situation on the spot, report and act, - ordered the commander of the North Caucasus Military District.

Before departure, I ordered to transfer additional forces to Kizlyar. The motorized rifle battalion of the 136th brigade on armored vehicles, having made a 150-kilometer march, concentrated on the southern outskirts of Kizlyar by the end of the day.

When I arrived at the airfield with a group of officers, several crashed helicopters were still burning down and the wounded were being carried out. The Major General of the Internal Troops, who met me, reported on the situation. The general picture was the following. S. Raduev's detachment - more than three hundred bandits armed with machine guns, grenade launchers, mortars - tried to capture the airfield and the military camp. Having received a rebuff, they withdrew, seizing the hospital and the maternity hospital, and declared all the patients and medical staff hostages. According to preliminary data, more than a hundred people.

Toward evening we moved to the local police station, where the operational headquarters was already operating. The chairman of the State Council of the Republic of Dagestan, M. Magomedov, was also there. Negotiations began with the bandits. They demanded to provide them with 10 buses and 2 KamAZ trucks.

In the evening, FSK director M. Barsukov called and demanded: firstly, to delay the exit of the convoy with militants by any means until 09:00 on January 10; secondly, either destroy the bandits on the spot, or accompany them, but not miss them; thirdly, to prevent Magomedov or anyone from the government from being in the column; fourthly, try to destroy Raduev himself.

At night, the motorized riflemen who arrived from Buynaksk dispersed at my command along the Kizlyar-Khasavyurt highway in full readiness to block the column of buses.

Meanwhile, the situation was heating up. When the requested transport arrived at the hospital, the bandits suddenly decided to take the hostages with them. Negotiations resumed. Members of the government and parliament of the republic offered themselves instead of women and children. The bandits agreed, but the women and children were not released, and besides, they took several journalists with them.

At dawn on January 10, the convoy, accompanied by police cars, began to move from Kizlyar to Khasavyurt. It was decided not to destroy the convoy, but to block it along the route and conduct a special operation by the forces of the Alpha group.

However, having driven off, the militants unexpectedly demanded to change the route of movement and turn right in the Babayurt area, in the direction of Pervomaisky (this is one and a half kilometers from the administrative border with Chechnya).

At about 10 o'clock in the morning, the column, having passed through the village of Pervomayskoye, approached the border. And here amazing things began. Unexpectedly for everyone, helicopters hit the lead vehicle from the air. The buses stopped and then, turning around, headed towards the village. On the way, the militants disarmed and captured more than two dozen Novosibirsk riot police, who for some reason did not put up any resistance.

The renewed negotiations dragged on and again failed. The situation has become dramatic. All three days, while the dialogue continued at different levels, the militants were preparing to defend the village, forcing the hostages to dig trenches. And the federal troops brought up artillery, additional units, and carried out reconnaissance. A heterogeneous grouping was concentrated near Pervomaisky, which included special forces "Alpha", "Vityaz", detachments of SOBR, a motorized rifle battalion of the 136th brigade, a special forces company of the 58th army ... I was instructed to lead the actions of units of the Ministry of Defense.

After a series of negotiations, it was decided to "pull out" as many hostages as possible, and then destroy the gang during a special operation. In the end, we managed to free all the women and children.

According to the plan of the operation, a reinforced motorized rifle battalion (730 people) was supposed to block the village from the northeast, east and southeast; two tactical groups of the Airborne Forces (60 people) - from the north-west, and a mobile group of the border detachment (80 people), in cooperation with a motorized rifle company, would block Pervomaiskoye from the north. The "inner ring" consisted of units of the internal troops and the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Helicopter missile strikes were planned against KamAZ vehicles with ammunition and weapons, as well as against Raduev’s headquarters located in the basement of the house, the destruction of militants from sniper rifles and flamethrowers. And after all - "cleansing" of the village.

On January 15, at 9.00 am, helicopters came into action. Then assault groups went on the attack, but met stubborn resistance. Closer to noon, the SOBR assault group entered the village and captured the first line of defense of the Radyevites. On the left flank near the cemetery, the attack bogged down. Two infantry fighting vehicles were hit, 2 people were killed, 7 were injured. By evening, 8 hostages were released. Among them were 2 soldiers of the internal troops, who explained their presence in the Raduev detachment as prisoners. They were taken over by the security forces.

All attempts to break through the second line of defense of the militants the next day were also unsuccessful. We lost 15 people killed and wounded. The operation was delayed, including due to weather conditions (fog, impassable mud, snow charges).

On January 17 came the climax. Three Grad rocket launchers were put on direct fire and fired several shots at the buildings housing the bandits. And through all communication channels, they launched a "misinformation" that at dawn the village would be burned to the ground. And it was here that a stir began in the bandit camp.

On the night of January 17-18, from the direction of Azamat-Yurt in the direction of Pervomaisky, a group of militants approached from Chechnya and tried to unblock Raduev's gang. However, the resolute actions of the federal forces did not allow the bandits to carry out their plans. Leaving ten corpses in the snow, the enemy retreated.

At 3 am, on the northwestern outskirts of Pervomaisky, intelligence detected the advance of a large group of militants. 200-250 meters before the subdivisions blocking the village, the bandits carried out a powerful three-minute fire raid, and then shouting “Allah Akbar!” rushed to the attack. On the rampart where our trenches were, it came to hand-to-hand combat. Chopped with knives and shovels. About one hundred and fifty militants tried to break through in this area, where they were opposed by no more than fifty special forces from the 22nd brigade of the North Caucasus Military District. With them was the head of intelligence of the 58th Army, Colonel A. Stytsina.

Understanding the whole drama of the situation, Alexander Mikhailovich ordered the special forces to retreat to an intermediate line, and he himself, left with two soldiers, covered their retreat, diverting the fire of the militants towards himself. Having already been wounded twice, he continued to lead the battle, when a shot from a hand-held anti-tank grenade (RPG) struck down a brave officer - he died heroically, but helped save the lives of many subordinates. Together with him, two scouts and a military doctor died a heroic death.

And in total, 7 special forces soldiers died in this unequal battle, their feat was marked by high awards from the Motherland. For courage and heroism, Colonel A. Stytsina was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of Russia.

The enemy lost more than a hundred (!) people during the breakthrough, including Raduev's bodyguard was killed. We captured satellite communications, more than 100 small arms and about 10,000 rounds of ammunition. During the “cleansing” of the village, forty more corpses of bandits were found, among which there were many Arab mercenaries.

And yet, a small group of militants, including Raduev, managed to break through. He left, hiding behind hostages - Novosibirsk policemen, captured at a checkpoint. Realizing that everyone could not leave, Raduev ordered his fighters to get to the Terek and leave by water. Subsequently, aircraft covered boats with them. Seeing the hopelessness of the situation, the leader went deep into the forest and hid. He stayed here for several days, and then went to the territory of Chechnya. Our mistake was that we did not put "secrets" on the border. If this had been done, Raduev would certainly have ended up in the net. Alas…

Even during the operation, and even more so after its completion, waves of hysteria rose in the media. They blamed everyone and everything (primarily Barsukov and Kulikov) for the fact that the militants left for Chechnya almost without hindrance. I could not understand some journalists who referred in their publications to unreliable or deliberately false sources. In those days, the newspaper Izvestia, which I respect, published an article “Who benefits from the version of the“ corridor ”for Raduev?” In which the events in Pervomaisky were presented topsy-turvy. I, a direct participant in the operation, was outraged by the publication, and I addressed an open letter to the media. Many newspapers published it (except Izvestia, of course). I will not analyze the mistakes made by the newspapermen, but rather I will try once again to answer the essence of the question: why did parts of the militants manage to break through?

Raduev understood perfectly well that certain death awaited him in the village. The only small, but still a chance to survive is to gather for the last battle and strike with all your might in one place. Such is the instinct of behavior of the "wounded animal". This, by the way, was later confirmed by a member of the bandit raid H.P. Israpilov: “From the radio intercept, we learned that in the morning the village would be hit from the Grads. There was no choice, let's go for a breakthrough.

The terrorists raised their fighting spirit with drugs and hopes for the Almighty. As a result of the battle, according to our information alone, more than 160 bandits were destroyed, 30 were taken prisoner. And how many more are unaccounted for - whom the terrorists took with them, who sank in the river. And only a small group managed to escape. The dark night, an extensive network of irrigation ditches, ditches overgrown with high reeds, and wooded areas - all this helped literally a few to escape.

The fact of the subsequent appearance on television and in the newspapers of the surviving Raduev is not a reason for accusations of an operation poorly thought out and carried out by federal forces. Moreover, in the opinion of the field commanders, Salman carried out the "operation" extremely incompetently, left the wounded and killed on the battlefield, and he cowardly disappeared. According to Raduev, his detachment numbered 256 people, and more than two hundred were destroyed and captured. Arithmetic, as we see, is quite eloquent.

And here is another evidence of the same H.P. Israpilova: “Already on the territory of Chechnya, when dawn broke, we were overtaken by helicopters. And the hunt began. The “Turntables” swooped down on our fleeing people and shot them at point-blank range with machine guns ... ”I will add from myself that three boats, four cars and one wagon of bandits were destroyed here by aviation.

I cannot but ask such a question that worried many and still left unanswered: why did the column end up in Pervomaisky, and was not stopped in a deserted place for a special operation?

There are no intelligible explanations why the militants were given the opportunity to return to Pervomaiskoye and calmly disarm the employees of the Novosibirsk OMON.

Usually they try to explain everything by inconsistency in the leadership and the actions of the "siloviki" (which, of course, took place). I'm afraid that the answer lies in a different plane: maybe someone benefited from the success of such a raid, as in the case of an unexpected moratorium on a ceasefire in the Shatoi operation, as after Basayev's campaign against Budennovsk?

And further. Preparing for a raid on Kizlyar, the bandits built up radio communication systems in advance in the direction of their actions. For example, they installed three radio transmitters. The detachment also had an Inmarsat space communications station, through which Raduev contacted the leadership of the illegal armed formations. Attention is drawn to the advance creation on the territory of Dagestan of an extensive network of reconnaissance and combat bandit groups. The work of radio stations of militants from the settlement of Sovetskoye, from other points of the Khasavyurt region, was recorded. The direct control and coordination of the actions of the Raduev detachment and other groups located outside Pervomaisky was carried out by representatives of the main headquarters of the militants (call sign "Saddoh"). They also had an Inmarsat space communications station. Sh. Basaev (call sign “15th”), M. Udugov (“33rd”), the commander of the Angel militant group, made contact with the blocked gang.

Thus, during the operation, we uncovered the militants' communication system, and conducted a complete radio interception of communications. That radio jamming was effective is confirmed by the reports of the same Saddoh subscriber: "My telephone connection was broken."

No matter how hard the militants tried, they failed to repeat Budyonnovsk. By the way, after Pervomaisky, the militants no longer dared such large-scale sorties.