Dead riot police in Chechnya. Attack on a column of Perm riot police near Zhani-Vedo

“Today the sun is burning almost like it was then,” former Perm riot police commander Sergei Gaba squints his eyes from the blinding light. - Only in Vedeno even then the grass was green and the birds were singing. It was somehow strange, unusual: between the shots you could hear birds singing. The queues are heard and immediately the birds chirp serenely. Even on the video you can see and hear: green sprouts, shots, bird voices. The camera is lying on the ground, she continues to film, and the cameraman is already dead...

The former riot police commander has grown a beard and now, especially in civilian clothes, you cannot recognize him.

He says that when he left work, he parted with the past and began to live from scratch - like a baby.

But you can see in the eyes that the past does not let go.

March 29 is a sad mourning date in the calendar of the Perm police, especially the Perm riot police, especially the Berezniki riot police.

15 years ago, in the Chechen Republic, near Dzhanya-Vedeno, a column of a combined police detachment was ambushed.

In a brutal, unequal battle, 42 people died, including 36 members of the Kama police force.

Among them are 23 riot police (Berezniki), 3 riot police (Perm), 10 law enforcement officers of territorial internal affairs bodies.

Today, like every year, on Southern Cemetery A mourning event was held in Perm in memory of the Kama police officers who died in the North Caucasus region.

Those gathered honored their memory with a minute of silence and laid flowers at the stele of employees who died in the line of duty. Small tables - one hundred grams. And memories...

15 years have passed, the parents and widows have grown old, the children have grown up, but the memory still won’t let go.

Funeral events were also held in Berezniki, where most of the victims were buried.

Those gathered laid flowers at the memorial and on the graves of the fighters.

Also, the names of the fallen comrades were remembered today by police officers serving today in Vedeno of the Chechen Republic.

Marina SIZOVA

BROTHERS, DON'T BE SILENT.

FROM AN OLD NOTEBOOK

THE “SPIRIT” DIDN’T EXPECT US TO GO OUT. THEY THOUGHT WE ALL LIEED THERE. AND WE WENT OUT"

Perm journalist Andrei Nikitin was at the scene of events at that time on a business trip. These notes are from his notebooks.

In one of the most troubled mountainous regions of Chechnya, Vedensky, in 2000, the Temporary Department of Internal Affairs (VOVD), formed entirely from Perm policemen, began to operate. Plus a combined detachment of the Perm riot police, mostly formed from Berezniki residents. The main task of the VOVD is to restore peaceful life in a rebellious republic.

On March 28, 20 minutes before midnight, an order from the commander of the Eastern group, Major General Makarov, came to Vedeno: “On the morning of the 29th, 40 riot police were to go to clear the village of Tsentoroy, neighboring Vedenskoye in the Nozhai-Yurtovsky district.”

We left at 8 am. At about 9 a.m., the unit received information that the detachment had come under fire.

The progress of the battle could be judged by radio conversations.

Well, let’s get in touch with the mortar platoon commander...

They are already talking to him...

Oriole, I am the Shore...

Raft, I am an Island...

Tell the aviation: ours have identified themselves with missiles...

I am ready to provide the boxes, they are asking for troops to help...

Tell the aircraft to process it on the left side, near Dargo. The enemy is marked by missiles...

The road needs to be worked out urgently...

We're already starting...

Faster, dammit...

Anapa, Anapa to Azure. Are the mortars ready? Fire…

54, 84 are fighting, the spirits have brought up mortars...

To all unit commanders. Jasmine. Preparedness number one. Nobody goes anywhere...

Pa-achimu nowhere? Come on, commander, come out...

Occasionally one of the militants breaks into the air. And with all possible fury it is immediately sent to all acceptable letters of the Russian alphabet.

Nokhcha, s@y from the channel, we will kill you, do you hear?..

Almost immediately after receiving news of the ambush in which the riot police detachment fell, a second column came to his aid, headed by the commandant of Vedeno, Colonel V. Tonkoshkurov, the head of the Vedeno VOVD, Colonel Yu. Ganzhin, his deputy, former riot policeman, Lieutenant Colonel K. Strogiy, commander of the Perm riot police Lieutenant Colonel S. Gaba.

She was never able to get through to the first column. However, almost half of the militants, about 200 people, were diverted from the battle with the riot police. The losses of the second column were 16 wounded.

After the departure of this column, airborne units fought their way to Hill 813 for another two days, where a detachment of the Perm riot police was fighting.

The last time the combined detachment made contact was at half past three in the afternoon.

The outcome of the battle was predetermined. Despite the belated support of aviation and artillery, the first column had almost no chance of surviving.

The sun was blazing on the patch near the headquarters. The radios screamed loudly. The men who were lucky not to get into the first column, and unlucky enough to get into the second, gloomily prayed without stopping. Police Lieutenant Colonel Marina Maltseva, responsible for public relations at the Vedeno VOVD, sat detachedly on a chair, pointing a working video camera at the sky. There were tears in her eyes.

Returning to " mainland“, Marina will make the film “Brothers, don’t be silent...”, which later won a bunch of all sorts of prizes, and will write the book “The Wounded Bird.” More poignant “female” prose about Chechen war It seems there wasn't.

I don’t believe that all of our riot police died. My heart tells me that they must break through,” Marina prophesies, despite the worst forecasts.

On the morning of March 30, a group of six people - five riot police and a soldier from the commandant's company - goes out to their own. They managed to sneak through the ring, lie down in a hollow, and then make their way to the checkpoint in the dark.

The fighters were sent to Mozdok to escort the cargo “200”, their former comrades.

The men were still in that battle, and could not escape from it (and who knows if they returned from that battle to this day):

- At the headquarters we caught two interceptions on the radio: “A column is coming. Standing. Take it.”

- The commander (Valentin Simonov - author) approached the shed, opened the door, shouted:

“Throw the knife, then I won’t shoot...” Then a howl: “Allah Akbar!” – and the battle began.

“This guy from the commandant’s office who climbed onto the burning armored personnel carrier, he knew that he was going to his death. He covered us.

“The battle went on for eight hours, but it seemed like five minutes flew by...

“If it weren’t for the second column, we would have simply been wiped out.”

“When we escaped, we ran along the streams for half an hour. And we immediately agreed: we won’t leave each other.

“The “spirits” are killing, they’re killing their own – you won’t understand where they’re shooting from.

– They lay under our NURS, mortars, and Sushki. Almost everyone was hooked on Sushki. But I'm so grateful to them.

– And exactly one day the general arrived. He brought notebooks, promised wallpaper, linoleum... Why do we need linoleum?

– Don’t write about us. Write about those guys who died.

– They were introduced to “Courage”. And they need to be given a “Hero”.

- Why did we go out? Why didn't they kill us? How can they look their mothers in the eye now?

“The “spirits” didn’t expect us to come out. They thought we all died there. And we left.

On March 31, when the paratroopers finally reached Hill 813, 31 dead and one wounded were found. Alexander Prokopov from Berezniki survived by a miracle - the wounded were finished off with a control shot to the head.

A few days later, local residents handed over the body of another Perm resident, Alexander Kistanov. 11 riot policemen were listed as missing at that time. Much later it became known that none of them survived. Of these eleven, the bandits shot two seriously wounded almost immediately. The bodies of the remaining nine were discovered only a month later.

Andrey NIKITIN

“Dima went to Chechnya without telling anyone anything. He called from Grozny and said: “Everything is fine, don’t worry, there’s no shooting here, we’ll just rebuild the destroyed city like builders...” And two months later, meager lines appeared in the newspapers about the execution of the Perm riot police in the vicinity of Dzhanei-Vedeno. Then, out of 49 people, six survived. Muscovite Dima Efimov, a soldier of the commandant company of the VOVD of the Vedeno region, also did not return from that battle.

Linoleum for riot police

In 2000, in light of the upcoming elections, everyone really wanted to believe in an early victory in the Caucasus. Despite everything - not the latest reports of losses from the Pavlovo Posad, Perm, Khanty-Mansiysk riot police, not scary stories soldiers who returned from Chechen hell. Knowledgeable people they said that the victorious end was still too far away...
In March 2000, the whole country was preparing for the next presidential election. It is clear that the ongoing fighting in the Chechen Republic they could not increase voter votes for anyone, perhaps that is why they strenuously demonstrated to us the desire of the authorities to finally resolve the situation in the North Caucasus. On television screens and on the pages of newspapers, reports flashed about new militants who agreed to cooperate with the Russian military and voluntarily laid down their arms. Under the watchful eye of television cameras, heads of various departments often visited Chechnya with humanitarian aid and simply friendly visits designed to raise the morale of the defenders of the homeland.
At the same time, the army leadership is strengthening the security of election sites in the Chechen Republic, they say, with a small number of militants who periodically attack checkpoints and set up ambushes in the mountains, riot police and the combined forces of the commandant’s offices can easily cope. The soldiers were sorely short of weapons, ammunition, military equipment, diesel fuel, firewood; some were forced to wait weeks for food parcels from big land", eating porridge and tired crackers. Even cigarettes were a great joy. At the same time, the shots did not stop for a second, apparently the militants did not know that the counter-terrorism operation was entering its final stage. Situation in locations Russian troops things were heating up - any attack on the police could give rise to a retaliatory strike from the feds, but until March 29 everything was relatively calm.
On the eve of the tragedy, another delegation arrived in Vedeno - the head of the Perm regional police department, Lieutenant General V. Sikerin, the mayor of Perm Yu. Trutnev and other equally significant guests. As many media reported then, they clearly liked the situation in the VOVD and the location of the riot police. And indeed, the Perm police carried out their duty in relatively humane conditions - the stoves are warm, the food is good, there is even a bathhouse. True, after reading the diary of Perm police major Vladimir Port, published in Komsomolskaya Pravda, one gets a slightly different impression about the life of soldiers. Well, God bless him, war is war, and who now, after the death of more than forty riot policemen, will remember that visiting guests promised to bring linoleum when they needed something completely different...

Today, after 5 years, we can almost completely restore the picture of the terrible battle that claimed the lives of more than forty people. May the participants in those events forgive us; we tried to rely on known facts.

Chechen gambit

On the morning of March 29, 2000, an order was received to deploy riot police with the support of soldiers from the Vedeno commandant’s office (the same one in which contract soldier Dmitry Efimov served) for a special operation in the village of Tsentoroy, Nozhayurt district. Before reaching their destination, one of the cars (the police were assigned a Ural, a ZIL, and an armored personnel carrier with a VOVD driver for the operation) had an engine overheat. The column stopped, commander V. Simonov and one of the officers approached an abandoned house and opened the door. In the hands of one of them there was a camera, which recorded the first minutes of the battle - when he saw the militant, Simonov ordered him to drop his weapon. Fire was opened immediately. Then it went according to the scheme worked out during the war years: according to the “Afghan” version, they set fire to the first and last cars - the Ural and the armored personnel carrier - and the execution began. Those who survived the first minutes of the battle took up a perimeter defense. According to Larisa Shilova, a psychologist who worked with riot police after this tragedy, Vasily Konshin took command of the entire detachment. He asked Dima to support the retreating fighters with fire, notified everyone by radio about the shelling that had begun in the area of ​​​​height 813. Today it is difficult to say what happened next, but, most likely, Dima climbed onto the burning armored personnel carrier and shot as much as he could, covering the retreat of the riot police until the sniper's bullet did not end his life. At the cost of his life, Dima gave the opportunity to escape the encirclement of five riot policemen and one soldier of the commandant’s office, whom he did not even know before that fateful operation. There is nothing surprising in this: combined detachments are a completely common practice in military operations.
Recalling that battle, police lieutenant Vladimir Kurakin told how the second column that came to help managed to divert the attention of the militants, and they had the opportunity to slide into the gorge and try to get out of the encirclement along the river bank. It was easier to move under the cover of helicopters, however, the air controller was soon killed, and it became incredibly difficult to fire. The first air salvo nevertheless hit the positions of the riot police, so Kurakin had to fire a green rocket - his own. Having rolled into a cliff, the riot police hung on the roots of trees, this helped them remain undetected for several hours. The thickening twilight allowed the chain to slowly move forward.
The second column moved towards the ambushed riot policemen almost immediately, but the militants did not allow them to approach them - the fire was so dense that further advance would have been senseless suicide. Despite the fact that many soldiers and officers, feeling powerless, were eager to save their comrades, the decision was made to return. Subsequently, 16 wounded were counted in the second column, in addition, the riot police lost one armored personnel carrier.
The battle lasted almost 8 hours, there was no help, many were killed, ammunition was running out. The pre-prepared trap slammed shut. The result - according to our information, 49 people died (according to the criminal case materials - 35 officers of the Bereznyakovsky riot police (Perm region) and 7 soldiers of the VOVD of the Vvedensky district of the Chechen Republic). 25 riot police were killed immediately - the militants finished off the wounded with a shot in the head. Two days later, they managed to find the miraculously surviving riot policeman Alexander Prokopov; apparently, the militants considered him dead and did not finish off him. Or they were just in a hurry. Another 10 people were captured. Most likely, they were wounded or shell-shocked and could not offer resistance; it is not customary for the police to surrender alive to the “wahs” - they always leave one grenade for themselves... They took the guys away barefoot, there were bloody bandages lying everywhere, perhaps they were tortured. Then it turned out that the prisoners were executed on the third day by cutting their throats. They could not be found for a long time; some media even reported that Basayev demanded that Colonel Budanov be handed over to the militants in exchange for captured policemen. However, it soon became clear that Basayev was simply using a fortunate opportunity in his political game. The FSB reacted immediately to this speech by releasing secret information, which stated that the riot police had been executed several days ago.
It seemed that everything that happened was turning into a farce. Was it really necessary to send 49 people to their deaths in order to justify the protracted war and get a new reason for resuming hostilities? Here, they say, we come to you, dear Chechens, as people, but you kill our soldiers - it’s not good. You made us angry. For this, you will receive purge operations, reinforcements at all posts, and night shelling.
By the way, in the materials of the criminal case opened against the militants who participated in that execution, it is persistently stated that the ambush was not planned. Everything happened by chance. In this case, how to explain the pre-dug and well-camouflaged trenches, militant observation posts placed along the entire movement of the column, and armed bandits in an abandoned shed? In general, after understanding what had happened, a lot of questions emerged, and not only from journalists who vying with each other to ask them on the pages of their publications. Why were the police sent to the area in which the group of Khattab and Basayev operated, and bases were prepared for the militants, without military guards? Support - one armored personnel carrier? Why was the information that the most dangerous situation was in this area ignored? Why was there no contact with the paratroopers who were supposed to occupy the points where the militants were that day? After all, this was the area of ​​​​responsibility of the Airborne Forces... Why was nothing known for several days about the 10 riot police captured? After all, why did the guys returning from that battle say: “We were set up”? A specially created commission headed by the then Minister of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Vladimir Rushailo tried to find answers to these questions. But, apparently, they never found it, or didn’t try. At first, they couldn’t even agree on who to blame: the governor of the Perm region, Gennady Igumnov, spoke about the “carelessness of his superiors,” and the leadership of the Internal Troops group in the North Caucasus blamed the command of the Airborne Forces for not providing timely assistance to those who were ambushed. You will be surprised, but, according to the information we have, the authorities did not praise the commanders of the Bereznyakovsky riot police for the fact that they managed to save at least six, but reproached them for lack of coordination of actions and other violations. As the Bereznyakovo riot policemen who survived that meat grinder later told us, even their superiors had many complaints against them.
All our attempts to find out the truth from the Bereznyakovsky riot police officers who participated in that battle were unsuccessful. It would seem that we had fallen into a skillfully placed trap, but in war anything can happen, so what is there to hide? Having analyzed the meager and seemingly memorized stories of the participants in those events, we came to the conclusion that it was undesirable for them to tell the truth. Moreover, one of our sources clearly hinted that Bereznyaki is a small town, information is disseminated quickly, so some “particularly talkative” people may have problems.
As a result, the cause of the tragedy was considered to be the ill-considered actions of the leadership of the Perm riot police, who ordered their soldiers to advance without army cover. As they say, no comments.
The day after the battle, the riot police returned to the scene of the tragedy for their dead comrades. Larisa Shilova tells how scary it was to look at the guys stacking their friends on armored personnel carriers, how dirty and blackened with pain they could say only one phrase: “We should not live.” She had to talk for a long time with the surviving police officers, instilling in them that life goes on. But then, according to Larisa Alexandrovna, it was almost useless. Alexander Garres, a Bereznyakovo riot policeman, said that it would be impossible to look heroically into the eyes of mothers dead soldiers. Probably, then they could not imagine that they would be able to live on, but now... Time does not heal wounds, it just dulls the pain a little.

Glory to the hero?

Those who took part in the battle near Vedeno unanimously repeat: “If this Marine had not been there, no one would have survived.” Indeed, Dima’s act cannot be called anything other than heroic, even the general who brought Lyudmila Vasilyevna, Dima Efimov’s mother, a funeral for her son, said that they give a “hero” for such a thing. The Bereznyakovsky riot police sent a petition to award Dima the title of “Hero of Russia.” Nine months passed before Lyudmila Vasilyevna was finally given the Order of Courage. They didn’t present it, they didn’t reward it, but they gave it away. They probably thought that now the grief-stricken mother would not petition for Dima to be awarded the title of Hero of Russia (posthumously). In general, the calculation turned out to be correct. Despite the fact that Dimin’s feat, according to his mother, was recognized by everyone, including his immediate commanders, this was not enough. In addition to oral evidence, it was necessary to conduct a lot of checks, obtain an incredible number of conclusions and documentary facts. And most importantly, the procedure for conferring the title of Hero of Russia should have been initiated by the immediate leadership of the unit in which Dmitry Efimov served. Lyudmila Vasilyevna had neither the strength nor health for all this. And it’s somehow wrong to demand what you’re already entitled to. Fighting the bureaucratic machine turned out to be really difficult. As an experiment, we contacted the relevant authorities in order to understand the procedure for receiving the title of Hero of Russia. On the fifteenth phone number, for which we were supposed to obtain “information that interests us,” the enthusiasm diminished. But it became clear that since they had given the Order of Courage, we couldn’t count on more.

Dima was an ordinary guy. Served conscript service in the navy, after demobilization he got a job Good work, made decent money. He had loving mother, older brother and little niece - in general, strong Friendly family. Lyudmila Vasilievna found it difficult to understand why her son decided to go to war. They couldn’t understand this at the military registration and enlistment office, where when asked “why do you need this,” Dima answered: “I have to.” They naively thought it was money. But Dima knew that he was needed there.
Lyudmila Vasilievna does not remember well the day when they brought the funeral for her son. There were a lot of people, everyone said what a heroic deed her son had done, what a good soldier and bright man he was. kind person. One of the commanders present said that Dima was killed by a Russian female sniper, who worked under a contract in Chechnya, earning her own apartment. “You understand, the main thing for me is to find out the truth about the death of my son, and when I heard all this, I felt bad. How many Russian guys do you have to kill to buy an apartment in Moscow?” - recalls Lyudmila Vasilievna. We were never able to find out whether that colonel was telling the truth, since we were unable to establish his first and last name, and Dima’s mother simply does not remember the other witnesses to that conversation. However, after talking with the participants in that battle and checking this information from other sources, we came to the conclusion that in this case there was no sniper.

Sentence

Those responsible for the death of the Perm riot police were finally found. June 25, 2001 Supreme Court Dagestan has sentenced six defendants in the case of the death of the Perm riot police. They were charged with participation in illegal armed groups, possession and carrying of weapons, encroachment on the lives of workers law enforcement and hostage taking. The sentence turned out to be much lighter than the prosecutor demanded. Judge for yourself: the most long term- 21 years in a maximum security colony - received by M. Magomedov, militants A. Mirzaev, Kh. Kuzaaliev, G. Batirov received 19, 16, 14 years of imprisonment respectively, and Sh. Kitov and E. Valiakhmetov - 3 and 2, 5 years. Moreover, those who received the shortest sentences were released in the courtroom under an amnesty. All these militants specially came to Chechnya to undergo training in the Khattab camps and the Caucasus Institute; they all deliberately came to kill. Lawyers for the accused tried to prove that these people were not militants, but civilians who were taken hostage and forced to carry weapons and guard captured riot police. The very formulation “the crime was not completed” (this means that not everyone was killed or the execution began at the wrong time?) For those uninitiated in the legal intricacies, it seems like something of an excuse for the criminals. The prosecution still managed to defend its position, but this did not make the sentence harsher. During the hearings, testimonies of witnesses and victims were read out, which clearly indicated the involvement of the accused in armed groups, but for some reason there are never fair verdicts in such criminal cases. Where do you think those amnestied went after the trial?

In the place where the Perm riot police heroically died, a mangled Ural still stands, and every time the soldiers drive past it, they salute, remembering the killed guys. Memory is always good, but over these five years has no one really had the desire to find the true culprits of the tragedy? The information at our disposal allows us to assume that the cause of the tragedy could have been not only inconsistency in the actions of the management, but also a banal leak of information, which, of course, did not occur by chance. Apparently, the participants in that battle know about this, but for some reason they remain silent. But in vain. There must be an end to this story...

From the editor:
In one of the programs “Street of Your Destiny,” broadcast on the TVC channel, the story of Dmitry Efimov, who died in 2000 in Chechnya, was told. We thought it would be interesting to do material on this topic. Despite the fact that, at first glance, it turned out to be, as they say, “out of format,” we still decided to put it into action. And here's the reason. According to the information available to the editors, not all aspects of this case have been thoroughly studied and covered in the press, while they are of decisive importance for filing a petition to award Dmitry Efimov the title of Hero of Russia. Perhaps this publication will help resolve the issue of awarding (or receiving a reasoned refusal) this honorary title.

36 Perm policemen and 7 servicemen of the commandant company were killed in battle, captured and executed...

Early in the morning of March 29, a column of 50 people (42 riot police from Perm and Berezniki, 8 military personnel of the commandant company of military unit 83590 of the Taman division) moved from Vedeno to their destination to conduct a special operation to check the passport regime and carry out other activities. The column consisted of three Vehicle: BTR-80 (driver Gennady Obraztsov, commandant company, captured, executed), car "Ural-4320" (driver Vyacheslav Morozov, Internal Affairs Directorate of the Sverdlovsk region, died in battle) and car "ZIL-131" (driver Yuri Shishkin, the only surviving soldier of the commandant company). Having passed near Zhani-Vedeno, at height 813, ZIL began to boil and the column was forced to stop.

Shortly before this, a detachment of militants under the command of Abu Kuteib entered the same village. In addition to the Chechens, the gang also included people from the republics North Caucasus and foreign mercenaries (Arabs). The bandits settled in houses for rest. The OMON commander, Major Simonov, decided to inspect the house, located tens of meters from the column’s stop. Going inside, he found two armed militants there. In response to Simonov's order to drop his weapon, shots were fired and Major Simonov was killed. At the same time, shelling of the convoy began from small arms and grenade launchers.

Initially, the militants fired only from small arms, but due to the fact that when the column stopped, the police did not disembark from the back of the vehicle and did not disperse on the ground, in the very first minutes of the battle, fire was opened on the policemen landing from the back, which led to numerous injuries and casualties . RPG shots knocked out an armored personnel carrier (the cumulative projectile hit the engine compartment) and both vehicles. The gunner (presumably the gunner's place was taken by one of the policemen, who later died from burns on the battlefield) of the burning armored personnel carrier turned the turret and opened fire on the hill, allowing the riot police to take more convenient positions for defense. The riot police and servicemen of the commandant's company took the fight, fighting back to the last bullet. As the bandits approached from different parts of the village, the fire on the column intensified. The last radio message from the police asked them to shoot single shots. In all likelihood, they were running out of ammunition.

At about 10:00, a detachment of servicemen from the commandant’s company (contract soldiers), Perm police officers and Perm riot police was sent from Vedeno to help the riot police who were ambushed. The second column, headed by the commandant of Vedeno Colonel V. Tonkoshkurov, the head of the Vedeno VOVD Colonel Yu. Ganzhin, his deputy, former riot policeman Lieutenant Colonel K. Strogiy, the commander of the Perm OMON Lieutenant Colonel S. Gaba, tried to break through to the surrounded policemen, but did not reach several hundred of them meters, she herself was ambushed. Almost immediately, the lead armored personnel carrier of the commandant company (driver Roman Muranov, shooter Dmitry Zyablikov) was hit. For fear of being trapped, and due to the lack of combat experience action in such situations, the command gave the order to retreat. After approximately 6 hours, the convoy returned to Vedeno. The losses of the second column were: the commandant's company - 15 wounded, the combined detachment of the Perm riot police - one wounded.

Thanks to the fact that some of the militants were diverted to the second column, six people from the first column were able to escape from the encirclement. On March 30, a group of six people - five riot police and a soldier from the commandant's company - went out to their own.

Only March 31st federal troops(according to some reports, the reconnaissance group of the 255th motorized rifle regiment was finally able to reach height 813. The bodies of 31 dead and one riot policeman Alexander Prokopov, seriously wounded in both legs, were discovered (Alexander’s leg was subsequently amputated, but he remained to serve in the riot police). The fate of the remaining fighters was the same time remained unknown. Later it turned out that twelve people (seven Berezniki riot police, four seconded Perm police officers and a soldier of the commandant company) were captured and executed the next day in response to the refusal to exchange them for Colonel Yu. D. Budanov, who was arrested for the crime. murder of a Chechen woman. The burial of 10 fighters was discovered on April 30 (according to other sources - May 1) in the area of ​​the village of Dargo, and information about the burial place of 2 riot police soldiers had to be purchased from local residents. Almost all the bodies showed signs of abuse and torture.

As it turned out later, the police were not captured immediately. In a small group they tried to get out of the encirclement, constantly firing back, but they were only able to reach a small river, which they no longer had time to cross. Here they apparently ran out of ammunition. Found around a large number of shell casings and an unexploded grenade. One riot policeman was hit by machine gun fire near the bridge over the river and finished off with blows from a rifle butt. The rest were executed not far from this place.

One of the riot police, Sergei Udachin, had a video camera with him that day, with which he filmed the movement of the column until the very beginning of the battle. As a result of the ensuing shootout, he was killed, but the video camera continued to work. The camera lay in the grass and continued recording for another fifteen minutes.

Everlasting memory…

List of losses federal forces
36 Perm policemen were killed in battle, captured and executed:

police major Valentin Dmitrievich Simonov (06/12/1965 - 03/29/2000, riot police at the Berezniki police department),
senior police lieutenant Vasily Anatolyevich Konshin (01/14/1967 - 03/29/2000, riot police at the Central Internal Affairs Directorate of the Perm Region),
senior police lieutenant Evgeniy Stanislavovich Turovsky (9.09.1963 - 29.03.2000, riot police at the Central Internal Affairs Directorate of the Perm Region),
senior police lieutenant Metguliev Albert Gurbandurdyevich (07/18/1965 - 03/29/2000, riot police at the Central Internal Affairs Directorate of the Perm Region),
police lieutenant Zazdravnykh Alexander Viktorovich (01/24/1966 - 03/29/2000, riot police at the Internal Affairs Directorate of Berezniki, Perm Region),
police lieutenant Albert Vladimirovich Kananovich (11/24/1972 - 03/29/2000, riot police at the Internal Affairs Directorate of Berezniki, Perm Region),
police lieutenant Kuznetsov Yuri Anatolyevich (09/05/1966 - 03/29/2000, riot police at the Internal Affairs Directorate of Berezniki, Perm Region),
senior police warrant officer Sergei Borisovich Sobyanin (04/19/1971 - 03/29/2000, riot police at the Berezniki police department),
senior police warrant officer Yuri Igorevich Avetisov (08/2/1970 - 03/29/2000, OMON at the Internal Affairs Directorate of Berezniki, Perm Region),
police warrant officer Andrey Vyacheslavovich Annenkov (02/06/1969 - 03/29/2000, Department of Internal Affairs of the Okhansky district of the Central Internal Affairs Directorate of the Perm region),
police warrant officer Zyryanov Andrey Vyacheslavovich (12/20/1970 - 03/29/2000, riot police at the Internal Affairs Directorate of Berezniki, Perm Region),
police warrant officer Mikhail Valerievich Lomakin (10/26/1974 - 03/29/2000, riot police at the Berezniki police department),
police warrant officer Muntyan Valery Vladimirovich (October 31, 1975 - March 29, 2000, riot police at the Internal Affairs Directorate of Berezniki, Perm Region),
police warrant officer Sergei Viktorovich Malyutin (01/24/1975 - 03/29/2000, riot police at the Berezniki police department),
police warrant officer Evgeniy Vladimirovich Prosvirnev (05/14/1975 - 03/29/2000, Department of Internal Affairs of the Gornozavodsky district of the Perm region),
police warrant officer Shaikhraziev Marat Farsovich (01/08/1965 - 03/29/2000, riot police at the Internal Affairs Directorate of Berezniki, Perm Region),
police sergeant Aleksandr Viktorovich Kistanov (03/24/1970 - 03/29/2000, Department of Internal Affairs of the Perm district of the Perm region),
police sergeant Yuri Egorovich Permyakov (03/21/1973 - 03/29/2000, riot police at the Internal Affairs Directorate of Berezniki, Perm Region),
police sergeant Aleksey Nikolaevich Ryzhikov (07/08/1978 - 03/29/2000, riot police at the Berezniki police department),
police sergeant Vitaly Yurievich Sergeev (08/12/1967 - 03/29/2000, riot police at the Berezniki police department),
police sergeant Sergei Igorevich Udachin (05/24/1962 - 03/29/2000, riot police at the Berezniki police department),
senior police sergeant Zyuzyukin Alexander Borisovich (10/1/1977 - 03/29/2000, riot police at the Internal Affairs Directorate of Berezniki, Perm Region),
senior police sergeant Morozov Vyacheslav Valerievich (12/17/1972 - 03/29/2000, Department of Internal Affairs of the Sverdlovsk district of Perm),
senior police sergeant Okulov Vladimir Ivanovich (07/2/1974 - 03/29/2000, Department of Internal Affairs of the city of Tchaikovsky, Perm Region),
senior police sergeant Pervushin Alexander Yurievich (01/5/1976 - 03/29/2000, Department of Internal Affairs of the Cherdynsky district of the Perm region),
senior police sergeant Vadim Vyacheslavovich Pushkarev (12/7/1971 - 03/29/2000, riot police at the Internal Affairs Directorate of Berezniki, Perm Region),
police sergeant Vitaly Anatolyevich Efanov (08/31/1977 - 03/29/2000, Department of Internal Affairs of the Krasnovishersky district of the Central Internal Affairs Directorate of the Perm region),
police sergeant Dmitry Viktorovich Makarov (01/3/1973 - 03/29/2000, riot police at the Berezniki police department),
police sergeant Eduard Ivanovich Tarasov (08/26/1974 - 03/29/2000, riot police at the Berezniki police department),
junior police sergeant Vladimir Yuryevich Emshanov (10/6/1978 - 03/29/2000, riot police at the Berezniki police department),
junior police sergeant Evgeniy Ivanovich Kireev (02/28/1977 - 03/29/2000, riot police at the Berezniki police department),
junior police sergeant Evgeniy Vladimirovich Tostyakov (10/6/1978 - 03/29/2000, riot police at the Berezniki police department),
junior police sergeant Grigory Mikhailovich Uzhegov (09/12/1977 - 03/29/2000, riot police at the Berezniki police department),
junior police sergeant Oleg Anatolyevich Davydov (09/25/1965 - 03/29/2000, riot police at the Berezniki police department of the Perm region police department),
junior police sergeant Sergei Vitalievich Igitov (06/29/1977 - 03/29/2000, Department of Internal Affairs of the Motovilikha district of Perm),
Private police officer Rzhanov Evgeniy Vyacheslavovich (06/10/1977 - 03/29/2000, Department of Internal Affairs of the city of Kungur, Perm region).
Soldiers of the commandant's company killed in battle, captured and executed:

Corporal Obraztsov Gennady,
Private Nikolenko Sergei Anatolyevich,
Private Karpukhin Andrey Petrovich,
Private Sasin Sergei Viktorovich,
Private Nizamov Zenur Adlyamovich,
Private Efimov Dmitry Yurievich,

On the evening of March 28, 2000, the temporary Vedensky District Department of Internal Affairs, staffed by police officers from the Perm region, with the Perm consolidated riot police assigned to it, received an order from the commander of the Eastern Group of Federal Forces, Major General S. A. Makarov, to clear the village of Tsentaroy in the neighboring Nozhai-Yurtovsky district.

Early in the morning of March 29, a column of 50 people (42 riot police from Perm and Berezniki, 8 military personnel of the commandant company of military unit 83590 of the Taman division) moved from Vedeno to their destination to conduct a special operation to check the passport regime and carry out other activities. The column consisted of three vehicles: an BTR-70 (driver Gennady Obraztsov, commandant company, captured, executed), a Ural-4320 car (driver Vyacheslav Morozov, Sverdlovsk district police department, died in battle) and a ZIL-131 car "(driver Yuri Shishkin, the only surviving soldier of the commandant company). Not reaching a few hundred meters to the village of Zhani-Vedeno, at height 813, the ZiL boiled and the column was forced to stop.

Shortly before this, a detachment of militants under the command of Abu Kuteib entered the same village. In addition to the Chechens, the gang also included people from the North Caucasus republics and foreign mercenaries (Arabs). The bandits settled in houses for rest. The riot police commander, Major Simonov, decided to inspect the last house. Going inside, he found two armed militants there. In response to Simonov's order to drop his weapon, shots were fired and Major Simonov was killed. At the same time, shelling of the convoy began with small arms and grenade launchers.
Burnt Urals

RPG shots knocked out an armored personnel carrier (the cumulative projectile hit the engine compartment) and both vehicles. The gunner (presumably the gunner's place was taken by one of the policemen, who later died from burns on the battlefield) of the burning armored personnel carrier turned the turret and opened fire on the hill, allowing the riot police to take more convenient positions for defense. The riot police and servicemen of the commandant's company took the fight, fighting back to the last bullet. As the bandits approached from different parts of the village, the fire on the column intensified. The policemen's last radio message asked them to shoot individually. In all likelihood, they were running out of ammunition.
Damaged armored personnel carrier

At about 10:00, a detachment of servicemen from the commandant’s company (contract soldiers) and Perm policemen was sent from Vedeno to help the riot police who were ambushed. The second column, headed by the commandant of Vedeno Colonel V. Tonkoshkurov, the head of the Vedeno VOVD Colonel Yu. Ganzhin, his deputy, former riot policeman Lieutenant Colonel K. Strogiy, the commander of the Perm OMON Lieutenant Colonel S. Gaba, tried to break through to the surrounded policemen, but did not reach several hundred of them meters, she herself was ambushed. Almost immediately, the lead armored personnel carrier of the commandant company (driver Roman Muranov, shooter Dmitry Zyablikov) was hit. Fearing being trapped, the command gave the order to retreat. After approximately 6 hours, the convoy returned to Vedeno. The losses of the second column were: the commandant's company - 15 wounded, the combined detachment of the Perm riot police - one wounded.

Thanks to the fact that some of the militants were diverted to the second column, six people from the first column were able to escape from the encirclement. On March 30, a group of six people - five riot police and a soldier from the commandant's company - went out to their own.

Only on March 31, federal troops (according to some sources - a battalion of the 66th regiment internal troops and three battalions of the 104th Guards Airborne Regiment of the 76th Guards Airborne Division of the Airborne Forces) were finally able to reach height 813 and remove the bodies of the dead policemen and soldiers of the commandant company. The bodies of 31 dead and one riot policeman Alexander Prokopov, seriously wounded in both legs, were discovered (Alexander’s leg was subsequently amputated, but he remained to serve in the riot police). The fate of the remaining fighters by that time remained unknown. It later turned out that twelve people (seven Berezniki riot police, four seconded Perm police officers and a soldier from the commandant’s company) were captured and executed the next day in response to the refusal to exchange them for Colonel Yu. D. Budanov, who was arrested for the murder of a Chechen woman. The burial of 10 fighters was discovered on April 30 (according to other sources - May 1) in the area of ​​the village of Dargo, and information about the burial place of 2 riot police soldiers had to be purchased from local residents. Almost everything
Their bodies showed signs of abuse and torture. As it turned out later, the police were not captured immediately. In a small group they tried to get out of the encirclement, constantly firing back, but they were only able to reach a small river, which they no longer had time to cross. Here they apparently ran out of ammunition. A large number of shell casings and an unexploded grenade were found around. One riot policeman was hit by machine gun fire near the bridge over the river and finished off with blows from a rifle butt. The rest were executed not far from this place.

In the following days, this area was combed and demined by internal troops, paratroopers and police officers.

On April 19, 2000, a large-scale special operation began in the Vedeno region to eliminate the formations of Basayev and Khattab concentrated here. Russian artillery attacked enemy targets in the areas of the villages of Zone, Shalazhi, Grushevoe, and Tsa-Vedeno. About 500 additional military personnel and Combat vehicles. Su-25 attack aircraft made 22 combat missions, Su-24M bombers - 4. Mi-24 fire support helicopters took to the air more than 50 times.

Losses

36 Perm policemen and 7 servicemen of the commandant company were killed in battle, captured and executed. The number of wounded is 2 and 15, respectively.

The militants' losses are unknown. Several corpses of foreign mercenaries were taken from the battlefield and buried near the then location of the commandant's company (the mansion of Shamil Basayev, the house was later destroyed by sappers of the federal forces) with the aim of subsequent exchange for the bodies of the missing policemen. The exchange did not take place.

On March 31, the Minister of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation Vladimir Rushailo and the first deputy chief visited the scene of the incident General Staff The RF Armed Forces, Colonel General Yuri Baluevsky, conducted an internal investigation. In February 2001, the materials were transferred to the main department of the Prosecutor General's Office of the Russian Federation in the North Caucasus.

During the judicial investigation, it was found that there was no special ambush on the convoy. This was confirmed by the testimony of the militants who participated in that battle ( trial passed over them in Makhachkala in the spring-summer of 2001) and a diagram of the battle site (sometimes the militants had to shoot up the slope, which would most likely have been excluded if the position had been chosen in advance). Also in favor of the absence of an ambush is the fact that the shelling of the column intensified over time, as groups of militants approached from other houses in the village. But a fatal set of circumstances - a car breakdown, the discovery of a group of militants in a house on the outskirts of the village - led to tragic consequences. Perhaps, after resting, the militants would have gone into the mountains unnoticed. Or perhaps their goal was to attack the “heart of Ichkeria” - Vedeno. In this case, the Perm policemen and soldiers of the commandant's company, by their death, prevented an attack on the regional center and destroyed all the plans of the militants.

Six people were in the dock, none of whom pleaded guilty. Four received 14, 16, 19 and 21 years of strict regime, and two were subsequently released (they were initially sentenced to 2, 5 and 3 years in prison, and then amnestied).
Ratings and opinions

Shelling of checkpoints has become more frequent. Due to inconsistency and lack of necessary skills, a detachment (40 people) from the Perm riot police was ambushed and suffered losses. The column marched without reconnaissance of the route and organization of interaction with units of internal troops and artillery. Management was carried out through open communication channels. These omissions led to trouble. And such examples, unfortunately, were not isolated.

The shooting case revealed the murderous facts
Yesterday in Makhachkala, during the trial in the case of the execution of the Perm riot police in March 2000, the sensational testimony of one of the accused, Eduard Valiakhmetov, was made public. He said that Andrei Babitsky was exchanged for soldiers captured by his detachment. The captured riot police, he said, were executed even though they asked to serve with the militants. With details - YURIY-SAFRONOV.
Defendant Valiakhmetov said that he came to Chechnya in early February 2000 at the insistence of his parents: “My mother and father wanted me to study the Koran and the basics of Islam.” This was confirmed to a Kommersant correspondent by Edward’s mother, Saniyat, who arrived in Makhachkala, dressed in accordance with all the rules prescribed by the Koran for a Muslim woman. “We really thought that only in Chechnya could our boy learn the purity of Islam,” she complained. In one of the camps, Valiakhmetov was given the name Abdulla, since the name Eduard, as they explained to him, was of non-Muslim origin. Even in a letter to his parents, he called himself Abdullah. After three weeks of training, Valiakhmetov, together with another accused Shamil Kitov, ended up in the detachment of the Arab Abu Kuteib. But just a couple of days later, the militants suspected that the recruits were FSB agents.
According to Valiakhmetov, under torture he was forced to admit that he was an FSB lieutenant. Together with Kitov, he was held with prisoners, among whom was one policeman from the Novolaksky region of Dagestan and several military personnel. The policeman, according to Valiakhmetov, was released for a ransom, and two soldiers were exchanged for Radio Liberty correspondent Andrei Babitsky. So, in any case, those who guarded him told Valiakhmetov. During this time, he recognized many militants, among whom were Tatars, Dargins from the Dagestan village of Karamakhi, and even Arabs who came from England.
The detachment of militants constantly moved and took prisoners with them everywhere. Valiakhmetov described the route in detail, clearly named settlements and even the regions of Chechnya that they crossed. At the end of March, the detachment in which he was located found itself near the village of Zhani-Vedeno.
“We were settled not far from the village in two abandoned houses. One morning I woke up from the noise of machine gun fire. Sleepy militants, dressing and loading weapons as they went, ran towards a small height (near it a column of Perm riot police was attacked. - Kommersant). Among them, I saw Shamil Kitov, who had a grenade launcher in his hands and three shots fired at him,” Valiakhmetov said during the interrogation, which was recorded on video and shown at the trial. All the riot police captured, he said, were taken to a small gorge, where they were guarded by Arabs. Meanwhile, the battle continued half a kilometer away. The Karamakhites who had previously guarded Valiakhmetov were not there - they took part in that battle. Already in the evening, when the detachment united, Valiakhmetov witnessed the execution of one of the riot police. “On the ground, leaning on a shovel, a warrant officer stood. When the militants began to loudly shout “Allahu Akbar!”, the policeman fell to his knees and began to ask not to kill him. He said that he would fight on their side. But the enraged Wahhabis no longer heard anything They took off the warrant officer’s shirt, then one Chechen came up and hit him on the head with the butt of a machine gun and cut his throat as he was already lying on the ground.” Thus, Valiakhmetov confirmed the federal data that Shamil Basayev was bluffing, offering to exchange prisoners for Colonel Budanov, who was arrested for the murder of a Chechen girl. By the time the demands were made, the riot police had already been executed.
However, in his other testimony, Valiakhmetov excluded the episode with Kitov. Based on this, the investigator did not charge the latter with direct participation in the attack on the Perm riot police. During the video interrogation, Valiakhmetov, and then Kitov, listed in detail the names of the Karamakh residents who participated in the raid and their signs. Later, according to investigators, they identified them from photographs. However, at the trial, both unexpectedly stated that they were mistaken, since completely different people were sitting in the dock. One of the participants in that battle Perm riot policeman, could not stand it and told the judge: “There they were all dirty, overgrown, with beards, and today they are trimmed and shaved. Naturally, in this situation, these are different people.”
When asked by the judge and the state prosecutor what caused the changes in their testimony, both defendants replied that they were subjected to physical pressure and acted according to the investigator’s script even before they were interrogated during video filming. According to them, the names of the defendants were suggested to them by police officers. Immediately, one by one, the lawyers began to raise their defendants and arrange impromptu confrontations, asking the same question: “Have you seen this man among the militants before?” The answer was a sluggish denial: “I only saw these people at the trial.”
Today the court will hear testimony from other defendants.