In the mountains near Peshawar in Pakistan
Deciding to wash away the shame of captivity with blood
At night, a group of prisoners rebelled
To live at least a day free...

Missing in Pakistan

Thirty years ago, in April 1985, the Soviet Union was preparing to solemnly celebrate the 40th anniversary of Victory in the Great Patriotic War.

“Be worthy of the memory of the fallen!” - sounded in those days from high stands.

Mujahideen of the Islamic Society of Afghanistan with a DShK machine gun, Afghanistan, 1987. Photo: Commons.wikimedia.org / Erwin Franzen

Meanwhile, in the mountains of Pakistan, the descendants of the heroes of the Great Patriotic War took part in a battle that became, perhaps, the main legend of the Afghan War. A battle, all the details of which are still unknown and may never be known.

By 1985, Pakistan had become the main base of the Afghan mujahideen. On the territory of this state there were militant training camps, the wounded were treated here, and the latest weapons systems were supplied here, which the Mujahideen were equipped with with American money. The Afghans were trained in the use of these weapons by American military advisers.

In addition, Soviet prisoners of war were kept in Mujahideen camps in Pakistan. The Pakistani authorities categorically did not recognize this fact, but Soviet military intelligence informed the top leadership of the USSR that the missing Soviet soldiers were being held in this country.

The conditions of detention of the “shuravi” did not comply with any Geneva Conventions - the soldiers were used for hard work, sometimes kept in barns with livestock, and periodically beaten. Indoctrination was also carried out - prisoners were persuaded to accept Islam, promising relaxations in their conditions. Sometimes Americans also appeared, offering to travel to the West in exchange for exposing the “crimes of the Soviet army in Afghanistan.” Several dozen captured Soviet soldiers took advantage of this opportunity.

Badaber - camp, warehouse and prison

In the early eighties, an Afghan refugee camp was located in the village of Badaber, 10 kilometers from Pakistani Peshawar and 24 kilometers from the Afghan border. Next to it there was also a military camp of militants, called the “Saint Khalid ibn Walid Militant Training Center,” which belonged to the “Islamic Society of Afghanistan,” which was headed by Burhanuddin Rabbani.

The training center is led by 65 instructors from different countries Several hundred future fighters trained. In addition, there was also a large warehouse of weapons and ammunition, as well as a prison in which captured Soviet soldiers and military personnel of the Afghan government army were kept.

By the end of April 1985, approximately 40 Afghan and 13-14 Soviet prisoners of war were kept in Badaber. These data, however, cannot be considered final. The names of more than twenty Soviet soldiers who passed through Badaber are known, but there is no exact information whether all of them were in the camp in the spring of 1985.

Many of the Soviet soldiers stationed in Badaber had been in captivity for more than two years by that time and were fed up with “Pakistani hospitality.” Among them there were those who managed to unite the rest around themselves in order to make a desperate attempt to escape from captivity.

Photo: Frame youtube.com

Heroes and traitor

When people talk about the leaders of the uprising in Badaber, the names most often mentioned are the names of a long-term serviceman who served as a mechanic at a military warehouse in Bagram and disappeared on May 1, 1985 in the province of Parwan, as well as a civilian driver Nikolay Shevchenko, who disappeared on September 10, 1982 in Herat province.

Regarding the latter, there is even a version that Shevchenko, whose name in Badaber was “Abdurakhmon,” in fact only posed as a civilian driver - in any case, the decisiveness of his actions and the skillful organization of like-minded people makes us think that he could be an intelligence officer.

What exactly the intention of the uprising was is also not entirely clear. According to one version, the prisoners of war were going to take possession of weapons and equipment and try to break into Afghanistan, to the location Soviet troops. According to another, the rebels initially planned to seize an arms depot and demand that the Mujahideen command meet with representatives of the Soviet embassy in Pakistan.

There is a version that the mujahideen became aware of the plans of the prisoners of war, as a result of which it was not possible to fully use the effect of surprise. The fact is that not all Soviet prisoners of war who were in the camp took part in the uprising. Among those who did not participate, there was a provocateur who betrayed the intentions of “Abdurahmon” and his comrades.

According to the stories of a few witnesses, the immediate reason for the action was the rape of one of the prisoners of war named Abdullo by graduates of a militant training center.

After this, the prisoners decided that it was time to act.

Photo: Frame youtube.com

Night fight

From the report of the intelligence center of the 40th Army on the events in Badaber: “On April 26, 1985, at 21:00, during evening prayers, a group of Soviet prisoners of war of the Badaber prison removed six sentries from the artillery warehouses and, having broken the locks in the arsenal, armed themselves, dragged ammunition to the twin anti-aircraft gun installation and a DShK machine gun mounted on the roof. The mortar and RPG grenade launchers were put on combat readiness. Soviet soldiers occupied key points of the fortress: several corner towers and the arsenal building.”

At the time of the seizure of the arsenal, a provocateur named Muhammad Islam defected to the side of the militants. The Mujahideen managed to block all exits from the camp.

Not only were all the Mujahideen raised on alarm, the Badaber area was immediately surrounded by units of the 11th Army Corps in a triple encirclement Armed Forces Pakistan, combat helicopters flew over the camp.

Burhanuddin Rabbani, who arrived at the scene, demanded that the Soviet prisoners of war and the Afghan army soldiers who supported them surrender. The rebels refused and, in turn, demanded a meeting with representatives of the Soviet embassy in Pakistan, as well as the arrival of Red Cross employees in Badaber.

In response, Rabbani ordered an assault on the arsenal.

Photo: Frame youtube.com

A fierce battle ensued and lasted all night. In its course, Rabbani himself almost died when a grenade launcher exploded next to him.

The denouement came at about 8 a.m. on April 27. The arsenal blew up, virtually destroying the entire militant training camp. A huge crater was formed at the epicenter of the explosion.

“Human remains have been found up to 4 miles away.”

There are three versions of what happened. According to Burhanuddin Rabbani, the warehouse exploded due to a direct hit from an RPG shot. According to the second version, the arsenal was shot from Pakistani army cannons, which caused the detonation of ammunition. According to the third version, the surviving rebels, realizing that the battle was coming to an end, blew up the warehouse themselves, not wanting to surrender again.

Witnesses confirm that the explosion was enormous. The remains of the dead Soviet soldiers and the Mujahideen who stormed the arsenal were then collected within a radius of hundreds of meters from the epicenter.

At the same time, Burhanuddin Rabbani insisted that no more than 20 Mujahideen died in Badaber. According to Soviet intelligence, this number is greatly underestimated - 100-120 Mujahideen, from 40 to 90 Pakistani army personnel and 6 American military instructors were killed in the battle and in the explosion.

From messages from the American Consulate in Peshawar to the US State Department on April 28 and 29, 1985: “The square mile camp area was covered with a layer of shell fragments, rockets and mines, and human remains were found by local residents at a distance of up to 4 miles from the explosion site.. ."

Pakistani President Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq was furious. The uprising in Badaber made a lot of noise, literally and figuratively. The President seriously feared that the Soviet leadership, having exposed Pakistan as having Soviet prisoners of war on its territory, which official Islamabad categorically denied, could use force against it.

Information about the uprising in Badaber was strictly classified. The circulations of Pakistani publications that managed to write about the incident were confiscated and destroyed.

The Mujahideen commanders were called “on the carpet” to Zia-ul-Haq and listened to many unpleasant words about themselves and their formations.

Moscow limited itself to a formal protest

However, the fears of the Pakistani authorities were not justified. The new Soviet leadership led by Mikhail Gorbachev reacted to the incident with extreme restraint, limiting itself to expressing official protest. The Soviet press reported “the death of Soviet military personnel on the territory of Pakistan” only in mid-May, and this message did not contain any details of the events - even those that were known to the Soviet leadership thanks to military intelligence.

What caused this? Perhaps considerations of a higher political order: Gorbachev, who received the “blessing” of Margaret Thatcher, did not want to complicate the international situation. Perhaps the Soviet leadership considered that the available data was not enough to pin Zia-ul-Haq and his Washington patrons, led by Ronald Reagan.

Among Soviet soldiers who fought in Afghanistan, the story of the uprising in Badaber was passed on from mouth to mouth.

Official Islambad admitted that the fact of the uprising in Badaber took place only after the collapse of the USSR, in 1992. This happened after Burhanuddin Rabbani himself spoke about the uprising.

“Know, Motherland, that your sons in trouble have not betrayed you...”

To this day, the list of participants in the Badaber uprising is incomplete and inaccurate. As already mentioned, the names of those who were in Badaber at different times are known, but it is not known whether they took part in the uprising.

Here is a list of the alleged participants in the uprising: private Belekchi Ivan Evgenievich, sergeant Vasiliev Vladimir Petrovich, private Vaskov Igor Nikolaevich, corporal Dudkin Nikolai Iosifovich, mechanic Dukhovchenko Viktor Vasilyevich, private Zverkovich Alexander Nikolaevich, junior lieutenant Kashlakov Gennady Anatolyevich, junior lieutenant Kiryushkin German Vasilievich, junior sergeant Korshenko Sergei Vasilyevich, private Levchishin Sergei Nikolaevich, corporal Matveev Alexander Alekseevich, private Pavlyutenkov Nikolai Nikolaevich, private Rahinkulov Radik Raisovich, private Saifutdinov Ravil Munavarovich, junior sergeant Samin Nikolai Grigorievich, civilian Shevchenko Nikolai Ivanovich.

The repertoire of the Airborne Forces ensemble “Blue Berets”, created in 1985, includes the song “In the Mountains near Peshawar,” dedicated to the uprising in Badaber. This is one of the most poignant songs about soldiers of the Afghan war:

We are waging a battle, but our strength is fading,
There are fewer and fewer people alive, the chances are not equal,
Know, Motherland, they haven’t cheated on you
Your sons in trouble.

Date: 2010-03-29

Roman SHKURLATOV

On April 26, 1985, a group of captured Soviet soldiers and members of the armed forces of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan rebelled in the Badaber prison. Having captured a weapons warehouse, they held the defense for more than a day. The rebels rejected the proposal of the militant leaders to voluntarily cease resistance. As a result of the storming of the prison, all prisoners died. The country learned the names of the heroes who chose death in an obviously unequal battle over shameful captivity only a few years later.

Today, on the site of the Badaber fortress, which is about two dozen kilometers south of Pakistani Peshawar, there is practically nothing. Fragments of a very dilapidated adobe wall, the ruins of several one-story brick buildings, gates that lead nowhere...

Meanwhile, this piece of sun-scorched land has a rich past. The fortress, built by the Americans back in the 60s of the last century, was initially a branch of the intelligence center of the US Pakistani station. It was from here, from a secret airfield, that the U-2 spy plane, piloted by the American pilot Powers, took off on its last flight over the USSR.

Zindan for infidels

With the beginning of the war in Afghanistan, a Mujahideen training center settled here. The militants were trained for partisan actions against units of the Soviet army. It is from this period that tragic events date, the full truth about which was carefully hushed up for a long time.

At first glance, the refugee camp in the Pashtun village of Badaber was no different from dozens of others scattered along the Afghan-Pakistan border: mud huts and battered army tents, in which several thousand people lived, overcrowding, unsanitary conditions. But the main purpose of the camp was not to accommodate those fleeing the horrors. civil war of people. For several years, a rebel military training center operated under humanitarian cover in Badaber, which belonged to the counter-revolutionary Afghan party “Islamic Society of Afghanistan,” one of the most influential and largest opposition organizations. During the 10-year war, the IOA caused a lot of trouble to both Kabul and the Soviet command. It was its representatives that were Ahmad Shah Massoud in the north and Ismail Khan in the west, and the leader of the IOA, Burhanuddin Rabbani, after the victory of the Taliban in 1992, became the first head of the Islamic State of Afghanistan.

The Islamists took the fight seriously. Young mujahideen were specially taken to Pakistan and there they were thoroughly trained in guerrilla tactics, the art of shooting, the ability to set up ambushes, set booby traps, camouflage themselves, and work at various types of radio stations. In training centers (regiments) located in the vicinity of Peshawar, up to 5 thousand people could study simultaneously. These "universities" operated continuously throughout the war.

The training regiment of Saint Khaled ibn Walid was based closest to the refugee camp. Inside the guarded perimeter there were several one-story houses, a modest mosque, a football field, a volleyball court, and warehouses with weapons and ammunition. During the six-month training course, about 300 militants mastered the “science of winning.” The center was headed by a major of the Pakistani armed forces, and several American advisers provided him with methodological assistance. In addition, the staff consisted of more than fifty military instructors from the USA, China, Pakistan, and Egypt.

Three underground prison premises, the so-called zindans, were also considered a special zone of the fortress. According to various estimates, by April 1985, up to 40 Afghan and 12 Soviet military personnel were held here.

The first prisoners began to be brought to Badaber closer to the mid-80s. It is no secret that the counter-revolutionaries, fueled by the religious fanaticism of the mullahs, showed savage cruelty towards our soldiers; the prisoners were often in terrible, inhuman conditions. There are many documentary examples of this, and Badaber was no exception. The local commandant Abdurahman beat prisoners for the slightest offense with a lead-tipped whip, shackled them in chains and shackles, from which not only the skin, but also the bones festered on their hands and feet, and sent them to work in the quarry. According to other accounts, the prisoners were starved for a long time, given only very salty food and a sip of water per day.

Last fireworks

The picture of what happened in the Badaber fortress emerged gradually over several years. Information, sometimes very contradictory, came through the channels of various departments and public organizations– Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Intelligence Service Russian Federation, the Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff of the RF Armed Forces, as well as the Committee for the Affairs of Internationalist Soldiers under the Council of Heads of Government of the CIS Member States. As a result of the titanic work of hundreds of people, literally collecting scattered data bit by bit, the approximate chronology of events was restored.

It all started around 18:00 local time. A group of Soviet and Afghan prisoners of war, approximately 24 people, undertook an armed uprising in order to escape from Dushman captivity. The moment was not chosen by chance: all personnel training center lined up on the parade ground for evening prayer, and out of 70 guards only two remained at their posts. As IOA leader and former Afghan President B. Rabbani later recalled, the signal for the uprising was the actions of one of the Soviet soldiers. The strongly built guy managed to disarm the warden who brought the stew. Then the fighter opened the cells and released other prisoners, including Afghans.

Having taken possession of the weapons that the guards had left behind, the rebels began to fight their way to the prison gates. According to some reports, their main task was to get to the radio center of the fortress in order to go on the air and report their location. Such a high-profile action would have allowed the USSR Ambassador in Islamabad to issue a note of protest and attract the attention of the world community. Moreover, it was a powerful argument confirming Pakistan’s intervention in Afghan affairs.

It is unknown whether the participants in the uprising succeeded in carrying out their plans, but a few minutes later the warehouse with weapons and ammunition was under their control. Armed, the prisoners took up positions advantageous for the battle. Large-caliber machine guns and M-62 mortars were installed on the roof, and hand-held anti-tank grenade launchers were put on alert. But by this time, the territory of the training center had already been depopulated: among the prisoners there were several traitors, who, in the ensuing turmoil, ran over to the side of the dushmans and warned them about the intentions of the rebels. Having barricaded themselves in one of the adobe towers, Soviet and Afghan soldiers took up defensive positions.

Very quickly, the area adjacent to the camp was blocked by troops of the Afghan opposition, Pakistani Malish, as well as infantry, tank and artillery units of the 11th Army Corps of the Pakistani Armed Forces. Arriving at the scene of the events, Rabbani, using a loudspeaker and telephone communication, entered into negotiations with the rebels. The prisoners demanded that they organize a meeting with Soviet ambassador, representatives of the UN or the Red Cross. The Islamists ignored their condition, in turn inviting the prisoners to surrender. Hearing a categorical refusal, Rabbani, in agreement with Pakistani military leaders, gave the order to storm the prison.

The defenders of the fortress repelled the first attack with dense targeted fire. The battle, now fading, now flaring up, continued all night. And although the forces were clearly unequal, the Mujahideen failed to break the defense of Soviet and Afghan prisoners of war.

By 8 am it became completely clear that the rebels were not going to surrender. Moreover, the resistance became increasingly fierce. One of the grenade launcher shots from the direction of the fortress almost killed Rabbani himself, and his bodyguard received serious shrapnel wounds. The leader of the IOA, who led the operation, decided to throw all available forces and means into battle. Artillery was used against the defenders, in particular Grad multiple launch rocket systems, tanks and even a flight of Pakistani Air Force helicopters. Radio reconnaissance of the 40th separate army recorded a radio interception of a conversation between their crews and aviation base, as well as a report from one of the Pakistani military pilots about a bomb attack on the camp.

Stills from Radik Kudoyarov's film "The Secret of Camp Badaber"

As a result of a direct hit by a shell, the ammunition stored in warehouses detonated. The first explosion was so strong that fragments scattered over a radius of several kilometers. It was followed by several dozen more explosions. Hundreds of burning shells and mines shot up into the alien sky, like the last salute to the heroes of Badaber. It seemed that no one could survive in the fiery hell. But even after the walls were destroyed and the brutal Mujahideen burst into the fortress, the battle continued. Wounded and burned Soviet soldiers met their enemies with machine gun fire. The Mujahideen threw grenades at them and finished off the dying with bayonet knives.

“Don’t take Russians prisoner!”

After the suppression of the uprising, a secret agent of the Shir intelligence center of the Afghan Ministry of State Security was sent to Badaber. The details of his report, as well as the information provided by the GRU of the General Staff of the USSR Armed Forces, made a strong impression on the Soviet military leadership. As a result of the storming of the prison, all prisoners died. The enemy also suffered significant losses: about 100 Mujahideen, six foreign advisers, 13 representatives of the Pakistani authorities, 28 officers of the Pakistani Armed Forces. 3 Grad MLRS, approximately 2 million missiles and shells of various types, about 40 artillery pieces, mortars and machine guns were destroyed. The explosion and subsequent fire destroyed a number of buildings, including the prison office, in which, among other things, documents with lists of prisoners were kept.

The Badaber incident aroused concern of the Pakistani administration, as well as the leadership of the Afghan irreconcilable opposition. On April 29, the leader of the Islamic Party of Afghanistan, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, radioed an encrypted circular order to all gangs subordinate to him, in which he demanded to strengthen the security of Soviet prisoners of war due to the fact that in Badaber “there were killed and wounded among the brothers.” The order also instructed the commanders of the IPA fronts “from now on, not to take Russians prisoner, but to destroy them at the place of capture.”

On the same day, the Governor of the North-West Frontier Province, Lieutenant General Fazl Haq, visited the scene. Considering the seriousness of what happened near Peshawar, Pakistani President Zia-ul-Haq visited the area, who bluntly demanded that the commanders of the Afghan forces prevent the repetition of such incidents.

The Pakistanis were also concerned that what happened confirmed the presence of Soviet soldiers captured in the DRA on Pakistani territory. In order to prevent information leakage, official Islamabad took all necessary measures. In particular, Rabbani was asked to make an official statement that an armed clash had occurred in the Badaber area between two warring factions of his organization. Ordinary Mujahideen were ordered by their commanders to remain silent on pain of death. In addition, unauthorized persons were prohibited from entering the area, and the circulation of the Peshawar magazine Safir, which published an article about the uprising, was completely confiscated and put under the knife.

However, everything that happened in Badaber still received publicity. It's no joke, artillery cannonade was heard even in Peshawar! Already on May 2, many telegraph agencies, citing their correspondents in Islamabad, reported on the unequal battle waged by Soviet and Afghan soldiers in Pakistan. Even the Voice of America radio station reported on May 4 that “at one of the Afghan Mujahideen bases in Pakistan, an explosion killed 12 Soviet and 12 Afghan prisoners.” The fact of the armed uprising in Badaber was confirmed by David Delanrantz, a representative of the International Red Cross, who visited the Soviet embassy in Islamabad on May 9, 1985.

Two more days later, the Soviet ambassador in Islamabad expressed a strong protest to Zia-ul-Haq from the Soviet government. The statement from the Foreign Ministry stated: “The Soviet side places full responsibility for what happened on the government of Pakistan and expects it to draw appropriate conclusions about the consequences of its complicity in aggression against the DRA and thereby against the Soviet Union...”. The leadership of Afghanistan also protested. On May 16, the DRA Permanent Representative to the UN M. Zarif sent a letter to Secretary General this organization, which was circulated as an official document of the General Assembly of the Security Council.

Alas, the USSR government never took any other steps other than a declarative statement. Party bosses did not want to admit that Soviet prisoners of war were being held in Afghan opposition camps. Indeed, according to the official version, a limited contingent of Soviet troops did not participate in hostilities, but provided “international assistance to the fraternal people”: they built schools, hospitals, kindergartens and roads, planted trees and dug ditches. And if there is no war, then where will prisoners of war come from?..

Return the names of the heroes

Citizens of the Soviet Union learned about the tragedy near Peshawar only a month later. On May 27, 1985, the Novosti press agency launched a message with the following content: “Kabul. Public protest rallies continue throughout the country in connection with the death in an unequal battle with detachments of counter-revolutionaries and the regular Pakistani army of Soviet and Afghan soldiers captured by dushmans on the territory of the DRA and secretly transported to Pakistan. Peasants, workers, tribal representatives angrily condemn the barbaric action of Islamabad, which, in an effort to evade responsibility, clumsily distorts the facts.”

Through the meager lines of the message, in which there was no room for condolences to the relatives or admiration for the feat of the prisoners, a political and ideological subtext clearly emerged. " Cold War"was entering a decisive stage, and the warring parties did not miss any opportunity to prick the enemy more painfully. And the bargaining chip of these “ interstate relations"were the lives of soldiers and officers.

The Minister of Defense of the USSR, Marshal S. L. Sokolov, ordered, without delay, to establish the names of the military personnel who took part in the uprising. However, due to the fact that all the prison documentation was burned, our military intelligence was unable to do this. In addition, the Pakistani authorities and the leadership of the Afghan opposition did everything possible and impossible to create even more fog: neither journalists nor embassy workers were allowed into the camp area, which had been declared a dead zone.

Public veteran organizations, funds mass media never stopped trying to shed light on the Badaber events. Later, the Russian Foreign Ministry actively became involved in this process. Until December 1991, official Islamabad not only refused to recognize the very fact of the uprising, but also generally denied that there were ever Soviet prisoners of war on Pakistani territory. The Pakistani authorities have repeatedly raised the question of conducting an investigation and exhuming the bodies of the dead in order to establish the identities of the military personnel and clarify all the details of what happened.

But only after the fact of the participation of Soviet military personnel in the uprising in Badaber was confirmed at negotiations in Moscow by B. Rabbani, Deputy Foreign Minister of Pakistan Shahriyar Khan named the names of five of our soldiers. At the same time, it was stated that there could be no talk of any remains of the dead, since “every living thing was destroyed” by the explosion. Russian side She repeatedly appealed to the Pakistani authorities with a request to allow her to visit the camp, but was invariably refused. Since the time of the uprising, none of the domestic diplomats or military personnel have visited Badaber.

Footage from Radik Kudoyarov's investigative documentary "The Secret of the Badaber Camp", the film's authors managed to find witnesses to the uprising, according to their version - Shevchenko Nikolay was the initiator of the riot

The search for the dead intensified again in 2003 thanks to the Committee on the Affairs of Internationalist Soldiers under the Council of Heads of Government of the Commonwealth Member States, which is headed by Hero of the Soviet Union, Lieutenant General Ruslan Aushev. To date, the names of seven participants in the uprising in Badaber have been established: junior sergeant Samin Nikolai Grigorievich (b. 1964, Akmola region, Kazakhstan), corporal Dudkin Nikolai Iosifovich (b. 1961, Altai), privates Vaskov Igor Nikolaevich (1963 b., Kostroma region), Levchishin Sergey Nikolaevich (b. 1964, Samara Region), Zverkovich Alexander Nikolaevich (b. 1964, Vitebsk region, Belarus), Korshenko Sergei Vasilyevich (b. 1964, Bila Tserkva, Ukraine), SA employee Viktor Vasilyevich Dukhovchenko (b. 1954, Bila Tserkva). Zaporozhye, Ukraine).

From the testimony of a few witnesses, it was possible to find out the name of the leader of the rebels. Presumably he was Viktor Dukhovchenko (the Muslim pseudonym given to him in captivity is Yunus). It was he who allegedly managed to remove the sentry and free his comrades.

The next step in perpetuating the memory of the soldiers killed in Badaber was their presentation for awards. At the request of the State Committee of Ukraine for Veterans Affairs, on February 8, 2003, the President of the Republic Leonid Kuchma, by his decree, awarded Sergei Korshenko the Order of Courage, III degree (posthumously). On December 12 of the same year, President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev awarded Nikolai Samin the Order of Aibyn (Valor), III degree (posthumously). Documents on awarding Belarusian Alexander Zverkovich, as well as three Russians, are currently under consideration by the administrations of the presidents of the two union states.

According to representatives of the Russian Ministry of Defense, the delay in restoring justice was caused primarily by the confusion that reigned in previous years with lists and names. But now that most of the issues have been resolved, the process should move forward. In any case, I really want to believe that times unknown soldiers and forgotten heroes in our country are gone forever.

In the mountains near Peshawar, Pakistan,
Having decided to wash away the shame of captivity with blood,
At night, a group of prisoners rebelled,
To live free for at least a day.

And even though there are few of us, no one flinched,
Even though the mouths of death are staring us in the eye.
Soviet soldiers - this means
That even the dead will not defeat us.

We were not broken by slave stocks,
And even the machine guns didn’t take us.
Enemies cowardly direct fire at everyone
They were shot from Pakistani cannons.

Our homeland shines for us like a distant star,
And this inviting light catches your eye.
We won't back down for anything in the world
And there are no faint-hearted people among us.

We are waging a battle, but our strength is fading,
There are fewer and fewer people alive, the chances are not equal...
Know, Motherland, they haven’t cheated on you
Your sons in trouble!

VIA song "Blue Berets"

Documentary
TV channel Russia 2009
Script writers: Mikhail Volkov, Radik Kudoyarov
Avi, 387 MB, 704x400, sound 107 kbps

http://sovserv.ru/vbb/archive/index.php/f-111.html

Comments on this article:

When my stepfather went to the front in 1941, my mother knew that he would not return. “After all, for him, as she said, either his chest is in the bushes or his head is in the bushes.” There was no talk of anything else, much less giving up.

how terribly unbearable the suffering the Soviet boys endured, I’m shocked

The Republican newspaper "Chance" in issue No. 7 (February 17-23, 2011) published an article by Turchenko " Forgotten heroes Afghan", which told about this event. Among the rebels was our fellow countryman, Lieutenant Saburov, and how I work in the library and work with young people. I want to know more about this event and about our fellow countryman. My address: [email protected]

Documentary film Mutiny in the Underworld http://mmg-kgb.ucoz.ru/load/quot_mjatezh_v_preispodnej_quot/13-1-0-485 - Association of sites about units of the USSR KGB PV in Afghanistan 1979-1989

SOVIET CITIZENS MISSING IN AFGHANISTAN TERRITORY FROM 12/25/79 TO 02/15/89 Sergey Vasilievich SABUROV, lieutenant, 1960-12/17/82, Paktia -
http://afgan.ru/bezvesti.htm
http://sovserv.ru/vbb/archive/index.php/t-45563.html

List of resources about Afghanistan http://artofwar.ru/j/janr_1/

Finally, people came along and “pulled” most of this story into the light. Finally, at least a small part of those who died heroically in Badaber have regained their names... But believe me people, this is only part of the events!... there were much more prisoners, some were able to escape... and get to the Kandahar garrison... And then there was a small international scandal that was quickly hushed up (a scandal due to the reaction of the soldiers of the Kandahar garrison to the events in Badaber)... It’s because of this scandal that “no one was left alive” and “there were only 12 prisoners” and now we can’t find anyone can not. Citizen generals, if you don’t find anyone, don’t try. You have already betrayed us once!

Read Stanislav Oleinik’s book “Missing”, Eksmo publishing house, 2008, republished in 2009. There is more detail about this uprising.

In addition to the comment 2011-05-12. Especially for LILY. Unfortunately, your information is incorrect. I dare to assure you that there was not a single officer among the rebels. He led the uprising of Shevchenko, about which. For some reason, all those in power modestly keep silent.

Served in Primorye 1982-1984. In 1983, during the divorce, they announced an uprising of Russian prisoners of war near Peshawar, and it seemed to be in the press that year. I remember they talked about 3 days of fighting. 1983!!!

When the editor of Rodina magazine asked me to write about this story, I initially refused. The fact is that over the past years there have been many hunters who want to juggle words on the topic of Badabery. Having only the fact of the seizure of a weapons depot and the death of our soldiers, without knowing either the names, or the details of their captivity, or the circumstances of the battle, these authors managed to create a feature film (admittedly, a good one), write books, articles and entire “research”.

The riot in Badaber grew a huge amount myths, and some states, at that time Soviet republics, even posthumously awarded their soldiers who participated in it. And since there is nothing wrong with these myths, the dead in any case deserve signs of attention and honor, I thought: why stir up the past once again, disturb the memory of the fallen and their living relatives?

But still, still, still...

The thirtieth anniversary is a good reason to remember not only this story.

Business trip

I have been studying the mystery of the Badaber camp for many years, although in fairness it must be said that the pioneer of the topic back in the late 80s was the military journalist Colonel Alexander Oliynik. With the collapse of the USSR, history faded into the shadows. And after the capture of Afghanistan by the Taliban, any opportunity to study what actually happened near the city of Peshawar disappeared.

In 2003, the Committee for Internationalist Soldiers, then headed by Ruslan Aushev, sent me to Afghanistan and Pakistan. One of the main goals of the trip was Badabera. I found the surviving leaders and instructors of the Mujahideen training center and met with professor of theology B. Rabbani, the same leader of the Islamic Society of Afghanistan (ISA), which was the owner of the base in Pakistan. It was this man who became the first head of the Islamic State of Afghanistan after the victory of the Mujahideen in 1992.

The picture gradually became clearer.

According to former Mujahideen, the first prisoners appeared on the territory of the training center in late 1984 - early 1985. They were collected from different places, ostensibly in order to then be handed over to the Red Cross. The prisoners, according to my interlocutors, were able to move freely around the camp during the day, ate from the same cauldron with the “spirits” and even played football with them. (Perhaps the reader will consider this a fantasy, but I myself saw how in December 1991 our prisoners, whom we discovered in the Farhar gorge near the famous Ahmadshah Masud (field commander of the IOA), also kicked a ball with the Afghans in a vacant lot. At night they They were locked up, and during the day they were given almost complete freedom. And where can you escape from these wild gorges?)

Also, according to our former enemies, all the prisoners agreed to convert to Islam and were given Afghan names. (If you try to refuse, you won’t last even a week in captivity; they will treat you worse than a dog). Some of these names were given to me: Ukrainian Islamuddin, Russian Muscovite Imamuddin, Tajik Abdullah, Siberian Mohammad. They were captured at different times and in different places in Afghanistan. For example, Islamuddin was captured in Kabul, near the Bala-Gissar fortress, where our paratroopers were stationed. He was offered to smoke a cigarette, he took a drag and “floated.” Then he was invited to ride a bicycle. Sat down. Fell. And I woke up in the mountains with my hands tied.

The battle

On April 26, 1985, at about five o'clock in the evening, when all the Afghans had left to perform prayers, the prisoners neutralized the sentry guarding the weapons arsenal. They took machine guns, ammunition, and even grabbed a 75mm mortar. And they took positions in one of the clay towers.

What was the Mujahideen training center like? Frail clay buildings, surrounded by a low clay wall with four towers at the corners. The only decent brick house was occupied by Rabbani. The cadets who were being trained to fight the Soviets lived in tents. Here they were trained in guerrilla tactics, the art of marksmanship, the ability to set up ambushes, set booby traps, camouflage themselves, and work at different types of radio stations. In training centers (regiments) located near Peshawar, up to five thousand people were simultaneously trained. And these “universities” operated continuously throughout the war. Our soldiers addressed these cadets through a loudspeaker: “The camp has been captured. Everyone leave!”

The famous theologian Burhanuddin Rabbani himself entered into negotiations with the rebels. He picked up a megaphone and walked out close to the clay wall. He knew many of the prisoners personally, so he addressed them by name. Something like this: “Islamuddin, son, drop your weapon, come out, let’s talk calmly, without this nonsense.” The professor, as he assured me, did not want blood to be spilled. But, apparently, even more than that, he did not want people outside of Badabera to know about what had happened - this could greatly spoil the image of his organization.

Sons, you will only harm yourself. Lay down your weapons and let's talk.

In vain. The “sons” firmly stood their ground: we demand representatives of the UN and the Red Cross. All this lasted for four hours. The camp was surrounded in a tight ring by combat detachments of the Mujahideen, while the Pakistani military watched what was happening on the sidelines.

Already at dusk, the prisoners allegedly lost their nerve: they fired a mortar shot. The explosion occurred a few meters from Rabbani, his bodyguard was killed, and for the Mujahideen this served as a signal to begin the assault. However, my interlocutors asserted, there was no assault. One of the Afghans fired a grenade launcher at the turret and immediately hit the ammunition depot. Powerful explosion. Everything began to burn and smoke. The surviving prisoners tried to run away in different directions, but only one Uzbek allegedly survived: having learned about the intentions of his fellow camp inmates, he left their ranks in advance and ran over to the enemy’s side. Everyone else died. There were casualties among the cadets; they told me the number was nine.

This is how it all happened according to the former dushmans. But who were those brave souls? What was the spark that caused the riot?

Footprints

Regarding the spark, they told me the following through gritted teeth. They say that the day before the Mujahideen “let go” one of the prisoners and raped him. And as if during the subsequent uprising, Rabbani, calling on our soldiers to surrender, promised them to severely punish the rapist. Whether this really happened, I don’t know; I’m only saying what I heard during my business trip.

But regarding the exact names of Badabera’s captives, everything is much more confusing. The Dushmans were never particularly interested in either the real names or the previous service of the captured “Shuravi”. Perhaps the information is in the records of Pakistani military intelligence. But in response to all our requests on behalf of the most serious Russian departments, Pakistan kept repeating one thing: we don’t know anything.

Where then did the names of the prisoners come from that have been wandering from one article to another for many years? And who were awarded posthumously by the Ukrainians and Belarusians? At the risk of incurring the wrath of my search colleagues, I will say: all of this, alas, is nothing more than guesswork. There are no living participants in those events. It is impossible to identify the remains: scattered to pieces, they were buried after a fleeting battle in a mass grave. And no trace of her can be found - I speak as a person who visited Badaber, on the site of the former Mujahideen base. By the way, essentially nothing remains of the base itself - ruins and an orphan gate that leads nowhere.

Even local elders do not remember where the remains were buried. And now you can’t even ask Rabbani: he was blown up by a suicide bomber in his own home in Kabul on September 20, 2011.

On that business trip, I showed all my interlocutors photographs of missing soldiers and officers, and at that time there were almost three hundred of them. “It seems that this one was there,” the Mujahideen answered me at best. From a distance of 18 years, it is difficult, almost impossible, to consider the past...

I want to add a few bitter words about the past.

Lessons

Having seized weapons, the prisoners demanded a meeting with representatives of international humanitarian organizations(this, in any case, follows from the words of the Afghan partisans). And they did not insist on calling diplomats from the Soviet embassy. Why? The answer is simple and terrible: because, having fallen to the enemy, these people seemed to cease to exist for the Motherland. This may seem incredible to a young reader, but just thirty years ago being captured was considered almost treason. This law of Stalin's times was in effect, alas, for almost the entire Afghan campaign. Only at its final stage did special departments of the 40th Army begin to make efforts to exchange and redeem soldiers in trouble.

To be honest, we then abandoned those captured in the first years of the war as prisoners of Badabery. Elementary and cynical betrayal.

Armed forces Western countries In order to get their people out of trouble, they throw in powerful state resources - budget money, the capabilities of special services, diplomatic efforts, military actions... There, yesterday's prisoners are greeted as heroes, giving them honors that, according to our concepts, are simply inadequate to the heroism shown. But this is nothing more than pragmatic public policy, designed to demonstrate real concern for a person performing military duty. There, the soldier knows: he will be pulled out of any trouble, and even showered with awards.

When those same Americans planned to bring their “limited contingent” into Afghanistan, they first sent emissaries to Moscow. And they asked our Afghan veterans in detail what troubles awaited the soldiers if they were captured. After this, the Pentagon developed detailed instructions how to behave if you fall into the clutches of the enemy. The soldiers were, in particular, recommended not to hide anything during interrogations, to answer questions in detail, even concerning secret information. The basis is the desire to save a person at any cost, to return him to his homeland not in a zinc coffin.

According to official data, today there are no Americans captured by the Taliban. Missing people too.

Actually, it was for the sake of these last paragraphs that I agreed to write an article for the magazine.

On April 26, 1985, Soviet prisoners of war, languishing on the territory of the Mujahideen training center in Pakistan, seized a warehouse with weapons and demanded that they be handed over to representatives of the UN or the Red Cross. During a short and fierce battle, in which units of the regular Pakistani army allegedly participated, all these guys died.

There are no living participants in those events. It is impossible to identify the remains.

On March 11, 1985, a month and a half before the uprising in Badaber, Mikhail Gorbachev was approved as General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee. Perestroika began. Breaking down the old. Cleansing of party and military offices. There was no time for a riot in distant, sultry Badaber...

In April 1985, a handful of prisoners of war—Ukrainians, Russians, Belarusians, and Tatars—revolted in a Pakistani Mujahideen camp. The uprising was only suppressed by artillery fire. There is still a huge crater in that place, like a monument.

The war in Afghanistan (1979-1989) was a classic confrontation between superpowers on the territory of a third country. Fighting went between the government forces of Afghanistan and a contingent of Soviet troops, on the one hand, and the armed formations of the Afghan Mujahideen, supported by NATO countries and the Islamic world, on the other.

Behind the walls

1985 The “war of caravans” is in full swing - the hunt of Soviet troops for supply columns going to Afghanistan from the territory of neighboring Pakistan. To disrupt the logistics of the rebels, Soviet special forces penetrate deeply into the territories they occupy. The territory is high mountainous, the border with Pakistan is nearby. This means that aviation operations are very limited by the terrain and the threat of air defense. All support for Soviet soldiers is a few volleys of artillery and what you can carry on your back. In such conditions it is easy to be captured.

The prisoners were kept in a network of underground prisons, zindans, near the Pakistani village of Badaber: 12 Soviet soldiers and 36 army employees of the pro-Soviet government of Afghanistan. There are 8-meter adobe walls around and towers in the corners, inside there is a system of fences and barracks. The mosque-fortress here was not only a place of imprisonment, but also a training center for the Islamic Society of Afghanistan party. In Badaber, the Mujahideen took a course for young fighters. They were taught shooting, guerrilla warfare, sapping, and handling radios and MANPADS.

Two prisoners, under the pretext of being unwell, go to a warehouse with weapons. A warehouse guard is killed.

NO STRENGTH TO BEAR

Some prisoners were kept in Badaber for more than three years, many for more than a year - they had seen enough of everything. For disobedience, soldiers were put in stocks, beaten with whips, sent to break stone or repair walls in the heat. They were fed dried meat for weeks, their water intake was reduced, and they were not allowed to sleep. One of the prisoners went crazy from torture.

On April 26, 1985, the patience of 50 prisoners ran out. During evening prayers, a guard distributing food was killed. Apart from him, only three people remained at the post during prayer.

The plan was invented by Ukrainians Nikolai Shevchenko and Viktor Dukhovchenko. They planned to seize the Mujahideen's arsenal of weapons, go live on the radio and, under the threat of an explosion, force them to allow the Soviet consul and representatives of the Red Cross to see them.

The fighters stabbed the guards to death with pieces of sharpened reinforcement, seized keys and weapons, and pulled out a DShK heavy machine gun, a mortar, and anti-tank grenade launchers from the warehouse. The betrayal of one of the Tajik prisoners, who ran over to the Mujahideen a few minutes before the attack on the radio communication center, prevented the guards from being taken by surprise.

31 years old, from Zaporozhye region. Served on extra duty at a logistics warehouse in Bagram, Afghanistan.

29 years old, from Sumy region. Civilian of the 5th Guards Motorized Rifle Division.

Parliamentarian Burhanuddin Rabbani Parliamentarian Burhanuddin Rabbani

Better a terrible ending

The fortress was blocked. The head of the Islamic Society of Afghanistan party, Burhanuddin Rabbani, arrived at the scene of the emergency. Hearing the demands of the rebels, he gave the order for the assault. A double anti-aircraft gun hit the attackers from one of the towers, and machine guns fired desperately from the walls. The firefight continued throughout the night. In one of the attacks, Rabbani received a concussion, his guard was torn by shrapnel. More than 20 people among the attackers were killed and dozens were wounded.

By 6:00, cannon artillery opened fire on the fortress at direct fire. The outcome of the battle was clear - aircraft were patrolling, eyewitnesses heard negotiations about air strikes. And then Badaber ripped open a monstrous explosion. Military historians are still arguing about whether the warehouses detonated from the hit or whether the captured soldiers decided not to surrender alive. Later, USSR satellite monitoring equipment recorded a crater up to 80 meters in diameter.

In the mountains near Peshawar in Pakistan
Wanting to wash away the shame with blood
At night, a group of prisoners rebelled,
To live at least a day free...
(C) song "Blue Berets"

26 April 1985 , Soviet prisoners of war rebelled in the Pakistani Badaber camp.
This fight is one of the most legendary in Afghan war. The prisoner of war camp was located 35 km from Peshawar. This uprising of Soviet prisoners of war was detected even from space. American and Soviet satellites recorded a series of powerful explosions in the area of ​​the village of Badaber.

In the case of Soviet prisoners of war, captivity meant the embodiment of the real hell that could only exist. At first, Soviet soldiers and officers captured on the battlefield were simply brutally finished off, sometimes cutting off organs and dousing people who were still alive with gasoline. Somewhere in 1983, the Mujahideen began exchanging captured Soviet soldiers for their fellow countrymen. They also attracted prisoners to perform various household tasks. The situation for Soviet prisoners of war was complicated by the fact that the USSR was not officially at war with Afghanistan.

The conditions of detention of the “shuravi” did not comply with any Geneva Conventions - the soldiers were used for hard work, sometimes kept in barns with livestock, and periodically beaten. Indoctrination was also carried out - prisoners were persuaded to accept Islam, promising relaxations in their conditions. Sometimes Americans also appeared, offering to travel to the West in exchange for exposing the “crimes of the Soviet army in Afghanistan.” Several captured Soviet soldiers took advantage of this opportunity.

The camp was located in the village of Badaber, 24 km from the border with Afghanistan, under the guise of a refugee camp, there was the Saint Khalid ibn Walid Militant Training Center, owned by the Islamic Society of Afghanistan party. There, under the guidance of instructors from the USA and Europe, the Mujahideen were trained.
Every 6 months the center released 600 fighters and sent them across the border.
Naturally, there were also weapons depots there. Before the uprising, he was just brought there to join the next batch of Mujahideen.

The plan of the Soviet prisoners of war, who were probably used to unload weapons, was simple. Try to seize the radio station and report your coordinates and demand that the Pakistani authorities meet with representatives of the Soviet embassy and UN representatives. Otherwise, they threatened to blow themselves up along with their ammunition depots.

Friday was chosen as the day the uprising began - a holy day for Muslims, when only guards remained in the fortress, and all the militants went to the mosque.

In the evening, when the food was brought, one of the guards was neutralized. Presumably, the uprising was started by Viktor Vasilyevich Dukhovenko. He managed to open the cells and release his comrades. Soon the prisoners already controlled the prison, were armed and blocked the gates.

Muhammad Shah, one of the few captured Afghans who managed to escape from the camp, recalls:

"Suddenly, in the prison corridor there was a noise, the stomping of people running. A moment later we were on our feet - we were in a light sleep in the cell. Under the blows, our door flew off its hinges. Two "shuravis" and an Afghan with burning eyes and a machine gun in his hands looked in on us. Century I will remember these sparkling glances of the Russians, full of anger and determination:
“We killed the guards and took possession of the weapons,” a tall, curly-haired guy shouted to us.
“You are free, run,” the Afghan added. — Quickly go to the mountains.
Running out into the courtyard, we saw how Soviet and some Afghan prisoners were dragging heavy weapons, mortars, and Chinese machine guns onto the roofs of warehouses. I didn’t understand then why they were doing this, what they were planning. Together with several Afghans, he rushed through the slightly open prison gates. I don’t remember where or how long I ran. Only at dawn I began to come to my senses and realized that I had managed to hide in the mountains alive. I was shaking all over. From there, for a long time I heard gunfire in the direction of the camp, dull explosions. Only after returning to Kabul did I learn from the stories of the military how the uprising of prisoners of war in Badaber ended. I don’t know the specific names of the Russians, but Allah is my witness - I will keep the bright memory of them as long as I live...”

The Mujahideen surrounded the prison and warehouses with a triple ring, and brought in both artillery and armored vehicles. And then a battle broke out that lasted all night.

On April 28, 1985, the Aerospace Service Center of the USSR reported:
“According to the aerospace service, an explosion occurred in the NWFP of Pakistan. great strength The Mujahideen training camp of Badaber was destroyed. The size of the crater in the image obtained from the communications satellite reaches 80 meters.”

From the radio broadcast of the Islamic Party of Afghanistan (IPA), April 28, 1985:
“10 Russians who were captured in Badaber seized the regiment’s weapons, including surface-to-surface missiles, and attacked the Mujahideen. Several people died. If you capture Russians or representatives of the people’s power, be extremely careful with them, do not weaken your guard.”

From messages from the American Consulate in Peshawar to the US State Department dated April 28 and 29, 1985:
“The camp's square mile area was covered with a layer of shell fragments, rockets and mines, and human remains were found by local residents at a distance of up to 4 miles from the explosion site... 14-15 Soviet soldiers were kept in the Badaber camp, two of whom managed to remain in alive after the uprising was crushed..."

On May 27, the Novosti press agency released a message:
"Kabul. Public protest rallies continue throughout the country in connection with the death in an unequal battle with detachments of counter-revolutionaries and the regular Pakistani army of Soviet and Afghan soldiers captured by dushmans on the territory of the DRA and secretly transported to Pakistan. Peasants, workers, tribal representatives angrily condemn the barbaric action of Islamabad, which, in an effort to evade responsibility, clumsily distorts the facts."

Approximate chronology of events

On April 26 at 21:00, when all the personnel of the training center (Badaber - P.A.) were lined up on the parade ground to perform prayers, former Soviet soldiers removed six sentries from the artillery depots (AV) on the watchtower and freed all the prisoners. They failed to fully realize their plan, since one of the Soviet military personnel, nicknamed Muhammad Islam, defected to the rebels at the time of the uprising. The prisoners of war had DShK machine guns, small arms, and mortars at their disposal. Soviet soldiers occupied key points of the fortress: several corner towers and the arsenal building.”

At 23:00, by order of B. Rabbani (the future president in the photo), the rebel regiment of Khaled ibn Walid was raised, the positions of the prisoners were surrounded.

The IOA leader invited them to surrender, to which the rebels responded with a categorical refusal. They demanded the extradition of the escaped soldier, and to call representatives of the Soviet or Afghan embassies to Badabera. Then they tried to destroy them by recapturing the warehouse building, but in vain. Artillery units and combat helicopters of the Pakistani Armed Forces took part in the assault. The Mujahideen lost 97 fighters in the battle.

In the morning, Rabbani and his advisers decided to blow up the AB warehouses and thus destroy the rebels. At 8:00 on April 27, Rabbani ordered fire.

After several artillery salvoes, the AB warehouses exploded (according to Pakistan), most likely the Soviet prisoners of war blew themselves up. As a result of the explosion (according to Pakistan), the following were killed: 12 former Soviet soldiers (names and ranks not established); about 40 former soldiers of the Afghan Armed Forces (names not established); more than 120 rebels and refugees; 6 foreign advisers; 13 representatives of Pakistani authorities.

According to the General Staff and intelligence of the USSR, about 200 Mujahideen were killed, including 8 Pakistani army officers, 6 US military instructors, and three Grad installations. The explosion destroyed more than 2,000 missiles and ammunition for various purposes, 40 artillery pieces and mortars.

For a long time, neither the names nor the titles of those who participated in the rebellion were known. The government of Pakistan kept information about the events in Badaber as secret as possible, because it turned out that Pakistan had placed prisoner camps on its territory, and this threatened a serious international scandal with Soviet Union and worsening international relations.

In 1992, through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, it was possible to establish the names of 7 prisoners of the Badaber camp. However, there was no information regarding how they behaved in captivity. There was no information about the course of the uprising itself, since it was assumed that all its participants had died; the fragmentary testimony of witnesses to the uprising on the part of the Mujahideen contradicted one another.

In 1994, T. Bekmambetov’s film “The Peshevar Waltz” was released, which told about the uprising of Soviet soldiers in Afghan captivity with an obvious reference to the events in Badaber. It seemed that this story would remain a legend...

But in 2007, researchers of the Badaber uprising were lucky. Carefully studying the lists of former military personnel released in 1992 Soviet army, they drew attention to the surname and personality of Naserjon Rustamov, a native Uzbek, former private in military unit 51932 - 181st motorized rifle regiment 108th motorized rifle division.

Nosirjon Rustamov is perhaps the only one who can tell the whole truth about the events of April 26-27, 1985 in a camp near the city of Peshevar.

N. Rustamov spoke in detail about the uprising, but there was one significant snag in his story. The fact is that the dushmans gave Muslim names to Soviet soldiers and officers who were captured. Soldiers of Slavic origin were kept in separate barracks from Uzbeks, Tajiks and Caucasians.

In the Badaber camp they performed various works. Some were also forcibly forced to convert to Islam and read the Koran. From time to time, the Mujahideen abused prisoners of war.

The unofficial leader among the Slavic prisoners of war was Abdurahmon. Rustamov assumed that he was Ukrainian by nationality. Electrician Abdullo also took part (in addition to soldiers and officers, there were also Soviet employees of various specialties in Afghanistan) and Armenian Islamutdin, who was in close contact with the camp administration.

There was also a Kazakh Kenet in the camp with Rustamov, who went crazy from bullying and constantly howled at those around him, being in prostration.

Rustamov in 2006.

Abdurakhmon, according to Rustamov, was the main initiator of the uprising. The reason for the rebellion was the unsuccessful escape of Abdullo, who wanted to come to the Soviet embassy in Islamabad. However, he was stopped by Pakistani police to give evidence. The Pakistanis, having arrived at the camp site, took money for their trouble and brought Abdullo back. As punishment, the Mujahideen publicly abused him. This was the last straw that broke the prisoners' patience. “Either death or freedom” - this was the slogan of the planned rebellion...

You have already read about the course of the uprising above, and on April 29, 1985, the head of the Islamic Party of Afghanistan G. Hekmatyar issued an order in which he was instructed “not to take Russians prisoner in the future,” not to transport them to Pakistan, but “to destroy them at the place of capture.” "

Pakistani President Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq was furious. The President feared that the Soviet leadership, having exposed Pakistan as having Soviet prisoners of war on its territory, might use force against it.

However, the new Soviet leadership, led by Mikhail Gorbachev, reacted extremely restrainedly to the incident, limiting itself to only expressing official protest. The Soviet press reported “the death of Soviet military personnel on the territory of Pakistan” only in mid-May, and this message did not contain any heroic details of the events.

The notice that the parents of Private Levchishikn, a participant in the uprising, received.

To date, the following names of Badaber prisoners who rebelled in the camp are known:

1. Belekchi Ivan Evgenievich, born in 1962, Moldova, private,
2. Vasiliev Vladimir Petrovich, born in 1960, Cheboksary, sergeant
3. Vaskov Igor Nikolaevich, born in 1963, Kostroma region, private;
4. Dudkin Nikolay Iosifovich, born in 1961, Altai region, corporal;
5. Dukhovchenko Viktor Vasilievich, born in 1954, Zaporozhye region, long-term motor mechanic;
6. Zverkovich Alexander Nikolaevich, born in 1964, Vitebsk region, private;
7. Kashlakov Gennady Anatolyevich, born in 1958, Rostov region, Ensign;
8. Korshenko Sergey Vasilyevich, born 1964, Belaya Tserkov, junior sergeant;
9. Levchishin Sergey Nikolaevich, born in 1964, Samara region, private;
10. Matveev Alexander Alekseevich, born 1963. Altai Territory, corporal;
11. Rahinkulov Radik Raisovich, born in 1961, Bashkiria, private;
12. Saburov Sergey Vasilievich, born 1960, Khakassia, lieutenant;
13. Shevchenko Nikolay Ivanovich, born 1956, Sumy region, civilian driver;
14. Shipeev Vladimir Ivanovich. Born 1963, Cheboksary, private.

It is not known for certain to what extent each of them participated in the uprising. It is unknown who, how and under what circumstances was captured. But it is clear that all these people died with weapons in their hands, preferring death to the existence of prisoners. They did not accept Islam, they did not take up arms against their own, otherwise they simply would not have been captured. They initially had no chance of a favorable outcome, but they made a daring attempt and destroyed about a hundred of the besiegers...

In the photo: the Order of Courage and Putin's Decree on the posthumous award of Sergei Levchishin. The school bears his name.

The repertoire of the Airborne Forces ensemble “Blue Berets”, created in 1985, includes the song “In the Mountains near Peshawar,” dedicated to the uprising in Badaber.

This is one of the most poignant songs about soldiers of the Afghan war:

We are waging a battle, but our strength is fading,
There are fewer and fewer people alive, the chances are not equal,
Know, Motherland, they haven’t cheated on you
Your sons in trouble...

Eternal memory to the heroes - the Afghans!

Info and photos (C) Internet. Last photo mine is a monument to the Afghans in St. Petersburg