“Let people know what happened in this war. The truth. The way it is …"
(One of the few survivors of the 131st Maykop brigade)
PREPARATION OF "YOUNG"
New Year's Eve, 1995. Columns of Russian troops crossed the Chechen administrative border, and advanced units took up positions near the village of Ken-Yurt. Opposite us is the Sunzha Pass. And from both sides, there is intense shooting from mortars, from "Grad". There are no losses yet. My job is training snipers. The work is interesting, but painstaking, subordinate - young, inexperienced guys, many of them have never seen a sniper rifle before.
It is very important for a sniper to know and love his weapon, and I am trying to instill this feeling in the young recruits, who, perhaps, will have to face a real enemy tomorrow. First of all, I explain that the SVD rifle needs to be specially prepared. I pay great attention to the issues of proper preparation of batteries - spare and basic, - organization of a place for recharging them. Rubber butt plates must be installed on the stock (you can take it from the set of the under-barrel grenade launcher). The descent of the hook should be smooth, soft, without a catch. Sometimes such "little things" have to be prepared individually for each sniper. Do not forget about spare sighting bulbs.
Bringing weapons to normal combat (or, as they say, "zeroing") and its subsequent combat use must be carried out using cartridges from the same batch (sniper cartridges B-32). We must not forget about the hood - a soft eyepiece for the scope.
The barrel must be dry before firing. To clean the barrel, I usually used a telephone wire with a white cloth. Apparently, my such scrupulous attitude to the SVD was noticed in the unit, since it was called nothing other than the "Stradivari rifle". The catchphrase: "The rifle is a pretty penny" - has become firmly established among my graduates. Indeed, thanks to the correct use of weapons, I was able to cut a playing card in half with six shots at a distance of 100 m.
Everything that I managed to teach the guys was useful to them later, and our hungry, tattered, not shot "team hodgepodge" worked wonders of courage. And these are far from empty words. After the battles in Grozny, I am deeply convinced that with appropriate training, our Russian soldier is stronger in his natural qualities than any overseas thug.
Far from small
Much attention had to be paid to the issues of psychological preparation. Forty-five days of continuous combat is a long time. Due to the constant psychological and physical stress, the soldier is quickly exhausted. It should be said that the factor of the presence of a serviceman "on the line of fire" in the Western armies is taken into account. For example, before the military operation in the Balkans, psychological services were actively working in NATO units.
The Russian soldier, both before and during hostilities, is not only limited in the necessary food, but is sometimes deprived of attention from his commanders. Humanitarian aid, as a rule, only reaches the rear units. Fighters in battle formations sometimes have nowhere to wash, dry their uniforms and shoes. That is why the issues of sanitation and hygiene are quite acute at the forefront. Diseases such as head lice and fungal infections are common.
RAID
At 6 o'clock in the morning he came from a night raid. At 10 o'clock, when I was already sending, Colonel N Pikha dropped in to see me: "Do you want to spar with a Chechen sniper?"
As it turned out, the enemy sniper worked only at night, in the area of the checkpoint in front of the Sunzhinsky ridge. With his fire, he kept the soldiers in position in constant tension and during these days he exhausted literally everyone. Due to the threat of getting a bullet, especially at night, the soldiers were already on the verge of a mental breakdown.
The tactics of the enemy shooter was outrageously simple: one shot from one hill, after one and a half or two hours on the other, after another one and a half or two hours on the third. Such tension at the checkpoint can be compared with the presence of an obsessively buzzing mosquito on a warm summer night, except that the consequences were much more serious.
After resting, adjusting my equipment and checking my weapons, in the evening I drove to the ill-fated checkpoint. Commander Viktor Fedorovich, who met me, was delighted: "Sasha, dear, we are waiting … I owe you!" The soldiers poured out, looking at me like a curiosity. And such anger rolled over! I looked around - the defense was organized according to all the rules - there was concrete all around, BMPs were standing. Can't they remove one single hindrance?
I looked at the map, specified the area, determined the location of the minefields. The commander showed where the sniper was firing from. I tried to determine his possible routes of movement to the firing position and places of withdrawal. I talked with officers and soldiers. After bandaging my "Stradivarius" rifle and securing the night sight, I agreed with the commander that they would provide passage through the minefields by my return. “Yes, guys, you should be more attentive. Don't open fire on me,”I thought it was not superfluous to make such a warning. We had already encountered such a situation before: mistaking those returning from the raid for the enemy, they opened fire on them from their own positions.
There is no return until the morning. With a wave of my hand to those who remained on the block, in a few minutes I was already on the enemy's territory.
I chose the place of observation in the forest belt. I found a recess and, through night-vision binoculars, began to inspect the surrounding area. Lying down, I listened for a long time to the sounds of the night - in the hard frost, even light steps are heard louder. Somewhere in the distance I can hear the stalk … The movement of cars in the suburbs … Two jackals ran right next to me. Towards nightfall, the frost intensified and an hour later began to penetrate to the very bones.
Time drags on long and tediously. By force of will I force myself not to pay attention to the cold. It was past midnight. Anger at the "spirit" boils over. He sat there until morning. The enemy sniper apparently had a "day off" that day.
The mood is bad. After waiting for the "corridor", I return to the checkpoint. The feeling of guilt in front of people whom I could not help gnawed like a gray rat - I did not want to look the soldiers in the eyes. With the first car I returned to my unit. And at that moment, the 131st Maykopskaya was preparing for an offensive in full swing.
TWO SHOTS - TWO CORPSES
I woke up choking on cigarette smoke. The soldiers returned from the raids and were now excitedly sharing their impressions. After an unsuccessful "hunt", my soul was disgusting and dreary. After lunch, I again prepared for the next exit. I checked the weapons, ammunition, night vision binoculars, adjusted the equipment.
At dusk I drove to the checkpoint.
Everything is repeated: the passage of the minefield, the search for shelter, the inspection of the area. By 8 o'clock in the evening, an enemy sniper begins to appear. A single shot cracked from somewhere in the direction of the block. I moved to another place. After lying in his lair for 2-3 hours to no avail, he realized that the sniper had either left or was resting in a previously prepared shelter.
I decided to go deeper into the enemy's territory, towards the outskirts of Grozny. Not far off I noticed a farm and several houses. The buildings were 100–150 meters away when the Niva drove up to them with the headlights off. A man got out of the car and began to slowly get some cargo out of the trunk.
I took a closer look - zinc with cartridges! At that moment, a second man came out of the house, who also began to unload ammunition from the Niva.
I got ready to fire. My first shot was aimed at the nearest fighter. Having received a bullet in the head, he collapsed to the ground. His companion instantly dived behind the car. I had to wait for his head to appear from behind the hood again. Second shot. And now two bodies are already lying around the wheels of the Niva.
It was a big surprise for me when two more militants with machine guns rushed out of the house. However, by opening indiscriminate gunfire, they only increased the panic. Our artillery did not let them come to their senses, too, which two minutes after the incident opened frantic fire.
DEATH OF A SNIPER
I tried to get away from the shelling of my own artillery - I threw myself along a deep and wide beam into the darkness of the night. Climbing the slope, he suddenly found himself in front of the bunker. Fortunately, the concrete structure was abandoned. Nearby are the empty caponiers of the Grad MLRS battery.
Next to the oil tower is a path on which two armed men appeared. Magpies announced their appearance with their cry. As soon as a couple reached the fence, I gently pulled the trigger. Shot. Just as quickly I leave in the direction of the checkpoint, which is not close.
My way back runs along the bottom of the beam. From time to time, in order to look around, I go up the slope, but because of the dense thickets of camel thorn, nothing is visible.
Approaching the checkpoint, I suddenly heard the characteristic sound of a sniper. Almost ran to the side of the shot. Leaning against the eyepiece of the binoculars, he carefully examined the area. A male roe deer shouted somewhere nearby, after a while a frightened animal ran past me.
In the optics on the other side of the beam, I noticed movement. I took a closer look - a man with binoculars dangling around his neck. The target is approximately 70 meters away.
Hiding my binoculars under a camouflage coat, I raise my rifle. I continue to watch through the scope of the man, on whose shoulder a huge rifle is already clearly visible. Perhaps this is an optical illusion, but it seemed to me that a person somehow decreases in size with each step. As soon as I prepared to fire a shot, the target was gone.
He rushed to where, according to my calculations, a person should appear. But he was not there. Despite a certain risk, I had to go back.
When I reached the place where I lost sight of him, I carefully examined the surroundings. It turns out that the path goes down steeply here. At the other end of the beam there is a koshara, a house and a toilet. Distance - two hundred meters.
Once again I hide the binoculars under a camouflage coat and, raising my rifle, I look through the scope. That's my goal! The man slowly approaches the koshara. I take aim. I can feel my breath getting in the way of smoothly choosing the descent. The man has already opened the door and is ready to cross the threshold of the house … Recoil from the shot. Through the sight, the illuminated opening of the open door and the legs of a lying person sticking out from there are clearly visible.
I bided my time. No suspicious movement either inside or outside the house. Apparently, there is no one nearby - otherwise they would probably have tried to drag the shot inside the house. Gently walked around the koshara. He took out a grenade, just in case he straightened the pin and, without pulling it out to the end, went to the opening. He opened the door and went inside. He lifted the dead man's head by the hair and pressed his knee between the shoulder blades. My hands felt sticky blood. A control shot and a knife are not required.
Leaving the corpse in place, he looked around the room. The dead, apparently, was that elusive sniper. This was evidenced by his excellent equipment. And the house is equipped according to all the rules of a sniper's shelter - in detail, for a long time. On the shelves there are excellent imported dry rations, several boxes of chicken stew with peas. There is a kettle on the stove. On the floor there is a mattress with a pillow, an ax, a foreign-made knife, and a pile of stored dry firewood.
I thought to myself: not far from the checkpoint, and the girder itself reliably hides the koshara from prying eyes. I am trying to imagine the tactics of the enemy's actions: he will light the stove at night, drink coffee and go hunting. One or two shots and back. He will rest and in two or three hours - again to the checkpoint.
There were no documents with him. You cannot determine nationality by looking at your face. Particular attention was drawn to the rifle - "Heckler and Koch" on bipod, caliber 12.5 mm, with an excellent night sight. The Nokia radio station discovered here also testified that the murdered man was not a shepherd.
He dragged the losing sniper to the gates of the koshara. He wiped his hands from the blood with snow.
Upon returning to the unit, it turned out that most of the brigade's combat units had relocated to Grozny. The chief of communications ran into the tent. Seeing me, the captain shouted from the doorway: “Why are you sitting here? There is a fight!..”Indeed, vanity reigned all around. However, the next column of gasoline tankers, "Shilok" and "Uralov" with ammunition gathered only the next morning to catch up with the units that had left for the city.
A column of the 131st Maikop brigade burned in the center of the city. The brigade commander, Savin, was desperately calling for help over the radio. Having asked the chief medical officer Peshkov for the anesthetic drug Promedol, he kept one tube for himself. I gave the ten remaining ones to the crew of the BMP with tail number 232. Subsequently, of all those who were in the BMP itself, only I survived. The BMP burned down from five direct hits from a grenade launcher.
