81st Motorized Rifle Regiment Borisenok. The regiment suffered a pogrom near Samara. The enemy was not conditional ...

More and more time takes away from us the events of the New Year's assault on Grozny. The soldiers who were at the forefront of the fighting were labeled almost "lambs thrown to the slaughter." The names of the units that suffered the greatest losses also became common nouns:, 81st Regiment ...

Meanwhile, in those first days of the Grozny operation, the servicemen showed unparalleled courage. The units that entered that "terrible" city in every sense, stood to the end, to death.

Chechen "abscess"

On November 30, 1994, the President signed the Decree “On measures to restore constitutional legality and law and order in the territory Chechen Republic". It was decided to "cut open" the Chechen "abscess" by force. To carry out the operation, a Joint Group of Forces was created, including the forces and means of various ministries and departments.

“In early December 1994, the regiment commander, Colonel Yaroslavtsev, and I arrived on official business at the headquarters of our 2nd Army,” recalls Igor Stankevich, the former deputy commander of the 81st Guards Motorized Rifle Regiment, who was awarded the title of Hero for the January battles in Grozny Russian Federation. - In the midst of the meeting, the bell rang at the chief of staff of the association, General Krotov. Someone from high-ranking military leaders called. “That's right,” the general answered the subscriber to one of his questions, “the commander and deputy of the 81st regiment is just with me. I'll get the information to them right now."

After the general hung up the phone, he asked everyone present to leave. In a tete-a-tete atmosphere, it was announced to us that the regiment would soon receive a combat mission, that “we had to prepare.” The region of application is the North Caucasus. Everything else - later.

REFERENCE: 81st Guards motorized rifle regiment- the successor to the 210th Infantry Regiment - was formed in 1939. Combat biography began at Khalkhin Gol. During the Great Patriotic War, he participated in the defense of Moscow, liberated Orel, Lvov, cities of Eastern Europe from the Nazis. 30 servicemen of the regiment became Heroes Soviet Union. There are five orders on the Battle Banner of the unit - two Red Banners, Suvorov, Kutuzov, Bogdan Khmelnitsky. After the war, he was stationed on the territory of the GDR. It is currently part of the 27th Guards Motorized Rifle Division of the Volga-Urals Military District, is part of the constant combat readiness.

In mid-1993, the 81st regiment, which was then part of the 90th tank division 2nd Army, was withdrawn from the Western Group of Forces and deployed 40 kilometers from Samara, in the village of Chernorechye. And the regiment, and the division, and the army became part of the Volga Military District. At the time of arrival at the new place of deployment, not a single soldier remained in the regiment. With the conclusion, many officers and ensigns were also “confused”. Most issues, primarily organizational ones, had to be resolved by the remaining small backbone of the regiment.

With the special status given to the regiment, combat training became noticeably more active, and recruitment issues began to be resolved more efficiently. The officers began to allocate the first apartments in a residential town built at the expense of the German authorities in Chernorechye.

In the same 94th year, the regiment successfully passed the inspection of the Ministry of Defense. For the first time after all the troubles associated with the withdrawal and arrangement in a new place, the 81st showed that it had become a full-blooded part of the Russian army, combat-ready, capable of performing any tasks. True, this inspection did the regiment a disservice.

A number of servicemen, who received good training, were eager to serve in hot spots, in the same peacekeeping forces. Trained specialists were taken there with pleasure. As a result, about two hundred servicemen were transferred from the regiment in a short period. Moreover, the most popular specialties are drivers, gunners, snipers.

In the 81st, they believed that this was not a problem, the vacancies that had formed could be filled, new people could be trained ...

Echelons to the Caucasus

The 81st motorized rifle regiment of the PriVO, which was to go to war in December 1994, was quickly staffed with servicemen from 48 district units. For all fees - a week. I had to select commanders. A third of the primary-level officers were "two-year students", they had behind them only the military departments of civilian universities.

On December 14, military equipment began to be loaded onto the trains (in total, the regiment was transferred to Mozdok in five echelons). The mood of the people was not depressed. On the contrary, many were sure that it would be a short business trip, that they would be able to return by the New Year holidays.

Due to the lack of time, classes with personnel were organized even on the train, along the route of the echelons. The material part of the weapon, the order of aiming, the combat regulations, especially the sections relating to hostilities in the city, were studied.

Another week was given to the regiment for training already upon arrival in Mozdok. Shooting, coordinating units. And now, years later, it is clear: the regiment was not ready for combat operations. There was a shortage of personnel, especially in motorized rifle units.

About 200 paratroopers were given to the regiment as reinforcements. The same young, unfired soldiers. I had to learn to fight already under enemy fire ...

The enemy was not conditional ...

At the time of the beginning of the assault on Grozny, about 14,000 federal troops were concentrated around the Chechen capital. 164 tanks, 305 infantry fighting vehicles, 250 armored personnel carriers, 114 infantry fighting vehicles were ready to enter the city, blocked from the northeast, north, northwest and west. Fire support was provided by 208 guns and mortars.

In military equipment, the federals had an obvious superiority. However, in personnel, the advantage was not even up to two to one. The classical theory of battle requires the advancing advantage by about three times, and taking into account urban development, this figure should be even greater.

And what did he have at that time? According to data that later fell into the hands of our security forces, the size of the Chechen army reached 15 thousand people in regular troops and up to 30-40 thousand armed militias. The regular army units of Chechnya consisted of a tank regiment, a mountain rifle brigade, an artillery regiment, an anti-aircraft artillery regiment, a Muslim fighter regiment, and 2 training aviation regiments. The republic had its own divisions special purpose- national guard (about 2000 people), a separate regiment special purpose The Ministry of Internal Affairs, the border and customs service regiment of the state security department, as well as the personal protection units of the leaders of Chechnya.

Serious forces were represented by the formations of the so-called "confederation of the peoples of the Caucasus" - the "Borz" and "Warriors of the Righteous Caliphs" battalions, the "Abd al-Kader" battalion, the "Islamic Renaissance Party" detachment, the "Islamic Community" detachment. In addition, more than five thousand mercenaries from 14 states fought on the side of Dudayev.

According to documents seized in 1995, Dudayev, in addition to regular forces, had at least 300 thousand (!) Reservists. The law “On the Defense of the Chechen Republic” adopted in the region on December 24, 1991 introduced compulsory military service for all male citizens from 19 to 26 years old. Naturally, the service took place in Chechnya, in local paramilitary formations. There was a system of regular collections of reserve reserves: in the period 1991-1994, six full-fledged mobilization exercises were held.

Parts of the Chechen army were replenished even with deserters: on the basis of Dudayev's decree No. 29 of February 17, 1992, Chechen military personnel who arbitrarily left military units on the territory of the USSR and expressed a desire to serve in the Armed Forces of the Chechen Republic were rehabilitated, and the criminal cases initiated against them were terminated.

Another Dudayev Decree No. 2 of November 8, 1991 established a military ministry in Chechnya. All military formations on the territory of the republic, along with equipment and weapons, passed to him. According to operational data, at the end of 1994 Chechnya had 2 launchers of operational-tactical missiles, 111 L-39 and 149 L-29 aircraft (training, but converted into light attack aircraft), 5 MiG-17 and MiG-15 fighters, 6 aircraft An-2, 243 aircraft missiles, 7 thousand air shells.

The Chechen "ground forces" were armed with 42 T-72 and T-62 tanks, 34 infantry fighting vehicles, 30 armored personnel carriers and armored personnel carriers, 18 Grad MLRS and more than 1000 shells for them, 139 artillery systems, including 30 122-mm D-ZO howitzers and 24 thousand shells for them. Dudayev's formations had 5 stationary and 88 portable air defense systems, as well as 25 anti-aircraft guns of various types, 590 anti-tank weapons, almost 50,000 small arms and 150,000 grenades.

For the defense of Grozny, the Chechen command created three defensive lines. The inner one had a radius of 1 to 1.5 km around the presidential palace. The defense here was based on the created solid nodes of resistance around the palace using capital stone buildings. The lower and upper floors of the buildings were adapted for firing small arms and anti-tank weapons. Along the avenues of Ordzhonikidze, Pobeda and Pervomaiskaya Street, prepared positions were created for direct fire with artillery and tanks.

The middle boundary was located at a distance of up to 1 km from the boundaries of the inner boundary in the northwestern part of the city and up to 5 km in its southwestern and southeastern parts. The basis of this frontier was made up of strongholds at the beginning of the Staropromyslovsky Highway, nodes of resistance at bridges across the Sunzha River, in the Minutka microdistrict, on Saykhanov Street. Oilfields, oil refineries named after Lenin and Sheripov, as well as a chemical plant were prepared for undermining or arson.

The outer border passed mainly along the outskirts of the city and consisted of strong points on the Grozny-Mozdok, Dolinsky-Katayama-Tashkala highways, Neftyanka, Khankala and Staraya Sunzha strong points in the east and Chernorechye in the south of the city.

"Virtual" topography

The troops practically did not have clear data about the enemy at the beginning of the assault, and there was also no reliable intelligence and intelligence information. There were no cards either. The deputy commander of the regiment had a hand-drawn diagram of where he was supposed to go approximately with his units. Later, the map nevertheless appeared: it was removed from our killed tank captain.

A few days before the assault, Anatoly Kvashnin set the tasks for the group commanders for actions in the city. The main task fell to the 81st regiment, which was supposed to operate as part of the North group under the command of Major General Konstantin Pulikovsky.

The regiment, which was partly concentrated on the southern slopes of the Tersky Range, and partly (by one battalion) was located in the area of a dairy farm 5 km north of Alkhan-Churtsky, was assigned two tasks: the immediate and subsequent. The nearest one was planned to occupy the Severny airport by 10 am on December 31. The next one is to seize the intersection of Khmelnitsky and Mayakovsky streets by 16 o'clock.

The beginning of hostilities on December 31, as expected, was supposed to be a factor of surprise. That is why the columns of the federals were able to reach the city center almost without hindrance, and not, as was later stated, they fell into a prepared trap of bandits who intended to draw our columns into a kind of "fire bag". Only by the end of the day the militants were able to organize resistance. The Dudaevites concentrated all their efforts on the units that ended up in the city center. It was these troops who suffered the greatest losses ...

Encirclement, breakthrough ...

Chronology last day 1994 today restored not only by the hour - by the minute. At 7 am on December 31, the advance detachment of the 81st regiment, which included a reconnaissance company, attacked the Severny airport. With the advance detachment was the chief of staff of the 81st, Lieutenant Colonel Semyon Burlakov. By 9 o'clock, his group completed the immediate task, having captured the airport and cleared two bridges across the Neftyanka River on the way to the city.

Following the advance detachment, the 1st Motor Rifle Brigade of Lieutenant Colonel Eduard Perepelkin moved in a column. To the west, through the state farm "Rodina", was the 2nd MSB. Fighting vehicles moved in columns: tanks were ahead, self-propelled anti-aircraft guns were on the flanks.

From the Severny airport, the 81st MSP went to Khmelnitsky Street. At 0917, motorized riflemen met the first enemy forces here: an ambush from the Dudayev detachment with attached tanks, an armored personnel carrier and two Urals. The reconnaissance entered the battle. The militants managed to knock out a tank and one of the Urals, but the scouts also lost one BMP and several people were wounded. The regiment commander, Colonel Yaroslavtsev, decided to delay reconnaissance to the main forces and stop the advance for a while.

Then the advance resumed. Already by 11.00 the columns of the 81st regiment reached Mayakovsky Street. The advance of the previously approved schedule was almost 5 hours. Yaroslavtsev reported this to the command and received an order to move to block the presidential palace, to the city center. The regiment began advancing to Dzerzhinsky Square.

By 12.30, the advanced units were already near the station, and the headquarters of the group confirmed the previously given order to surround the presidential palace. At 13.00 the main forces of the regiment passed the station and along Ordzhonikidze Street rushed to the complex of government buildings.

But the Dudaevites gradually came to their senses. From their side began a powerful fire resistance. A fierce battle broke out at the palace. Here, the advanced aircraft controller, Captain Kiryanov, covered the regiment commander with himself. Colonel Yaroslavtsev was wounded and handed over command to the chief of staff of the regiment, Lieutenant Colonel Burlakov.

At 16.10, the chief of staff received confirmation of the task of blockading the palace. But the motorized riflemen were given the most severe fire resistance. Dudayev's grenade launchers, dispersed throughout the buildings in the city center, began to shoot our combat vehicles literally point-blank. The columns of the regiment began to gradually break up into separate groups. By 5 p.m., Lieutenant Colonel Burlakov was also wounded, and about a hundred soldiers and sergeants were out of action.

The intensity of the fire impact can be judged by at least one fact: only from 18.30 to 18.40, that is, in just 10 minutes, the militants knocked out 3 tanks of the 81st regiment at once!

Units of the 81st Motorized Rifle Brigade and the 131st Motorized Rifle Brigade that broke into the city were surrounded. The Dudaevites unleashed a flurry of fire on them. The fighters under the cover of the BMP took up all-round defense. The main part of the personnel and equipment was concentrated on the forecourt, in the station itself and in the surrounding buildings. The 1st MSB of the 81st Regiment was located in the station building, the 2nd MSB - at the station's goods yard.

Relative calm came only at 23.00. At night, the shooting continued, and in the morning the commander of the 131st brigade, Colonel Savin, asked for permission from the higher command to leave the station. A breakthrough was approved to the Lenin Park, where units of the 693rd MSP of the West group were defending. At 15:00 on January 1, the remnants of units of the 131st Motorized Rifle Brigade and the 81st Motorized Rifle Brigade began to break through from the railway station and the goods station. Under the incessant fire of the Dudayevites, the columns suffered losses and gradually disintegrated.

28 people from the 1st MSR of the 81st MSR broke through on three infantry fighting vehicles along the railway. Having reached the Press House, the motorized riflemen got lost in the dark unfamiliar streets and were ambushed by militants. As a result, two BMPs were shot down. Only one vehicle under the command of Captain Arkhangelov made it to the location of the federal troops.

... Today it is known that only a small part of the people left the encirclement from the units of the 81st SME and 131st Motorized Rifle Brigade, which were at the forefront of the main attack. The personnel lost their commanders, equipment (only in one day on December 31, the 81st regiment lost 13 tanks and 7 infantry fighting vehicles), dispersed around the city and went out to their own - one at a time or in small groups. According to official data, as of January 10, 1995, the 81st SME lost 63 servicemen in Grozny killed, 75 missing, 135 wounded...

Let the mother of the enemy cry first

The consolidated detachment of the 81st SME, formed from units that remained outside the "station" ring, managed to gain a foothold at the intersection of Bohdan Khmelnitsky and Mayakovsky streets. The command of the detachment was taken over by the deputy commander of the regiment, Lieutenant Colonel Igor Stankevich. For two days, his group, being in a semi-encirclement, remaining in fact on a bare and shot through place - the intersection of two main city streets, held this strategically important area.

Stankevich competently placed 9 infantry fighting vehicles, organized the "binding" of the fire of attached mortars in the most threatening areas. When organizing the defense, non-standard measures were taken. Steel gates were removed from the surrounding Grozny courtyards and covered with them on the sides and front of the combat vehicles. The "know-how" turned out to be successful: the RPG shot "slid" along the sheet of metal without hitting the car. People after the bloody New Year's Eve gradually began to recover. The fighters who escaped from the encirclement were gradually drawn into the detachment. They settled down as best they could, organized rest in the interval between enemy attacks.

For the first two days, there were virtually no other organized forces in the center of Grozny. There was another small group from the headquarters of General Rokhlin, it kept nearby. If the bandits knew this for sure, they would certainly have thrown all their reserves to crush a handful of daredevils. The bandits would have destroyed them in the same way as those units that were in the ring of fire in the station area.

But the detachment was not going to surrender to the mercy of the enemy. The surrounding courtyards were promptly cleared, and possible positions of enemy grenade launchers were eliminated. Here, the motorized riflemen began to discover the brutal truth about what the city they entered really was.

Thus, equipped openings were found in the brick fences and walls of most houses at the Khmelnitsky-Mayakovsky intersection, near which shots for grenade launchers were stored. Carefully prepared bottles of Molotov cocktails, an incendiary mixture, stood in the yards. And in one of the garages, dozens of empty boxes from grenade launchers were found: apparently, one of the supply points was located here.

Already on January 3, checkpoints began to be set up along Lermontov Street in cooperation with the special forces of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The posts allowed at least to slip along Lermontov Street, otherwise everything was shot on the go.

The regiment survived. He survived in spite of those who tried to destroy him in Grozny. He rose from the ashes in spite of those who at that time in absentia "buried" him and other Russian units that were at the epicenter of the Grozny battles.

For almost the whole of January, "shot", "torn apart" by evil tongues, the 81st regiment participated in the battles for Grozny. Again, very few people know about this.

It was the tankers of the 81st who provided support marines, storming . It was the infantry of the regiment that captured the Krasny Molot plant, which the Dudayevites turned from a peaceful Soviet enterprise into a full-scale arms production. Engineer and sapper units of the unit cleared the bridge across the Sunzha, through which fresh forces were then drawn into the city. Units of the 81st took part in the assault on the Press House, which was one of the strongholds of the separatist resistance.

“I pay tribute to all the comrades with whom we fought together in those days,” says Igor Stankevich. - These are the units of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, which were led by General Vorobyov, who later died heroically in Grozny. These are detachments of internal troops, and groups of special forces of the GRU. These are employees of the special services, whose work, probably, cannot be said much today. Courageous heroic people, brilliant professionals that any country would be proud of. And I am proud that I was with them on that front line.

Heroes become

The author of these lines in the first days of January had a chance to visit Grozny at war, just at the location of the 81st regiment, which had just moved to the territory of the cannery, having strengthened the checkpoint at the Khmelnitsky-Mayakovsky crossroads. A journalistic notebook is full of notes: the names of people who heroically proved themselves in battles, numerous examples of courage and courage. For these soldiers and officers, it was just a job. None of them dared to call what happened on December 31 a tragedy.

Here are just some of the facts:
“... Senior Warrant Officer Grigory Kirichenko. Under enemy fire, he made several walkers to the epicenter of the battle, taking out the wounded soldiers in the compartments of the BMP, behind the levers of which he himself was sitting, to the evacuation center. (Later awarded the title of Hero of the Russian Federation).

"...Senior Lieutenant Seldar Mamedorazov ("non-combat" of the chief of the club) broke through on one of the BMPs to the battle area, took out several wounded servicemen."

“...Major of the medical service Oleg Pastushenko. In battle, he provided assistance to personnel.
“... The commander of the tank battalion, Major Yuri Zakhryapin. Heroically acted in battle, personally hit enemy firing points.

And also the names of the soldiers, officers, meetings with which then, on that Grozny front line, remained at least an entry in the field notebook. As a maximum - a memory for life. Majors of the medical service Vladimir Sinkevich, Sergey Danilov, Viktor Minaev, Vyacheslav Antonov, captains Alexander Fomin, Vladimir Nazarenko, Igor Voznyuk, lieutenant Vitaly Afanasiev, warrant officers of the medical service Lidia Andryukhina, Lyudmila Spivakova, junior sergeant Alexander Litvinov, privates Alik Salikhanov, Vladimir Ishcherikov, Alexander Vladimirov, Andrey Savchenko ...

Where are you now, those young front-line soldiers of the 90s, soldiers and officers of the heroic, illustrious regiment? Warriors scorched in battles, but not burned to the ground, but survived in this hellish flame to spite all deaths of the 81st Guards? ..

commanders Notable commanders

81st Guards Motorized Rifle Petrokovsky Twice Red Banner, Orders of Suvorov, Kutuzov and Bogdan Khmelnitsky Regiment - Guards Motorized Rifle Regiment of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. Battles and Operations: Operation Danube. First Chechen War.

History of the regiment

In accordance with the order of the Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation No. 036 dated June 15, 1994, the regiment stationed on the territory of the Volga Cossack army was given the traditional Cossack name "Volga Cossack" B - as part of the "North" grouping, the regiment took part in the assault on Grozny.

Awards and titles

Awards inherited by part	Year, month, date, numbers of decrees
For mastering Art. Dorohovo and the city of Mozhaisk The 210th Motorized Rifle Regiment was awarded the Order of the Red Banner	Decree of the Presidium of the USSR Armed Forces of May 3, 1942
For the liberation of the city Lviv The 17th Guards Mechanized Red Banner Brigade was awarded the Order of Suvorov, 2nd class	Decree of the Presidium of the USSR Armed Forces of August 10, 1944
For the capture of the cities of Ratibor, Biskau, the 17th Guards Mechanized Red Banner, Order of the Suvorov Brigade was awarded the Order of Kutuzov, 2nd degree	Decree of the Presidium of the USSR Armed Forces of April 26, 1945
For the capture of the cities of Cottbus, Lübben, Zossen, Beelitz, Luckenwalde, Trebbin, Treyenbritzen, Tsana, Marienfelde, Rangsdorf, Diedersdorf, Teltov, the 17th Guards Mechanized Red Banner, Orders of Suvorov and Kutuzov Brigade was awarded the Order of Bogdan Khmelnitsky 2nd degree	Decree of the Presidium of the USSR Armed Forces of May 26, 1945
For taking over the city Berlin The 17th Guards Mechanized Red Banner Brigade, Orders of Suvorov, Kutuzov and Bogdan Khmelnitsky, was awarded the Order of the Red Banner	Decree of the Presidium of the USSR Armed Forces of June 4, 1945

Command

Regiment commanders

03/19/1958 - 10/1960 Guard Lieutenant Colonel Kirillov Ivan Vasilyevich
08.10.1960 - 09.1964 Guards Colonel Alexey Trofimovich Rozantsev
09/16/1964 - 1968 Guard Lieutenant Colonel Ryzhkov Nikolai Mikhailovich
1969-1971 - Guard Lieutenant Colonel Komarov Vladimir Ivanovich
1969-1969 - Guard Lieutenant Colonel Antonov Anatoly Petrovich
06/28/1971 - 08.1976 Guard Lieutenant Colonel Galiev Rifkhat Nurmukhametovich
08/13/1976 - 1979 Guard Major Sergey Pokopyevich Rogushin
1979 - 07.1981 Major Kruglov Gennady Alekseevich
07/10/1981 - 11.1983 Guard Lieutenant Colonel Anatoly Vasilievich Stepanov
11/15/1983 - 07/1985 Guard Major Bespalov Boris Georgievich
07/13/1985 - 07.1988 Guard Lieutenant Colonel Makadzeev Oleg Borisovich
07/03/1988 - 1990 Guard Lieutenant Colonel Vladimir Alekseevich Negovora
1990 - 05.1991 Guard Lieutenant Colonel Sergei Vladimirovich Borisenok
05/17/1991 - 01.1995 Guard Lieutenant Colonel Yaroslavtsev, Alexander Alekseevich
01/17/1995 - 11.1997 Guards Colonel Aidarov Vladimir Anatolyevich
11/29/1997 - 1998 Guard Colonel Yury Yuryevich Stoderevsky
1998-2000 Guard Lieutenant Colonel Gerasimenko Alexander Vladimirovich
09/30/2000 - 01/01/2004 Guard Lieutenant Colonel Kovalenko, Dmitry Ivanovich, Major General Deputy Commander of the 49th Army
01/10/2004 - 12.2005 Guard Colonel Andrey Ivanovich Yankovsky
20.12.2005 - 02.2008 Guard Lieutenant Colonel Shkatov Evgeny Evgenievich
02/13/2008 - 08.2009 Guards Colonel Milchakov Sergey Vitalievich

Commanders of the 23rd Separate Guards motorized rifle brigade

08/03/2009 - 2011 Guards Colonel Yankovsky Andrey Ivanovich
2011-2011 Guards Colonel Ignatenko Alexander Nikolaevich
from 2012 - 11.2013 Guards Colonel Tubol Evgeny Viktorovich
11.2013 and up to the present. Colonel Stepanishchev Konstantin Vladimirovich

Chiefs of Staff - First Deputy Regimental Commanders

1957-1958 Guards lieutenant colonel Tsivenko Nikolai Mikhailovich
1959-1960 Guards lieutenant colonel Rozantsev Alexey Timofeevich
1961-1962 Guards lieutenant colonel Lakeev Mikhail Ivanovich
1963-1967 Guards Lieutenant Colonel Efankin Boris Fedoseevich
1968-1970 Guards Lieutenant Colonel Berdnikov Evgeny Sergeevich
1971-1972 Guards Lieutenant Colonel Gubanov Nikolay Ivanovich
1973-1974 Guards major Yachmenev Evgeny Alekseevich
1974-1975 Guards Major Kalinin Vitaly Vasilyevich
1975-1977 Guards Captain Shtogrin Zinovy Ivanovich
1977-1979 Guards Major Dryapachenko Nikolai Alekseevich
1980-1983 Guards Major Bespalov Boris Georgievich
1983-1984 Guards Major Shirshov Alexander Nikolaevich
1984-1987 Guards Lieutenant Colonel Mikhailov Valery Georgievich
1995 Acting kmsp guards. lieutenant colonel Stankevich, Igor Valentinovich
1987-1991 Guards Major Egamberdiev Bahadir Abdumannabovich
1991-1992 Guards Major Samolkin Alexey Nikolaevich
1994 - Guards. Lieutenant Colonel Zyablitsev Alexander Perfirevich
1994 - Guards. Lieutenant Colonel Burlakov Semyon Borisovich
1995 - Guards. Lieutenant Colonel Aleksandrenko Igor Anatolyevich
1996-1997 Guards Major Vechkov Kirill Vladimirovich
1998 - Guards. Major Kuzkin Vladimir Alexandrovich
1999-2001 Guards Lieutenant Colonel Medvedev Valery Nikolaevich
2002 - Guards. Lieutenant Colonel Minnullin Nail Raufovich
2003-2004 Guards lieutenant colonel Yarovitsky Yuri Davydovich
2005-2006 Guards Lieutenant Colonel Stepanishchev Konstantin Vladimirovich
2007-2008 Guards lieutenant colonel Zakharov Sergey Vladimirovich

23rd Guards Separate Motorized Rifle Brigade

Heroes of the Russian Federation
p/p	Full Name	Title, position(s) for awards. Dates of Decrees of the President of the Russian Federation.
1.	Kirichenko, Grigory Sergeevich	guards senior warrant officer, senior technician of the 1st company of the 81st guards. SME (06/21/1995, Medal No. 173)
2.	Stankevich, Igor Valentinovich	guard lieutenant colonel, assistant commander of the 81st guards. SME for educational work (10/19/1995, Medal No. 238)

Memory

Lists of dead and missing soldiers

The list of the dead of the 81st Motorized Rifle Regiment (90th Guards TD) is given on the website "Dedicated to the memory of military personnel ..."

Links to materials about the participation of the regiment in the first Chechen war

March 81 Guards. SME

words and music by Alexander Konyukhov
to my brother-soldiers of all time
and my commander Makadzeev Oleg Borisovich
dedicated
Guards 81st Regiment
Covered in valor and glory!
Five orders on your banner
Shine - Homeland awards!
How many roads have been traveled
We are rightfully proud of you.
Our regiment is ready to smash any enemies!
To increase the glory of our fathers and grandfathers!
There is a tank in a shelf on a pedestal,
Like a mother's memory of her son.
Motherland, do you remember all the soldiers
In the battles of those who died for Russia.
We swear to remember the Great Days
For us, an example is fathers and grandfathers.
Step into immortality. Defeated Reichstag.
And over the Berlin sky the scarlet banner of Victory!
We all living one life is given
Tears and grief know the price.
And, repeating the fallen names,
We call the planet to peace.
We have enough will, enough fire,
We do not hide our power.
But, keeping a formidable weapon,
We call on all peoples to fight for peace!
October 1985 - August 1986
GSVG Eberswalde-Finow

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An excerpt characterizing the 81st Guards Motorized Rifle Regiment
"That's it," said Dolokhov. “And then like this,” he said, and lifted the collar near her head, leaving it just a little open in front of her face. “Then like this, you see? - and he moved Anatole's head to the hole left by the collar, from which Matryosha's brilliant smile could be seen.
“Well, goodbye, Matryosh,” said Anatole, kissing her. - Oh, my spree is over here! Bow down to Steshka. Well, goodbye! Farewell, Matryosh; you wish me happiness.
“Well, God grant you, prince, great happiness,” said Matrona, with her gypsy accent.
Two troikas were standing at the porch, two young coachmen were holding them. Balaga sat on the front three, and, raising his elbows high, slowly dismantled the reins. Anatole and Dolokhov sat down beside him. Makarin, Khvostikov and the lackey sat in another three.
- Ready, huh? Balaga asked.
- Let go! he shouted, wrapping the reins around his hands, and the troika carried the beat down Nikitsky Boulevard.
- Whoa! Go, hey! ... Shh, - only the cry of Balaga and the young man sitting on the goats could be heard. On Arbat Square, the troika hit the carriage, something crackled, a scream was heard, and the troika flew along the Arbat.
Having given two ends along Podnovinsky, Balaga began to hold back and, returning back, stopped the horses at the intersection of Staraya Konyushennaya.
The good fellow jumped down to hold the horses by the bridle, Anatole and Dolokhov went along the sidewalk. Approaching the gate, Dolokhov whistled. The whistle answered him, and after that the maid ran out.
“Come into the yard, otherwise you can see it, it will come out right now,” she said.
Dolokhov remained at the gate. Anatole followed the maid into the yard, turned the corner, and ran out onto the porch.
Gavrilo, Marya Dmitrievna's huge traveling footman, met Anatole.
“Come to the mistress, please,” the footman said in a bass voice, blocking the way from the door.
- To what lady? Who are you? Anatole asked in a breathless whisper.
- Please, ordered to bring.
- Kuragin! back,” shouted Dolokhov. - Treason! Back!
Dolokhov at the gate, at which he stopped, fought with the janitor, who was trying to lock the gate after Anatole had entered. With a last effort, Dolokhov pushed the janitor away and, grabbing Anatole, who had run out, by the arm, pulled him by the gate and ran with him back to the troika.
Marya Dmitrievna, finding the weeping Sonya in the corridor, forced her to confess everything. Intercepting Natasha's note and reading it, Marya Dmitrievna went up to Natasha with the note in her hand.
“You bastard, shameless,” she told her. - I don't want to hear anything! - Pushing away Natasha, who was looking at her with surprised, but dry eyes, she locked her with a key and ordered the janitor to let through the gate those people who would come that evening, but not let them out, and ordered the footman to bring these people to her, sat down in the living room, waiting kidnappers.
When Gavrilo came to report to Marya Dmitrievna that the people who had come had run away, she got up with a frown, and with her hands folded back, paced the rooms for a long time, pondering what she should do. At 12 o'clock in the morning, feeling the key in her pocket, she went to Natasha's room. Sonya, sobbing, sat in the corridor.
- Marya Dmitrievna, let me go to her for God's sake! - she said. Marya Dmitrievna, without answering her, unlocked the door and went in. “Disgusting, nasty ... In my house ... A scoundrel, a girl ... Only I feel sorry for my father!” thought Marya Dmitrievna, trying to appease her anger. “No matter how hard it is, I’ll order everyone to be silent and hide it from the count.” Marya Dmitrievna entered the room with resolute steps. Natasha lay on the couch, covering her head with her hands, and did not move. She lay in the very position in which Marya Dmitrievna had left her.
- Good, very good! said Marya Dmitrievna. - In my house, make dates for lovers! There is nothing to pretend. You listen when I talk to you. Marya Dmitrievna touched her hand. - You listen when I speak. You disgraced yourself like the last girl. I would have done something to you, but I feel sorry for your father. I will hide. - Natasha did not change her position, but only her whole body began to rise from the soundless, convulsive sobs that choked her. Marya Dmitrievna looked round at Sonya and sat down on the sofa beside Natasha.
- It is his happiness that he left me; Yes, I will find him,” she said in her rough voice; Do you hear what I am saying? She put her big hand under Natasha's face and turned her towards her. Both Marya Dmitrievna and Sonya were surprised to see Natasha's face. Her eyes were bright and dry, her lips pursed, her cheeks drooping.
“Leave ... those ... that I ... I ... die ...” she said, with an evil effort she tore herself away from Marya Dmitrievna and lay down in her former position.
"Natalia!..." said Marya Dmitrievna. - I wish you well. You lie down, well, lie down like that, I won't touch you, and listen... I won't say how guilty you are. You yourself know. Well, now your father will arrive tomorrow, what will I tell him? BUT?
Again Natasha's body shook with sobs.
- Well, he will know, well, your brother, the groom!
“I don’t have a fiancé, I refused,” Natasha shouted.
“It doesn’t matter,” continued Marya Dmitrievna. - Well, they will find out, what will they leave like that? After all, he, your father, I know him, after all, if he challenges him to a duel, will it be good? BUT?
“Ah, leave me, why did you interfere with everything!” What for? why? who asked you? shouted Natasha, sitting up on the sofa and looking angrily at Marya Dmitrievna.
- What did you want? cried Marya Dmitrievna again, excitedly, “why were you locked up or what?” Well, who prevented him from going to the house? Why take you away like a gypsy?... Well, if he had taken you away, what do you think, they wouldn't have found him? Your father, or brother, or fiancé. And he's a scoundrel, a scoundrel, that's what!
“He is better than all of you,” Natasha cried, rising. “If you hadn’t interfered… Oh, my God, what is it, what is it!” Sonya why? Go away! ... - And she sobbed with such despair, with which people mourn only such grief, which they feel themselves the cause of. Marya Dmitrievna began to speak again; but Natasha screamed: “Go away, go away, you all hate me, despise me. - And again threw herself on the sofa.
Marya Dmitrievna went on admonishing Natasha for some more time and suggesting to her that all this must be hidden from the count, that no one would know anything if only Natasha took it upon herself to forget everything and not to show to anyone that something had happened. Natasha didn't answer. She did not sob anymore, but chills and trembling became with her. Marya Dmitrievna put a pillow for her, covered her with two blankets, and herself brought her a lime blossom, but Natasha did not answer her. “Well, let her sleep,” said Marya Dmitrievna, leaving the room, thinking that she was sleeping. But Natasha did not sleep, and with fixed open eyes from her pale face looked straight ahead of her. All that night Natasha did not sleep, and did not cry, and did not speak to Sonya, who got up several times and approached her.
The next day, for breakfast, as Count Ilya Andreich had promised, he arrived from Moscow Region. He was very cheerful: business with the bidder was going well, and nothing now delayed him now in Moscow and in separation from the countess, whom he missed. Marya Dmitrievna met him and announced to him that Natasha had become very unwell yesterday, that they had sent for a doctor, but that she was better now. Natasha did not leave her room that morning. With pursed, cracked lips, and dry, fixed eyes, she sat at the window and peered uneasily at those passing along the street and hurriedly looked back at those who entered the room. She was obviously waiting for news of him, waiting for him to come himself or write to her.
When the count went up to her, she turned uneasily at the sound of his manly steps, and her face assumed its former cold and even angry expression. She didn't even get up to meet him.
- What is the matter with you, my angel, are you sick? asked the Count. Natasha was silent.
“Yes, she is sick,” she answered.
In response to the count's restless questions about why she was so dead and whether something had happened to her fiancé, she assured him that it was nothing and asked him not to worry. Marya Dmitrievna confirmed Natasha's assurances to the count that nothing had happened. The count, judging by the imaginary illness, by the disorder of his daughter, by the embarrassed faces of Sonya and Marya Dmitrievna, clearly saw that something must have happened in his absence: but he was so afraid to think that something shameful had happened to his beloved daughter, he he loved his cheerful calmness so much that he avoided questioning and kept trying to convince himself that there was nothing special and only grieved that, on the occasion of her illness, their departure to the country was being postponed.
From the day his wife arrived in Moscow, Pierre was going to go somewhere, just so as not to be with her. Shortly after the arrival of the Rostovs in Moscow, the impression that Natasha made on him made him hurry to fulfill his intention. He went to Tver to the widow of Iosif Alekseevich, who had long promised to give him the papers of the deceased.
When Pierre returned to Moscow, he received a letter from Marya Dmitrievna, who called him to her on a very important matter concerning Andrei Bolkonsky and his bride. Pierre avoided Natasha. It seemed to him that he had a stronger feeling for her than that which a married man should have for his friend's fiancee. And some kind of fate constantly brought him together with her.
"What happened? And what do they care about me? he thought as he dressed to go to Marya Dmitrievna's. Prince Andrei would have come as soon as possible and would have married her!” Pierre thought on his way to Akhrosimova.
On Tverskoy Boulevard someone called out to him.
- Pierre! Have you arrived long time ago? a familiar voice called out to him. Pierre raised his head. In a double sleigh, on two gray trotters throwing snow at the heads of the sleigh, Anatole flashed by with his constant comrade Makarin. Anatole sat straight, in the classic pose of military dandies, wrapping the bottom of his face with a beaver collar and bending his head slightly. His face was ruddy and fresh, his hat with a white plume was put on sideways, revealing his curled, oiled and finely snowed hair.
“And right, here is a real sage! thought Pierre, he sees nothing further than a real moment of pleasure, nothing disturbs him, and therefore he is always cheerful, contented and calm. What would I give to be like him!” Pierre thought enviously.
In the hall, Akhrosimova, the footman, taking off his fur coat from Pierre, said that Marya Dmitrievna was asked to go to her bedroom.
Opening the door to the hall, Pierre saw Natasha sitting by the window with a thin, pale and angry face. She looked back at him, frowned, and with an expression of cold dignity went out of the room.
- What happened? asked Pierre, going in to Marya Dmitrievna.
“Good deeds,” answered Marya Dmitrievna, “I have lived in the world for fifty-eight years, I have never seen such shame. - And taking Pierre's word of honor to remain silent about everything that he learns, Marya Dmitrievna told him that Natasha had refused her fiancé without the knowledge of her parents, that the reason for this refusal was Anatole Kuragin, with whom her wife Pierre had taken, and with whom she wanted to run away in the absence of his father, in order to secretly marry.
Pierre, raising his shoulders and opening his mouth, listened to what Marya Dmitrievna was telling him, not believing his ears. To the bride of Prince Andrei, so much loved, this formerly sweet Natasha Rostova, to exchange Bolkonsky for the fool Anatole, already married (Pierre knew the secret of his marriage), and fall in love with him so much as to agree to run away with him! - This Pierre could not understand and could not imagine.
The sweet impression of Natasha, whom he had known since childhood, could not unite in his soul with a new idea of her baseness, stupidity and cruelty. He remembered his wife. “They are all the same,” he said to himself, thinking that he was not the only one who had the sad fate of being associated with a nasty woman. But he still felt sorry for Prince Andrei to tears, it was a pity for his pride. And the more he felt sorry for his friend, the more contempt and even disgust he thought about this Natasha, with such an expression of cold dignity, who now passed him along the hall. He did not know that Natasha's soul was filled with despair, shame, humiliation, and that it was not her fault that her face inadvertently expressed calm dignity and severity.
- Yes, how to get married! - Pierre said to the words of Marya Dmitrievna. - He could not get married: he is married.
“It doesn’t get any easier from hour to hour,” said Marya Dmitrievna. - Good boy! That's a scoundrel! And she waits, the second day she waits. At least she won't wait, I should tell her.
Having learned from Pierre the details of Anatole's marriage, pouring out her anger on him with abusive words, Marya Dmitrievna told him what she had called him for. Marya Dmitrievna was afraid that the count or Bolkonsky, who could arrive at any moment, having learned the matter that she intended to hide from them, would not challenge Kuragin to a duel, and therefore asked him to order his brother-in-law to leave Moscow on her behalf and not dare to appear to her on the eyes. Pierre promised her to fulfill her desire, only now realizing the danger that threatened the old count, and Nikolai, and Prince Andrei. Briefly and accurately setting out her demands to him, she let him into the living room. “Look, the Count knows nothing. You act as if you know nothing,” she told him. “And I’ll go tell her that there’s nothing to wait for!” Yes, stay to dinner, if you want, - Marya Dmitrievna shouted to Pierre.
Pierre met the old count. He was embarrassed and upset. That morning, Natasha told him that she had refused Bolkonsky.
“Trouble, trouble, mon cher,” he said to Pierre, “trouble with these girls without a mother; I'm so sad that I came. I will be frank with you. They heard that she refused the groom, without asking anyone for anything. Let's face it, I've never been very happy about this marriage. Let's suppose he good man, but well, there would be no happiness against the will of the father, and Natasha will not be left without suitors. Yes, all the same, this has been going on for a long time, and how could it be without a father, without a mother, such a step! And now she's sick, and God knows what! It’s bad, count, it’s bad with daughters without a mother ... - Pierre saw that the count was very upset, tried to turn the conversation to another subject, but the count again returned to his grief.
Sonya entered the living room with a worried face.
– Natasha is not quite healthy; she is in her room and would like to see you. Marya Dmitrievna is at her place and asks you too.
“But you are very friendly with Bolkonsky, it’s true that he wants to convey something,” said the count. - Oh, my God, my God! How good it was! - And taking up rare whiskey gray hair The Count left the room.
Marya Dmitrievna announced to Natasha that Anatole was married. Natasha did not want to believe her and demanded confirmation of this from Pierre himself. Sonya told this to Pierre while she was escorting him through the corridor to Natasha's room.
Natasha, pale and stern, sat beside Marya Dmitrievna, and from the very door met Pierre with a feverishly brilliant, inquiring look. She did not smile, did not nod her head at him, she only looked stubbornly at him, and her glance only asked him whether he was a friend or an enemy like everyone else in relation to Anatole. Pierre himself obviously did not exist for her.
“He knows everything,” said Marya Dmitrievna, pointing to Pierre and turning to Natasha. "He'll tell you if I told the truth."
Natasha, like a hunted, driven animal, looks at the approaching dogs and hunters, looked first at one, then at the other.
“Natalya Ilyinichna,” Pierre began, lowering his eyes and feeling a sense of pity for her and disgust for the operation that he was supposed to do, “whether it’s true or not, it should be all the same to you, because ...
So it's not true that he's married!
- No, its true.
Has he been married for a long time? she asked, “honestly?”
Pierre gave her his word of honor.
– Is he still here? she asked quickly.
Yes, I saw him just now.
She was obviously unable to speak and made signs with her hands to leave her.
Pierre did not stay to dine, but immediately left the room and left. He went to look for Anatole Kuragin in the city, at the thought of which now all his blood rushed to his heart and he experienced difficulty in taking breath. On the mountains, among the gypsies, at the Comoneno - he was not there. Pierre went to the club.
Everything in the club went on in its usual order: the guests who had gathered for dinner sat in groups and greeted Pierre and talked about the city news. The footman, having greeted him, reported to him, knowing his acquaintance and habits, that a place had been left for him in a small dining room, that Prince Mikhail Zakharych was in the library, and Pavel Timofeich had not yet arrived. One of Pierre's acquaintances, between a conversation about the weather, asked him if he had heard about the kidnapping of Rostova by Kuragin, which they were talking about in the city, was it true? Pierre, laughing, said that this was nonsense, because now he was only from the Rostovs. He asked everyone about Anatole; he was told by one that he had not yet come, the other that he would dine to-day. It was strange for Pierre to look at this calm, indifferent crowd of people who did not know what was going on in his soul. He walked around the hall, waited until everyone had gathered, and without waiting for Anatole, he did not have dinner and went home.
Anatole, whom he was looking for, dined with Dolokhov that day and consulted with him about how to fix the spoiled case. It seemed to him necessary to see Rostova. In the evening he went to his sister to talk with her about the means of arranging this meeting. When Pierre, having traveled all over Moscow in vain, returned home, the valet reported to him that Prince Anatol Vasilyich was with the countess. The drawing room of the Countess was full of guests.
Pierre did not greet his wife, whom he did not see after his arrival (she was more than ever hated by him at that moment), entered the living room and, seeing Anatole, went up to him.
“Ah, Pierre,” said the countess, going up to her husband. “You don’t know what position our Anatole is in ...” She stopped, seeing in her husband’s head lowered, in his shining eyes, in his resolute gait, that terrible expression of fury and strength, which she knew and experienced after the duel with Dolokhov.

December 31, 1994-January 1, 1995. "New Year's assault" on Grozny. 81st Guards Motorized Rifle Regiment (GvMSP) from Samara. This year is 20 years old. Dedicated to the heroes.....

“Yes, our regiment suffered tangible losses in Grozny: both in personnel and in equipment,” says Igor Stankevich, the former deputy commander of the 81st Guards Motorized Rifle Regiment, who was awarded the title of Hero of the Russian Federation." "But we were at the forefront of the main blow, and the first, as you know, is always the hardest. In all battles, those who are put in the vanguard risk more than others. I responsibly declare: our regiment has completed the task assigned to it. And I will say more: the general plan of the entire operation in Grozny was realized, among other things, thanks to the courage and courage of our soldiers and officers, who were the first to enter the battle and fought heroically all these difficult January days. "(Igor Stankevich, former deputy commander of the 81st Guards motorized rifle regiment, Hero of the Russian Federation)

On the last photo - CHECHNYA, 1995. SOLDIERS OF THE 81st REGIMENT IN THE AREA OF THE COUNTRY CHERVLENAYA.

The 81st Guards Motorized Rifle Regiment was formed in 1939 in the Perm Region. The baptism of fire for his personnel was participation in the battles on the Khalkhin-Gol River from June 7 to September 15, 1939. During the Great Patriotic War, the regiment took part in the battles near Moscow, took part in the Orel, Kamyanets-Podolsk, Lvov, Vistula-Oder, Berlin and Prague operations, finishing fighting in Czechoslovakia. 29 of its servicemen during the war years were awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

For merits in battles during the Great Patriotic War, the regiment was awarded awards and distinctions: the Order of Suvorov, 2nd degree, for the capture of the city of Petrakow (Poland), gratitude was announced and the honorary name "Petrakowsky" was given, for the capture of the cities of Ratibor and Biskau awarded the order Kutuzov 2nd degree, for mastering the cities of Cottbus, Luben, Ussen, Beshtlin, Lukenwalde was awarded the Order of Bohdan Khmelnitsky 2nd degree, for mastering the capital of Germany, the city of Berlin, he was awarded the Order of the Red Banner.

In the post-war period, the regiment was stationed in the German Democratic Republic in the city of Karlhorst. In 1993, the regiment was withdrawn from Germany to the territory of the Russian Federation and deployed in the village of Roshchinsky Samara region.

By the fall of 1994, the 81st was staffed by the state of the so-called mobile forces. Then in the Armed Forces they just began to create such units. It was assumed that they could be deployed on the first command to any region of the country to solve various problems - from eliminating the consequences of natural disasters to repelling attacks by gangs.
With the special status given to the regiment, combat training became noticeably more active, and recruitment issues began to be resolved more efficiently. The officers began to allocate the first apartments in a residential town built at the expense of the German authorities in Chernorechye. In the same 94th year, the regiment successfully passed the inspection of the Ministry of Defense. For the first time after all the troubles associated with the withdrawal and arrangement in a new place, the 81st showed that it had become a full-blooded part of the Russian army, combat-ready, capable of performing any tasks.

A number of servicemen who received good training became eager to serve in hot spots, in the same peacekeeping forces. As a result, about two hundred servicemen were transferred from the regiment in a short period. Moreover, the most popular specialties are drivers, gunners, snipers.
In the 81st, they believed that this was not a problem, the vacancies that had formed could be filled, new people could be trained ...

In early December 1994, the commander of the regiment, Colonel Yaroslavtsev, and I arrived on official business at the headquarters of our 2nd Army, - recalls Igor Stankevich. Someone from high-ranking military leaders called. “That's right,” the general answered the subscriber to one of his questions, “the commander and deputy of the 81st regiment is just with me. I'll get the information to them right now."
After the general hung up the phone, he asked everyone present to leave. In a tete-a-tete atmosphere, it was announced to us that the regiment would soon receive a combat mission, that “we had to prepare.” The region of application is the North Caucasus. Everything else - later.

In the photo Igor Stankevich (January 1995, Grozny)

According to the then Minister of Defense Pavel Grachev, the meeting of the Russian Security Council on November 29, 1994 was decisive. The speaker was the late Minister for Nationalities Nikolai Yegorov. According to Grachev, “he said that 70 percent of Chechens are just waiting for the Russian army to enter them. And they will be happy, as he put it, to sprinkle our soldiers with flour. The remaining 30 percent of Chechens, according to Yegorov, were neutral.” And at five o'clock in the morning on December 11, our troops moved to Chechnya in three large groups.

Someone at the top confused flour with gunpowder ....

On December 14, 1994, the regiment was alerted and began to be transferred to Mozdok. The transfer was carried out by six echelons. By December 20, the regiment was fully concentrated on the training ground in Mozdok. In the regiment, by the time they arrived at the Mozdok station, out of 54 platoon commanders, 49 had just graduated from civilian universities. Most of them did not fire a single shot from a machine gun, let alone fire a standard projectile from their tanks. In total, 31 tanks arrived in Mozdok (of which 7 were out of order), 96 infantry fighting vehicles (out of 27 out of order), 24 armored personnel carriers (5 out of order), 38 self-propelled guns (12 out of order), 159 vehicles (28 out of order). In addition, there were no elements of dynamic protection on the tanks. More than half of the batteries were discharged (cars were started from a tow). Faulty means of communication were stored literally in piles.

The task of the commanders of the troops of the groupings for operations in the city and the preparation of assault detachments was set on December 25. The regiment, which was partly concentrated on the southern slopes of the Tersky Range, and partly (by one battalion) was located in the area of a dairy farm 5 km north of Alkhan-Churtsky, was assigned two tasks: the immediate and subsequent. The nearest one was planned to occupy the Severny airport by 10 am on December 31. The next - by 16 o'clock to take possession of the intersection of Khmelnitsky and Mayakovsky streets. Personally, the commander of the United Group, Lieutenant General A. Kvashnin, with the commander, chief of staff and battalion commanders of the 81st Guards. SMEs operating in the main direction, classes were held on the organization of interaction in the performance of a combat mission in Grozny.

On December 27, the regiment began to advance and settled on the northern outskirts of Grozny, not far from the airport ...

From an investigation by journalist Vladimir Voronov ("Top Secret", No.12/247, 2009):

“But the parents are firmly convinced that no one was engaged in combat training in the regiment. Because from March to December 1994, Andrei held a machine gun in his hands only three times: on the oath and twice more at the shooting range - the father commanders became generous as much as nine rounds And in the sergeant's training, in fact, they didn’t teach him anything, although they gave him badges. The son honestly told his parents what he was doing in Chernorechye: from morning till night he built cottages and garages for gentlemen officers, nothing more. He described in detail how they equipped some kind of dacha, general's or colonel's: the boards were polished to a mirror shine, one to the other was adjusted to a seventh sweat.Already after, I met with Andrey's colleagues in Chernorech: they confirm, it was so, all the "combat" training - the construction of dachas and maintenance officers' families. A week before they were sent to Chechnya, the radio was turned off in the barracks, the TVs were taken out. Parents who managed to attend the dispatch of their children claimed that military tickets were taken away from the soldiers. last time Andrey's parents saw him just before the regiment was sent to Chechnya. Everyone already knew that they were going to war, but they drove gloomy thoughts away from themselves.

By the beginning of the war in Chechnya, the once elite regiment was a pitiful sight. Almost none of the regular officers who served in Germany remained, and 66 officers of the regiment were not regular officers at all - “two-year students” from civilian universities with military departments! For example, Lieutenant Valery Gubarev, commander of a motorized rifle platoon, a graduate of the Novosibirsk Metallurgical Institute: he was drafted into the army in the spring of 1994. He was already in the hospital telling how grenade launchers and a sniper were sent to him at the last moment before the battle. "The sniper says, 'Show me how to shoot.' And grenade launchers - about the same ... Already build a column, and I train all grenade launchers ... "

The commander of the 81st regiment Alexander Yaroslavtsev later admitted: “People, to be honest, were poorly trained, who drove the BMP a little, who shot a little. And from such specific types of weapons as an underbarrel grenade launcher and a flamethrower, the soldiers did not shoot at all. Lieutenant Sergei Terekhin, commander of a tank platoon, wounded during the assault, claimed that only two weeks before the first (and last) battle, his platoon was completed with people. And in the 81st regiment itself, half of the personnel were missing. This was confirmed by the chief of staff of the regiment Semyon Burlakov: “We concentrated in Mozdok. We were given two days to regroup, after which we marched under Grozny. At all levels, we reported that the regiment in this composition is not ready for combat operations. We were considered a mobile unit, but we were staffed according to the state of peace: we had only 50 percent of the personnel. But the most important thing is that there were no infantry in the motorized rifle squads, only the crews of combat vehicles. There were no direct shooters, those who should ensure the safety of combat vehicles. Therefore, we walked, as they say, "bare armor." And, again, the vast majority of the platoons were two-year-old guys who had no idea about the conduct of hostilities. Drivers only knew how to start the car and move off. Gunners-operators could not shoot from combat vehicles at all.

Neither the battalion commanders, nor the company and platoon commanders had maps of Grozny: they did not know how to navigate in a foreign city! The commander of the communications company of the regiment .. Captain Stanislav Spiridonov said in an interview with Samara journalists: “Maps? There were maps, but everyone had different ones, different years, they didn’t fit together, even the street names are different.” However, the two-year-old platoon officers could not read maps at all. “Here, the chief of staff of the division himself got in touch with us,” Gubarev recalled, “and personally set the task: the 5th company along Chekhov - to the left, and to us, the 6th company, to the right. That's what he said, to the right. Just to the right." When the offensive began, the regiment's combat mission changed every three hours, so we can safely assume that it did not exist.

Later, the regiment commander .. could not .. explain who set him the task and what. First they had to take the airport, moved out - a new order, turned around - again an order to go to the airport, then another introductory one. And on the morning of December 31, 1995, about 200 combat vehicles of the 81st regiment (according to other sources - about 150) moved to Grozny: tanks, armored personnel carriers, infantry fighting vehicles ... They didn’t know anything about the enemy: no one provided the regiment with intelligence, and they themselves did not conduct reconnaissance. The 1st battalion, marching in the first echelon, entered the city .., and the 2nd battalion entered the city with a gap of five hours ..! By this time, little was left of the first battalion, the second was going to its death ... "

The driver of the T-80 tank, junior sergeant Andrey Yurin, when he was in the Samara hospital, recalled: “No, no one set a task, they just stood in a column and went. True, the company commander warned: “Just a little - shoot! Child on the road - push.

In the photo, Lieutenant General L.Ya. Rokhlin

Initially, the role of commander of the forces introduced into the city was assigned to General Lev Rokhlin. Here is how Lev Yakovlevich himself describes it (quote from the book "The Life and Death of a General"): "Before the storming of the city," says Rokhlin, "I decided to clarify my tasks. Based on the positions we occupied, I believed that the Eastern group, to command which it was suggested that I should be headed by another general. And it would be expedient to appoint me to command the Northern grouping. On this topic, I had a conversation with Kvashnin. He appointed General Staskov to command the Eastern grouping. "And who will command the Northern one?" - I ask. Kvashnin answers: "I . We will set up a forward command post in Tolstoy-Yurt. You know what a powerful group this is: T-80 tanks, BMP-3. (Then there were almost no such people in the troops.) "-" And what is my task? "- I ask. "Go to the palace, take it, and we will come up." I say: "Did you watch the speech of the Minister of Defense on television? He said that the city is not attacked by tanks. "This task was removed from me. But I insist:" What is my task anyway? "-" You will be in the reserve, - they answer. - You will cover the left flank of the main grouping. And they assigned a route of movement. After this conversation with Rokhlin, Kvashnin began to give orders to units directly. So, the 81st regiment was given the task of blocking the Reskom. At the same time, the tasks were brought to the units at the very last moment.

Secrecy was held by Colonel General Anatoly Kvashnin as a separate line, apparently, it was some kind of Kvashnin's "know-how", everything was hidden, and the task was set directly in the direction of movement of the units, the trouble is that the units acted independently, separately, prepared for one thing, but were forced to do something completely different. Inconsistency, lack of interconnection - this is another distinguishing feature of this operation. Apparently, the whole operation was based on the belief that there would be no resistance. It only says that the leadership of the operation was out of touch with reality.

Until December 30, the commanders of units and battalions did not know either about their routes or about the tasks in the city. No documents were processed. Until the last moment, the officers of the 81st regiment believed that the task of the day was the Mayakovsky-Khmelnitsky crossroads. Before the regiment entered the city, its command was asked how long it would take to bring it to combat readiness? The command reported: at least two weeks and replenishment of people, because. the regiment is now "naked armor". To solve the problem with the lack of people, the 81st regiment was promised 196 replenishment people, for the BMP landing, as well as 2 regiments Internal Troops to clear the quarters passed by the regiment.

Regiment commander Yaroslavtsev: “When Kvashnin assigned us the task, he sent us to the GRU colonel to get information about the enemy, but he didn’t say anything specific. I tell him, wait, what is the northwest, southeast, I’m drawing a route for you, Bogdan Khmelnitsky, so I’m walking along it, tell me what I can meet there.He answers me, here, according to our data, there are sandbags in windows, here there may or may not be a strong point. He didn’t even know if the streets were blocked there or not, so they gave me these fools (UR-77 "Meteorite") to blow up the barricades, but nothing is blocked there In short, there was no intelligence, either in terms of the number or location of the militants."

After a meeting on December 30, Colonel General Kvashnin ordered an officer to be sent for replenishment, but due to bad weather, people could not be delivered on time. Then it was proposed to take two battalions of explosives as a landing force, the chief of the regiment Martynychev was sent for them, but the command of the Internal Troops did not give up the battalions. That is why it turned out that the 81st regiment went to the city of Grozny with "bare armor", having at best 2 people in the BMP landing force, and often not having it at all!

At the same time, the regiment received a strange order: one battalion had to, bypassing Resk, go to the station, and then behind its back the second battalion had to block Resk, that is, without securing the occupation of one line, it was necessary to go to the next, which contradicts the charter, methods . In fact, this separated the first battalion from the main forces of the regiment. Why the station was needed, one can only guess - apparently, this is also part of the "know-how".

The regiment commander Yaroslavtsev recalls these days in the following way: “I ... worked with the battalion commanders, but we didn’t have time to outline, of course, it’s supposed to, not only to the company, you need to go down to the platoon to show where to get what. But due to the fact that like this - go ahead, let's go, the first battalion ... take the station and surround, take possession of it, and the second battalion advance and surround Dudayev's palace ... they didn’t paint where and what, the battalion commander already made the decision where to send, according to the situation. ... The immediate task was get to the crossroads ... Mayakovsky-Khmelnitsky, then the next one - the station, the other - Dudayev's palace ... but it was not described in detail, because there was no time, nothing, but in theory each platoon needs to be painted where it should approximately become, where to get out, until what time and what to do. As far as I understood, the commanders thought like this: with bare armor and surround, stand, point the barrels there, and partially, for example, if there is no one there, with infantry, report that he is surrounded ... And then they will say - we will pull some about there a negotiating team, or there are scouts, and they will go forward!

Chronology of the last day of 1994: at 7 am on December 31, the forward detachment of the 81st regiment, including a reconnaissance company, attacked the Severny airport. With the advance detachment was the chief of staff of the 81st, Lieutenant Colonel Semyon Burlakov. By 9 o'clock, his group completed the immediate task, having captured the airport and cleared two bridges across the Neftyanka River on the way to the city.
Following the advance detachment, the 1st Motor Rifle Brigade of Lieutenant Colonel Eduard Perepelkin moved in a column. To the west, through the state farm "Rodina", was the 2nd MSB. Fighting vehicles moved in columns: tanks were ahead, self-propelled anti-aircraft guns were on the flanks.
From the Severny airport, the 81st MSP went to Khmelnitsky Street. At 0917, motorized riflemen met the first enemy forces here: an ambush from the Dudayev detachment with attached tanks, an armored personnel carrier and two Urals. The reconnaissance entered the battle. The militants managed to knock out a tank and one of the Urals, but the scouts also lost one BMP and several people were wounded. The regiment commander, Colonel Yaroslavtsev, decided to delay reconnaissance to the main forces and stop the advance for a while.
Then the advance resumed. Already by 11.00 the columns of the 81st regiment reached Mayakovsky Street. The advance of the previously approved schedule was almost 5 hours. Yaroslavtsev reported this to the command and received an order to move to block the presidential palace, to the city center. The regiment began advancing to Dzerzhinsky Square. By 12.30, the advanced units were already near the station, and the headquarters of the group confirmed the previously given order to surround the presidential palace.

All parts were controlled by the "come on, come on" method. The commanders who ruled from afar did not know how the situation in the city was developing. To force the troops to move forward, they blamed the commanders: "everyone has already reached the city center and is about to take the palace, and you are marking time ...". As the commander of the 81st regiment, Colonel Alexander Yaroslavtsev, later testified, to his request regarding the position of the neighbor on the left, the 129th regiment of the Leningrad Military District, he received an answer that the regiment was already on Mayakovsky Street. “This is the pace,” the colonel thought then (“Red Star”, 01/25/1995). It could not have occurred to him that this was far from the case ... Moreover, the closest neighbor on the left of the 81st regiment was consolidated detachment 8th Corps, and not the 129th Regiment, which was advancing from the Khankala region. Although it is on the left, it is very far away. On Mayakovsky Street, judging by the map, this regiment could only be bypassing the city center and passing by the presidential palace.

On the photo is a RETIRED COLONEL, PARTICIPANT IN THE BATTLE ACTIONS IN THE TERRITORY OF THE DRA AND THE CHR, CAVALIER OF SEVERAL BATTLE ORDERS, COMMANDER OF 81 SMES IN THE EARLY 90s - YAROSLAVTSEV ALEKSANDR ALEKSEEVICH.

From the memoirs of a tanker: "I was in front with the tanks of the company, our infantry retreated back. The regiment commander gives the command -" forward!
I clarified - where to go, the task of the day is completed, there are no infantry to cover the tanks ...
He says - "Rink", this is Pulikovsky's order, understand correctly, you go to the station ...
The premonition of an unkind adventure did not deceive me. In the observation devices, I saw tightly "stoned" militants who slowly moved along the houses, but did not enter into confrontation. Even then I realized that they were letting us into the "New Year's carousel". I understood that if something went wrong, it would be difficult to get out of the station. But it never crossed my mind that on the input route after the passage assault groups, there will be no our posts ...."

At 13.00, the main forces of the regiment passed the station and along Ordzhonikidze Street rushed to the complex of government buildings. And then the Dudaevites began a powerful fire resistance. A fierce battle broke out near the palace. Colonel Yaroslavtsev was wounded and transferred command to the chief of staff of the regiment, Lieutenant Colonel Burlakov.

The 1st MSR under the command of Captain Bezrutsky occupied the building of the road administration. The infantry fighting vehicles of the company were placed in the yard, at the gates and on the exit tracks to the railway track. At dusk, the onslaught of the enemy intensified. Losses have increased. Especially in equipment that was very tight, sometimes literally caterpillar to caterpillar. The initiative passed into the hands of the enemy.
Relative calm came only at 23.00. At night, the shooting continued, and in the morning the commander of the 131st brigade, Colonel Savin, asked for permission from the higher command to leave the station. A breakthrough was approved to the Lenin Park, where units of the 693rd MSP of the West group were defending. At 15:00 on January 1, the remnants of units of the 131st Motorized Rifle Brigade and the 81st Motorized Rifle Brigade began to break through from the railway station and the goods station. Under the incessant fire of the Dudayevites, the columns suffered losses and gradually disintegrated.

The consolidated detachment of the 81st SME, formed from units that remained outside the "station" ring, managed to gain a foothold at the intersection of Bogdan Khmelnitsky and Mayakovsky streets. The command of the detachment was taken over by the deputy commander of the regiment, Lieutenant Colonel Igor Stankevich. For two days, his group, being in a semi-encirclement, remaining in fact on a bare and shot through place - the intersection of two main city streets, held this strategically important area.

From the recollections of an eyewitness: "And then it began ... From the basements and from the upper floors of buildings, grenade launchers and machine guns hit columns of Russian armored vehicles squeezed in narrow streets. The militants fought as if they, and not our generals, studied at military academies. The rest, without haste, were shot as if in a shooting range. Tanks and infantry fighting vehicles that managed to break out of the traps by breaking fences, without the cover of motorized riflemen, also became easy prey for the enemy. By 18.00, the 693rd motorized rifle regiment was surrounded in the Lenin Park area "West" grouping. We lost contact with him. Dense fire stopped the combined parachute regiments of the 76th division and the 21st separate brigade Airborne. At nightfall, 3,500 militants with 50 guns and tanks in the area of the railway station suddenly attacked the 81st Regiment and the 131st Brigade, which were carelessly standing in columns along the streets. Around midnight, the remnants of these units, supported by the two surviving tanks, began to withdraw, but were surrounded and almost completely destroyed.

And at the same time, champagne corks clapped all over the country at New Year's tables and Alla Pugacheva sang from the TV screen: “Hey, you are up there! Again, there is no escape from you ... "

Neither on December 31, nor on January 1, nor in the following days did the 81st Regiment leave the cities, remained at the forefront and continued to participate in hostilities. The battles in Grozny were led by Igor Stankevich's detachment, as well as the 4th motorized rifle company of Captain Yarovitsky, who was in the hospital complex.
For the first two days, there were virtually no other organized forces in the center of Grozny. There was another small group from the headquarters of General Rokhlin, it kept nearby.

The former commander of the North-East grouping, Lieutenant General Lev Rokhlin, eloquently recalled the morale of our troops these days: “I set the commanders the task of holding the most important objects, promised to present them for awards and higher positions. In response, the deputy brigade commander replies that he is ready to quit, but will not command. And then he writes a report. I propose to the battalion commander: “Come on…” “No,” he answers, “I also refuse.” It was the hardest blow for me.”

The Russian army, as a military entity that inherits the traditions of the Soviet Army, has many heroes, both among people and among entire units. One of these units is the 81st Motorized Rifle Regiment (MSP), called Petrakuvsky. The full name of the regiment consists of a list of many military awards, which are real evidence of its valor and glory, and looks like this - the 81st Guards Petrakuvsky twice Red Banner Orders of Suvorov, Kutuzov and Bogdan Khmelnitsky Motorized Rifle Regiment.
The history of the Petrakuvsky Regiment can be divided into several stages, which, smoothly flowing one into another, stretch to our days. In this article, we will try to consider the regiment's combat path, focusing on the last heroic and at the same time inglorious battle, which is still fresh in people's memory - the assault on Grozny in the first Chechen campaign of 1994-95.
BEGINNING: THE PRE-WAR YEARS
The time leading up to World War II was a period of high-profile political transformation in Europe, saber-rattling by two European predators, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. Be that as it may, either the Union was preparing for aggression, or it was preparing to repel aggression from other countries (read Germany), but in any case, the army was urgently reorganized. This reorganization affected both the equipping of existing units with new types of weapons, and the creation of new units, formations and even armies.
Against the background of such a process in the army, the 81st motorized rifle regiment Petrakuvsky was created. True, at the time of creation it had a different serial number. It was the 210th Infantry Regiment of the 82nd Division. The regiment was formed in the late spring of 1939, the regiment was registered in the Urals military district. This year for the Soviet Union was characterized by military operations in Manchuria, so the 81st Petrakuvsky Regiment (we will call it that, a more familiar name) was hastily transferred to Khalkhin Gol, along with the native 82nd Infantry Division.
Here, the Petrakuvsky regiment received its first baptism of fire, while receiving gratitude from the command. The tension in the region did not subside even after the end of hostilities, and it was decided to leave the units that fought in Manchuria in a new place. So the 81st Petrakuvsky regiment moved from the Urals to Mongolia, to the city of Choibalsan.
START: WAR
The beginning of the Great patriotic war The 81st (210th) motorized rifle regiment met at the place of permanent deployment in Mongolia. And only in the autumn of 1941, when the situation on the Western Front was very tense, the 81st regiment, as part of its native division, received an order to go into the thick of things - to fight for Moscow. The 81st motorized rifle regiment fought its first battle with the German invaders on October 25, 1941 in the area of the station village of Dorohovo. The battles for Moscow were long and bloody, only in the spring of 1942 significant success was achieved. Many parts have received government awards. Among these units was the 210th Motorized Rifle Regiment, which for courage and heroism in the battles for Moscow received the right to be called Guards. At the same time, the regiment received a new serial number, from March 18, 1942, it was called the 6th Guards Motorized Rifle Regiment. A little later, the regiment was awarded the Order of the Red Banner.
On June 17, 1942, the 6th Guards Motor Rifle Regiment was reorganized into the 17th Guards Mechanized Brigade. The brigade was part of the 6th mechanized corps of the 4th tank army. The further battle path was no less glorious than its beginning in this bloody war. The brigade participated in many iconic battles of the Great Patriotic War. The end of the war was partly caught in Czechoslovakia. For special courage in battles, the brigade was awarded the Orders of Suvorov, Kutuzov and Bogdan Khmelnitsky. And for the capture of the town of Petrakow, the brigade received the title of Petrakow, this happened in January 1945.
MATURE YEARS: POST-WAR
In the post-war period, the 17th mechanized brigade was again reorganized into a mechanized regiment, which received all the rights to the awards of its predecessors, and became known as the 17th Guards Mechanized Petrakuvsky Regiment twice Red Banner Orders of Kutuzov, Suvorov and Bogdan Khmelnitsky. At some point, the regiment was even turned into a separate mechanized battalion, this happened against the background of the post-war reduction in the army.
However, with the start cold war the battalion was again transformed into a mechanized regiment, and in 1957 it received a modern serial number and began to bear the name of the 81st Guards Motorized Rifle Regiment. The regiment was in the Western Group of Forces in the town of Karlhost. The 81st regiment managed to take part in the so-called liberation campaign in Czechoslovakia, this was in 1968.
Until the collapse of the Soviet Union, the 81st regiment was part of the Western Group of Forces in Germany. During this time, it was reorganized and transferred to new states several times. In 1993, the ZGV was liquidated, and the 81st regiment was withdrawn from Germany to a new location, which was located in the Samara region.
MODERN HISTORY: BLOODY TIME
With the collapse of the Union, the centrifugal forces, having broken ties between the once fraternal republics, continued to tear apart the Russian Federation as well. These forces were multiplied many times over by separatist sentiments fueled from outside in some Caucasian republics. In addition, the country's leadership was worried about the rather large oil reserves in the region, as well as oil and gas communications. All together, this first provoked a conflict with the Chechen Republic, which later grew into a full-scale war.
Serious hostilities in Chechnya began at the end of 1994. From the first days, the 81st regiment, which was part of the NORTH group, also took part in this. While participating in the disarmament of illegal military formations (as this operation was officially called), the regiment was commanded by Colonel Yaroslavtsev (who was seriously wounded during the storming of Grozny), the chief of staff was Lieutenant Colonel Burlakov (also wounded in Grozny).
The most serious and significant event for the personnel of the regiment in the post-war years is a military operation called the assault on the capital of the Chechen Republic, the city of Grozny. The purpose of the operation was to capture the capital of the rebellious republic, in which the main forces were located, as well as the leadership of the self-proclaimed Ichkeria. For this task, several groups were formed, one of which included the Petrakov regiment. At that time, the regiment consisted of more than 1300 personnel, 96 infantry fighting vehicles, 31 tanks and more than 20 pieces of artillery and mortars.
It is worth noting that, compared even with the times of 5 years ago, the regiment made a depressing impression. Many of the officers who were still serving in Germany quit, they were replaced by graduate students of military departments. In addition, the personnel of the regiment's units were completely untrained. The soldiers had only records in military cards about their positions, there was no real knowledge and skills in sight. Mechanics of infantry fighting vehicles and tanks had little driving experience, the shooters practically did not carry out live firing from small arms, not to mention grenade launchers and mortars. In addition, immediately before being sent to Chechnya, the most trained and trained specialists left (transferred) the regiment, the lack of which subsequently cost the units dearly.
There was no preparation for the entry of troops into Chechnya, as such, the personnel were simply loaded onto a train and taken away. According to the surviving participants of those events, combat training took place even during the journey, right in the cars. Upon arrival in Mozdok, the regiment received 2 days to prepare, and two days later made a march to Grozny. At that time, the 81st regiment was staffed according to the peacetime staff, which was only 50% of the war staff. Most importantly, motorized rifle units were not equipped with simple infantry, there were only BMP crews. This fact was one of the main factors in the death of the regiment's units that stormed Grozny. Roughly speaking, the equipment entered the city without infantry cover, which is tantamount to death. This was understood by the commanders on the ground, for example, the chief of staff of the regiment, Lieutenant Colonel Burlakov, spoke about this. But no one listened to the words of the command of the units sent to Chechnya.
STORM OF GROZNY
The decision to storm the city was made at a meeting of the Security Council on December 26, 1994. The assault on the city was preceded by artillery preparation. 8 days before the start of the operation, artillery units began a massive shelling of Grozny. As it turned out later, this was not enough, in general, as such, there was no preparation for the military operation, the troops marched at random.
The Petrakuvsky regiment marched along with the 131st Maikop motorized rifle brigade from the northern part, as part of the NORTH group. Contrary to the original plan, according to which the troops of the Russian army were to enter the city from three sides, two groups remained in place, and only the NORTH group entered the center.
It is worth noting that the forces for the assault were clearly not enough, according to some reports around the Grozny army Russian Army numbered about 14 thousand people, not even having a two-fold advantage. This was clearly not enough for an attack, and even more so in the conditions of the city, and even understaffed units. In addition, there was an acute shortage of maps and clear controls. The regiment's tasks changed every few hours, many did not know where to simply move. The Chechens easily wedged into the radio communications of the Russian troops, disorienting them. Even elementary reconnaissance of the enemy forces was not carried out, so the battalion and company commanders did not know who was opposing them.
The start of the assault on the capital of the rebellious republic was scheduled for the last day of 1994. This, according to the plan of the command of the Joint Forces, was to play into the hands of the attackers. In principle, the tactics of surprise worked 100%, subsequently playing a negative role. None of the defenders of Grozny simply expected an assault on New Year's Eve. That is why the units of the 81st regiment and the 131st brigade managed to quickly reach the city center and just as quickly ... die there.
Later, some sources began to actively promote such an opinion, according to which the Chechens themselves allowed Russian troops to reach the city center unhindered, luring them into a trap. However, such a claim is unlikely.
The first of the divisions of the Petrakov regiment entered the advance detachment, which included a reconnaissance company, led by the regiment's chief of staff, Lieutenant Colonel Burlakov. They had the task of taking possession of the airport and clearing the bridges on the way to Grozny. The forward detachment coped with its task brilliantly, and after it two motorized rifle battalions entered the city under the command of lieutenant colonels Perepelkin and Shilovsky.
The units marched in columns, tanks were in front, the flanks of the columns were covered by the Tunguska ZSU. As the surviving participants of those events later said, the tanks did not even have cartridges for machine guns, which made them useless in the conditions of the city.
The first clash took place near the advance detachment already at the entrance to the city, on Khmelnitsky Street. During the battle, it was possible to inflict serious damage on the enemy, but 1 infantry fighting vehicle had to be lost, and the first wounded appeared.
The regiment's units were rapidly advancing towards the center of the city, practically without encountering resistance. Already at 12.00, after only 5 hours, the railway station was reached, about which the regiment commander reported to the command. Further orders were received to advance towards the palace of the Government of the Republic.
However, the fulfillment of this task was greatly hampered by the increased activity of the militants who came to their senses. A fierce battle ensued in the area of the government palace, during which Colonel Yaroslavtsev (regiment commander) was wounded. The command passed to the chief of staff, Lieutenant Colonel Burlakov.
The swift offensive quickly bogged down in the fierce opposition of the defenders, who fired grenade-launchers at the equipment of the federal troops. The combat vehicles were knocked out one after another, the columns of the regiment's subunits were cut off from each other and divided into separate groups. A big obstacle was created by their own set fire to the car. The dead and wounded already numbered more than a hundred people, Burlakov was among the wounded.
Only by nightfall did the units of the 81st Regiment and the 131st Brigade receive a long-awaited respite. However, immediately after the New Year, the intensity of fire from the militants increased. In agreement with the command of the unit of the NORTH group, they left the station and began to break out of the city. The retreat was not coordinated, they broke through one by one and in small groups. So there were more chances ...
From the encirclement, the advanced units of the Maykop brigade and the Petrakuvsky regiment emerged significantly thinned, with huge losses in manpower and equipment. According to official information, the regiment lost 63 people killed during the assault, in addition, there were still 75 missing and about 150 wounded.
In addition to two motorized rifle battalions and an advanced detachment, there were also other units of the 81st regiment in Grozny, brought together in one group under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Stankevich. They took up defense on the streets of Mayakovsky and Khmelnitsky. Properly organized defense made it possible to create an island of resistance, which successfully fought for several days. This group served as a rescue for many soldiers of the advanced detachment breaking through from the encirclement.
Among other things, the 81st Petrakuvsky regiment participated not only in the storming of Grozny on New Year's Eve 1994. The entire January of the new year, 1995, was spent in battles for the regiment. Thanks to the dedication of the guys, Dudayev's palace, an arms factory, and a printing house were taken - an important center of resistance.
For several more months, the regiment was on the territory of Chechnya, and only in April 1995, the unit was withdrawn to the place of permanent deployment.
Now one of the most famous regiments of our time is part of the motorized rifle brigade under the same number.

Chechen War . The Chechen war began for me with senior ensign Nikolai Potekhin - he was the first Russian soldier I met in the war. I had a chance to talk to him at the very end of November 1994, after the failed assault on Grozny by "unknown" tankers. Defense Minister Pavel Grachev then shrugged his shoulders, surprised: I have no idea who stormed Grozny in tanks, mercenaries, I probably don’t have such subordinates ... Until the office, where I was allowed to talk with Senior Ensign Potekhin and conscript Alexei Chikin from parts near Moscow, the sounds of bombing were heard. And the owner of the office, lieutenant colonel Abubakar Khasuev, deputy head of the Department of State Security (DGB) of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, told not without malice that the Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Air Force Pyotr Deinekin also said that it was not Russian planes that were flying and bombing over Chechnya, but incomprehensible "unidentified" attack aircraft.
“Grachev said that we are mercenaries, right? Why don't we serve in the army?! Bastard! We were just following orders!” - Nikolai Potekhin from the guards Kantemirovskaya tank division tried in vain to hide the tears on his burned face with his bandaged hands. He, the driver of the T-72 tank, was betrayed not only by his own Minister of Defense: when the tank was knocked out, he, wounded, was left there to burn alive by the officer - the commander of the vehicle. The ensign was pulled out of the burning tank by the Chechens, it was November 26, 1994. Formally, the Chekists sent the military on an adventure: people were recruited by special departments. Then the names of Colonel-General Alexei Molyakov, head of the Military Counterintelligence Department, were heard throughout the country. Federal Service counterintelligence of the Russian Federation (FSK, as the FSB was called from 1993 to 1995) - and a certain lieutenant colonel with a sonorous surname Dubin - head of a special department of the 18th separate motorized rifle brigade. Ensign Potekhin was immediately given a million rubles - at the exchange rate of that month, about $ 300. They promised two or three more...
“We were told that we need to protect the Russian-speaking population,” the ensign said. - Delivered by plane from Chkalovsky to Mozdok, where we began to prepare tanks. And on the morning of November 26, they received an order: to move on Grozny. There was no clearly defined task: if you enter, they say, the Dudaevites themselves will scatter. And the militants of Labazanov, who went over to the opposition to Dudayev, worked as infantry escorts. As the participants of that “operation” said, the militants did not know how to handle weapons, and in general they quickly dispersed to rob the surrounding stalls. And then grenade launchers suddenly hit the sides ... Out of about 80 Russian servicemen, about 50 were captured then, six died.
On December 9, 1994, Nikolai Potekhin and Alexei Chikin, among other prisoners, were returned Russian side. Then it seemed to many that these were the last prisoners of that war. The State Duma was talking about the coming truce, and I was in the Beslan airport in Vladikavkaz watching the troops arriving plane after plane, how the airborne battalions were deployed near the airfield, putting up outfits, sentries, digging in and settling right in the snow. And this deployment - from the side into the field - said better than any words that the real war was just beginning, and just about, because the paratroopers could not and would not stand in the snowy field for a long time, no matter what the minister said. Then he will say that his boy soldiers "died with a smile on their lips." But it will be after the "winter" assault.
"Mom, take me away from captivity"
The very beginning of January 1995. The assault is in full swing, and a person who has wandered into Grozny on business or out of stupidity is greeted by dozens of gas torches: communications are interrupted, and now almost every house in the battle area can boast of its own “eternal fire”. In the evenings, bluish-red flames give the sky an unprecedented crimson hue, but it is better to stay away from these places: they are well targeted by Russian artillery. And at night it is a landmark, if not a target, for a missile and bomb "pinpoint" strike from the air. The closer to the center, the more residential areas look like a monument to a bygone civilization: dead city, what looks like life - underground, in basements. The square in front of the Reskom (as Dudayev's palace is called) resembles a dump: stone chips, broken glass, torn cars, heaps of shells, unexploded tank shells, tail stabilizers for mines and aircraft missiles. From time to time, militants jump out of the shelters and ruins of the building of the Council of Ministers and dashes, one at a time, dodging like hares, rush across the square to the palace ... And here is a boy rushing back with empty canisters; followed by three more. And so all the time. This is how the fighters change, deliver water and ammunition. The wounded are taken out by "stalkers" - these usually break through the bridge and the square at full speed in their "Zhiguli" or "Moskvich". Although more often they are evacuated at night by an armored personnel carrier, on which the federal troops are beating from all possible trunks. A phantasmagorical spectacle, I watched: an armored car rushes from the palace along Lenin Avenue, and behind its stern, about five meters away, mines are exploding, accompanying it in a chain. One of the mines intended for the armored car hit the fence of the Orthodox Church ...
With my colleague Sasha Kolpakov, I make my way into the ruins of the building of the Council of Ministers, in the basement we stumble upon a room: again prisoners,
19 guys. Mostly soldiers from the 131st separate Maikop motorized rifle brigade: blockaded at the railway station on January 1, left without support and ammunition, they were forced to surrender. We peer into the grubby faces of guys in army jackets: Lord, these are children, not warriors! “Mom, come soon, take me out of captivity ...” - this is how almost all the letters that they passed on to their parents through journalists began. To paraphrase the name of the famous film, "only boys go into battle." In the barracks, they were taught to scrub the toilet with a toothbrush, paint the lawns green and march on the parade ground. The guys honestly admitted: rarely one of them fired more than two times from a machine gun at the training ground. The guys are mostly from the Russian hinterland, many do not have fathers, only single mothers. The perfect cannon fodder… But the militants didn’t let them talk properly, they demanded permission from Dudayev himself.

The crew of the combat vehicle

The places of the New Year's battles are marked by the skeletons of burned-out armored vehicles, around which the bodies of Russian soldiers are lying, although the time was already approaching the Orthodox Christmas. Birds pecked out eyes, dogs ate many corpses to the bone...
I came across this group of wrecked armored vehicles in early January 1995, when I was making my way to the bridge over the Sunzha, behind which were the buildings of the Council of Ministers and the Reskom. A terrifying sight: the sides stitched with cumulative grenades, torn tracks, red, even rusty towers from fire. On the aft hatch of one BMP, the tail number - 684 is clearly visible, and from the upper hatch, the charred remains of what was quite recently a living person, a split skull, hang like a crooked mannequin ... Lord, how infernal was this flame that swallowed up human life! In the back of the car, burnt ammunition is visible: a pile of calcined machine-gun belts, burst cartridges, charred shells, blackened bullets with leaked lead ...
Near this wrecked infantry fighting vehicle - another one, through the open aft hatch I see a thick layer of gray ash, and something small and charred in it. Looked closer - like a baby curled up. Also human! Not far away, near some garages, the bodies of three very young guys in greasy army padded jackets, and all of them had their hands behind their backs, as if they were tied. And on the walls of garages - traces of bullets. Surely these were soldiers who managed to jump out of the wrecked cars, and they were against the wall ... As in a dream, I raise the camera with cotton hands, take a few pictures. A series of mines rushing near makes you dive behind a padded infantry fighting vehicle. Unable to save her crew, she nevertheless shielded me from fragments.
Who knew that fate would later again confront me with the victims of that drama - the crew of the wrecked armored car: the living, the dead and the missing. “Three tankers, three cheerful friends, the crew of a combat vehicle,” was sung in a Soviet song of the 1930s. And it was not a tank - an infantry fighting vehicle: BMP-2 tail number 684 from the second motorized rifle battalion of the 81st motorized rifle regiment. The crew - four people: Major Artur Valentinovich Belov - the chief of staff of the battalion, his deputy captain Viktor Vyacheslavovich Mychko, driver-mechanic private Dmitry Gennadievich Kazakov and signalman senior sergeant Andrey Anatolyevich Mikhailov. You can say, my Samara compatriots: after the withdrawal from Germany, the 81st Guards motorized rifle Petrakuvsky twice Red Banner, orders of Suvorov, Kutuzov and Bogdan Khmelnitsky regiment was stationed in the Samara region, in Chernorechye. Shortly before Chechen war according to the order of the Minister of Defense, the regiment began to be called the Volga Cossack Guards, but the new name did not take root.
This infantry fighting vehicle was knocked out on the afternoon of December 31, 1994, and it was possible to find out about those who were in it later, when, after the first publication of the pictures, I was found by the parents of a soldier from Tolyatti. Nadezhda and Anatoly Mikhailov were looking for their missing son Andrei: on December 31, 1994, he was in this car ... What could I say then to the soldier's parents, what hope to give them? We called up again and again, I tried to accurately describe everything that I saw with my own eyes, and only later, at a meeting, I handed over the pictures. From Andrei's parents, I learned that there were four people in the car, only one survived - Captain Mychko. I ran into the captain quite by chance in the summer of 1995 in Samara in the district military hospital. I talked with the wounded man, began to show pictures, and he literally dug into one of them: “This is my car! And this is Major Belov, there is no one else ... "
Fifteen years have passed since then, but I know for certain the fate of only two, Belov and Mychko. Major Arthur Belov is that charred man on the armor. He fought in Afghanistan, was awarded an order. Not so long ago I read the words of the commander of the 2nd battalion Ivan Shilovsky about him: Major Belov shot perfectly with any weapon, neat - even in Mozdok on the eve of the campaign against Grozny he always went with a white collar and with arrows on his trousers made with a coin, he also let go of a neat beard, because of which he ran into a remark by the commander of the 90th Panzer Division, Major General Nikolai Suryadny, although the charter allows him to wear a beard during hostilities. The division commander was not too lazy to call Samara by satellite phone in order to give the order: to deprive Major Belov of the thirteenth salary ...
How Arthur Belov died is not known for certain. It seems that when the car was hit, the major tried to jump out through the top hatch and was killed. Yes, and remained on the armor. At least, this is what Viktor Mychko claims: “No one set us any combat mission, only an order on the radio: enter the city. Kazakov sat behind the levers, Mikhailov in the aft, next to the radio station - provided communication. Well, I'm with Belov. At the twelfth hour of the day ... We didn’t really understand anything, we didn’t even have time to fire a single shot - neither from a cannon, nor from a machine gun, nor from machine guns. It was pure hell. We did not see anything or anyone, the side of the car was shaking from hits. Everything was shooting from everywhere, we no longer had any other thoughts, except for one thing - to get out. The radio was disabled by the first hits. They just shot us like a range target. We didn’t even try to shoot back: where to shoot if you don’t see the enemy, but you yourself are in full view? Everything was like in a nightmare, when it seems that an eternity lasts, but only a few minutes have passed. We are hit, the car is on fire. Belov rushed into the upper hatch, and blood immediately gushed over me - he was cut off by a bullet, and he hung on the tower. I rushed out of the car myself ... "
However, some colleagues - but not eyewitnesses! - later they began to claim that the major was burned alive: he fired from a machine gun until he was wounded, tried to get out of the hatch, but the militants doused him with gasoline and set it on fire, and the BMP itself, they say, did not burn at all and its ammunition did not explode. Others agreed to the point that Captain Mychko abandoned Belov and the soldiers, even "surrendered" them to Afghan mercenaries. And the Afghans, they say, took revenge on the veteran of the Afghan war. But there were no Afghan mercenaries in Grozny - the origins of this legend, as well as the myth of "white tights", must be sought, apparently, in the basements of the Lubyaninformburo. And the investigators were able to examine the BMP No. 684 not earlier than February 1995, when they began to evacuate the damaged equipment from the streets of Grozny. Arthur Belov was identified first by the watch on his arm and waist belt (he was some kind of special one, bought back in Germany), then by his teeth and a plate in his spine. The Order of Courage posthumously, according to Shilovsky, was knocked out of bureaucrats only on the third attempt.

Tomb of an unidentified soldier

A fragment pierced the chest of Captain Viktor Mychko, damaging his lung, there were still wounds in the arm and leg: “I leaned out to the waist - and suddenly the pain fell back, I don’t remember anything else, I woke up already in the bunker.” The unconscious captain was pulled out of the wrecked car, as many say, by Ukrainians who fought on the side of the Chechens. They, apparently, shot down this BMP. Something is now known about one of the Ukrainians who captured the captain: Oleksandr Muzychko, nicknamed Sashko the Bily, sort of from Kharkov, but lived in Rivne. In general, Viktor Mychko woke up in captivity - in the basement of the Dudayev Palace. Then there was an operation in the same basement, release, hospitals and a lot of problems. But more on that below.
The soldiers Dmitry Kazakov and Andrei Mikhailov were not among the survivors, their names were not among the identified dead, for a long time they were both missing. Now they are officially declared dead. However, in 1995 Andrei Mikhailov's parents told me in a conversation: yes, we received a coffin with a body, buried him, but it was not our son.
The story is like this. In February, when the fighting in the city subsided and the damaged cars were removed from the streets, it was time for identification. Of the entire crew, only Belov was officially identified. Although, as Nadezhda Mikhailova told me, he had a tag with the number of a completely different BMP. And there were two more bodies with the tags of the 684th BMP. More precisely, not even bodies - shapeless charred remains. The epic with identification lasted four months, and on May 8, 1995, the one whom the examination identified as Andrey Mikhailov, guard senior sergeant of the signal company of the 81st regiment, found his peace in the cemetery. But for the soldier's parents, the identification technology remained a mystery: the military refused to tell them flatly about it at that time, they definitely did not conduct genetic examinations. Maybe it would be worth sparing the reader's nerves, but you still can't do without details: the soldier was without a head, without arms, without legs, everything was burned. There was nothing with him - no documents, no personal belongings, no suicide medallion. Military medics from a hospital in Rostov-on-Don told the parents that they allegedly conducted an examination based on a chest x-ray. But then they suddenly changed the version: they determined the blood type from the bone marrow and calculated by the method of elimination that one was Kazakov. Another, that means Mikhailov... Blood type - and nothing else? But after all, the soldiers could be not only from another BMP, but also from another part! The blood type is another proof: four groups and two Rhesus, eight options for thousands of corpses ...
It is clear that the parents did not believe also because it is impossible for a mother's heart to come to terms with the loss of her son. However, there were good reasons for their doubts. In Tolyatti, not only the Mikhailovs received a funeral and a zinc coffin; in January 1995, the messengers of death knocked on many people. Then came the coffins. And one family, having mourned and buried their dead son, in the same May 1995 received a second coffin! There was a mistake, they said in the military registration and enlistment office, the first time we sent the wrong one, but this time it’s definitely yours. Who was buried first? How was it to believe after that?
Andrei Mikhailov's parents traveled to Chechnya several times in 1995, hoping for a miracle: what if they were captured? They ransacked the cellars of Grozny. They were also in Rostov-on-Don - in the infamous 124th medical forensic laboratory of the Ministry of Defense. They told how boorish, drunken "body keepers" met them there. Several times Andrei's mother examined the remains of the dead stacked in the cars, but she did not find her son. And she was amazed that for half a year no one even tried to identify these several hundred dead: “Everyone is perfectly preserved, facial features are clear, everyone can be identified. Why can't the Department of Defense take pictures by sending them out to the districts, checking them against photos from personal files? Why should we, mothers, ourselves, at our own expense, travel thousands and thousands of kilometers to find, identify and pick up our children - again, on our pennies? The state took them into the army, it threw them into the war, and then it forgot there - the living and the dead ... Why can't the army humanly at least pay the last debt to the fallen boys?

"No one set the task"

Then I learned a lot about my countryman. Andrei Mikhailov was called up in March 1994. They were sent to serve nearby, in Chernorechye, where the 81st regiment withdrawn from Germany was based. From Togliatti to Chernorechye is a stone's throw, so Andrei's parents visited Andrei often. Service as a service, there was hazing. But the parents are firmly convinced that no one was engaged in combat training in the regiment. Because from March to December 1994, Andrei held a machine gun in his hands only three times: at the oath and twice more at the shooting range - the father commanders were generous with as many as nine rounds. And in the sergeant's training, in fact, they did not teach him anything, although they gave him badges. The son honestly told his parents what he was doing in Chernorechye: from morning till night he built dachas and garages for gentlemen officers, nothing more. He described in detail how some kind of dacha, a general's or a colonel's, was equipped: boards were polished to a mirror shine with a planer, one to the other was adjusted to the seventh sweat. Later, I met with Andrey's colleagues in Chernorechye: they confirm, it was so, all the "combat" training - the construction of summer cottages and the maintenance of officer families. A week before being sent to Chechnya, the radio was turned off in the barracks, and the TVs were taken out. Parents who managed to attend the dispatch of their children claimed that military tickets were taken away from the soldiers. The last time the parents saw Andrei was literally before the regiment was sent to Chechnya. Everyone already knew that they were going to war, but they drove gloomy thoughts away from themselves. The parents filmed the last evening with their son on a video camera. They convinced me that when they look at the film, they see that already then the stamp of tragedy lay on Andrei's face: he is gloomy, does not eat anything, he gave pies to his colleagues ...
By the beginning of the war in Chechnya, the once elite regiment was a pitiful sight. Almost none of the regular officers who served in Germany remained, and 66 officers of the regiment were not regular at all - “two-year students” from civilian universities with military departments! For example, Lieutenant Valery Gubarev, commander of a motorized rifle platoon, a graduate of the Novosibirsk Metallurgical Institute: he was drafted into the army in the spring of 1994. He was already in the hospital telling how grenade launchers and a sniper were sent to him at the last moment before the battle. "The sniper says, 'Show me how to shoot.' And grenade throwers - about the same ... Already build a column, and I train all grenade throwers ... "Commander
Alexander Yaroslavtsev of the 81st Regiment later admitted: “People, to be honest, were poorly trained, who drove the BMP a little, who shot a little. And from such specific types of weapons as an underbarrel grenade launcher and a flamethrower, the soldiers did not shoot at all.
Lieutenant Sergei Terekhin, commander of a tank platoon, wounded during the assault, claimed that only two weeks before the first (and last) battle, his platoon was completed with people. And in the 81st regiment itself, half of the personnel were missing. This was confirmed by the chief of staff of the regiment Semyon Burlakov: “We concentrated in Mozdok. We were given two days to regroup, after which we marched under Grozny. At all levels, we reported that the regiment in this composition is not ready for combat operations. We were considered a mobile unit, but we were staffed according to the state of peace: we had only 50 percent of the personnel. But the most important thing is that there were no infantry in the motorized rifle squads, only the crews of combat vehicles. There were no direct shooters, those who should ensure the safety of combat vehicles. Therefore, we walked, as they say, "bare armor." And, again, the vast majority of the platoons were two-year-old guys who had no idea about the conduct of hostilities. Drivers only knew how to start the car and move off. Gunners-operators could not shoot from combat vehicles at all.
Neither the battalion commanders, nor the company and platoon commanders had maps of Grozny: they did not know how to navigate in a foreign city! The commander of the communications company of the regiment (Andrey Mikhailov served in this company), Captain Stanislav Spiridonov, said in an interview with Samara journalists: “Maps? There were maps, but everyone had different ones, different years, they didn’t fit together, even the street names are different.” However, the two-year-old platoon officers could not read maps at all. “Then the chief of staff of the division himself got in touch with us,” Gubarev recalled, “and personally set the task: the 5th company along Chekhov - to the left, and to us, the 6th company, to the right. That's what he said, to the right. Just to the right."
When the offensive began, the regiment's combat mission changed every three hours, so we can safely assume that it did not exist. Later, the regiment commander, giving numerous interviews in the hospital, could not intelligibly explain who set him the task and what. First they had to take the airport, advanced - a new order, turned around - again an order to go to the airport, then another introductory one. And on the morning of December 31, 1995, about 200 combat vehicles of the 81st regiment (according to other sources - about 150) moved to Grozny: tanks, armored personnel carriers, infantry fighting vehicles ...
They did not know anything about the enemy: no one provided the regiment with intelligence, and they themselves did not conduct reconnaissance. The 1st battalion, marching in the first echelon, entered the city at 6 am, and the 2nd battalion entered the city with a gap of five hours - at 11 am! By this time, little was left of the first battalion, the second went to its death. BMP number 684 was in the second echelon.
They also claim that a day or two before the battle, many soldiers were given medals - so to speak, in advance, as an incentive. It was the same in other parts. At the beginning of January 1995, a Chechen militiaman showed me a certificate for the medal "For Distinction in Military Service", 2nd degree, which was found on the deceased soldier. The document read: Private Asvan Zazatdinovich Ragiev was awarded the order of the Minister of Defense No. 603 of December 26, 1994. The medal was awarded to the soldier on December 29, and he died on December 31 - later I will find this name in the list of the dead servicemen of the 131st Maikop motorized rifle brigade.
The regiment commander later claimed that when setting up a combat mission, “special attention was paid to the inadmissibility of destroying people, buildings, and objects. We had the right to open only return fire. But the driver of the T-80 tank, junior sergeant Andrey Yurin, when he was in the Samara hospital, recalled: “No, no one set a task, they just stood in a column and went. True, the company commander warned: “Just a little - shoot! Child on the road - push. That's the whole task.
Control of the regiment was lost in the very first hours. He was wounded and out of action of the regimental commander Yaroslavtsev, he was replaced by Burlakov - also wounded. Lieutenant Colonel Vladimir Aidarov took the reins of government next. Survivors almost unanimously spoke of him very unflattering. The softest of all is Lieutenant Colonel Ivan Shilovsky, commander of the 2nd battalion: "Aidarov showed obvious cowardice during the fighting." According to the battalion commander, having entered Grozny, this "regimental commander" placed his infantry fighting vehicle in the arch of a building near Ordzhonikidze Square, posted guards and sat there all the time of the battle, losing control of the people entrusted to him. And the deputy division commander, trying to restore control, flew on the air: “Aidarov [beep-beep-beep]! And you, coward, where did you hide?!” Lieutenant Colonel Shilovsky claimed: Aidarov "later ran away from the city at the first opportunity, leaving people behind." And then, when the remnants of the regiment were taken out to rest and put in order, “the regiment was ordered to re-enter the city to support the units already entrenched there. Aidarov dissuaded the officers from continuing the fighting. He persuaded them not to enter the city: “You won’t get anything for this, motivate this by saying that you don’t know people, there aren’t enough soldiers. And I will be demoted for this, so you better ... "
The losses of the regiment were terrible, the number of dead was not made public and is not known for certain to this day. According to the data former boss regimental headquarters, posted on one of the sites, died
56 people and 146 were injured. However, according to another authoritative, although far from complete, list of losses, the 81st regiment then lost at least 87 people killed. There is also evidence that immediately after the New Year's battles, about 150 units of "cargo 200" were delivered to the Samara airfield "Kurumoch". According to the commander of the communications company, out of 200 people of the 1st battalion of the 81st regiment, 18 survived! And out of 200 military vehicles, 17 remained in service - the rest burned down on the streets of Grozny. (The regimental chief of staff acknowledged the loss of 103 units of military equipment.) And the losses were not only from the Chechens, but also from their own artillery, which since the evening of December 31 nailed Grozny completely aimlessly, but no longer spared the shells.
When the wounded Colonel Yaroslavtsev was in the hospital, one of the Samara journalists asked him: how would the regimental commander act if he knew about the enemy and the city what he knows now? He replied: "I would report on command and act according to the order given."