1989
Rally in Transnistria
1989 MOLDOVAN NATIONALISM.
Representatives of the Popular Front of Moldova (PFM) formed the leadership of the republic, which pursued a policy of priority of the national interests of the Moldovan nation, which led to facts of discrimination against national minorities and ethnic clashes.
1989 PRO-ROMANIAN SEPARATISM.
Pro-Romanian sentiments gained considerable popularity in the country. The goal of the unionists was the accession of Moldova to Romania. Slogans began to be heard: "Romanians, unite", "Moldova - for Moldovans" and "Russians - beyond the Dniester, Jews - to the Dniester."
The Supreme Council of the Moldavian SSR adopted a law on the establishment in the republic of the only state language - Moldavian. In response, the city councils on the territory of Transnistria suspended its operation on their territory.
November 10, 1989. On the Day of the Soviet Militia, an attempt was made to storm the building of the Republican Ministry of Internal Affairs. There were dismissals of pro-Soviet citizens.
1990
The Supreme Soviet of the Moldavian SSR established a new name for the state - the Republic of Moldova. State symbols were adopted, and the Soviet one was abolished.
In Tiraspol, the Second Extraordinary Congress of Deputies of all levels of Pridnestrovie was held, proclaiming the formation of the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic (as part of the USSR), with the inclusion of Grigoriopol, Dubossary, Rybnitsa, Slobodzeya regions and the cities of Bendery, Dubossary, Rybnitsa and Tiraspol.
In Dubossary, a protest rally was held against the deployment of an armed detachment in police cars without license plates in the area without the consent of the local authorities. The order in the city began to be guarded by the formed detachments of people's combatants.
Residents of Dubossary blocked the bridge across the Dniester, but at five o'clock in the evening, a detachment of OMON under the command of the head of the Chisinau police department, Vyrlan, began an assault. The riot police first fired into the air, then used batons and tear gas. 135 cadets of the police school and 8 officers led by Lieutenant Colonel Neikov also arrived at the scene. As a result of the use of weapons by OMON officers, three people were killed, fifteen were injured, of which 9 people received bullet wounds. The riot police retreated after some time, and in the evening of the same day, on the orders of the separatists, all entrances to the city were blocked.
Information about the events in Dubosary led to the creation of a temporary emergency committee in Bendery, which took urgent measures to block the entrances to the city. The defense headquarters was organized, the registration of volunteers began. Information about the approach of convoys to the city from Causeni and Chisinau led to the appeal of the Bendery radio: "We ask all men to go to the square and help protect the city from national extremists!" The Moldavian convoy from the side of Causeni turned to Ursoy and settled in the Gerbovetsky forest. The gradual withdrawal of the Moldavian detachments began only in the second half of November 3. Barriers at the entrances to the city and the duty of volunteers remained even on November 4th.
Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev signed a decree "On measures to normalize the situation in the Moldavian SSR", ordering the dissolution of the Pridnestrovian Moldavian SSR.
1991
August 25, 1991. The "Declaration of Independence of the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic" was adopted.
The law did not grant Transnistria the right to self-determination. In addition, the USSR government was required to end "the illegal state of occupation and withdraw Soviet troops from the national territory of the Republic of Moldova."
September 1991 The Supreme Council of Transnistria decided to create the Republican Guard. The resubordination of the departments of internal affairs of Transnistria began.
Moldovan police entered Dubossary. In response to this, one of the leaders of Transnistria, Grigory Marakutsa, headed the police and set about creating paramilitary formations.
November 5, 1991 The PMSSR was renamed the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic.
The next day after the ratification of the Belovezhskaya agreement by the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR, the Moldovan police made a third attempt to capture Dubossary. During the 40-minute firefight between the police and the TMR guards, four policemen and three guards - militia from Rybnitsa were killed, 15 people were injured, about 20 guards went missing. In response, policemen were taken as hostages. Vyacheslav Kogut declared a state of emergency in Bendery.
A police lieutenant was killed in Dubossary. Two buses with Moldovan police were sent to Bendery. Cossacks and volunteers from different cities of Russia began to arrive in Transnistria.
1992
Pridnestrovian militias and Cossacks disarmed the district department of the Dubossary police.
Moldovan President Mircea Snegur announced a state of emergency in Transnistria.
March-April 1992.
About 18,000 reservists were drafted into the Moldovan army.
A unit of the Moldovan police entered Bender, accompanied by two armored personnel carriers. The police made an attempt to disarm the Transnistrian guards. A bus with cotton mill workers got into a shootout. There were dead and wounded on both sides.
Near the village of Karagash in the vicinity of Tiraspol, militants from the so-called "Ilashku group" killed the Transnistrian politician Nikolai Ostapenko. Mobilization began in Transnistria. 14,000 workers were given weapons. By order of the Pridnestrovian command, bridges across the Dniester near Criulyan and the village of Bychok were blown up. The defense of the dam of the Dubossary power plant and the Rybnitsa bridge was organized.
May 23, 1992. By order of Mircea Snegur, units of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Ministry of National Security were transferred to the operational subordination of the Ministry of Defense.
May 1992 PEOPLE SAVE DUBOSSARY FROM ARTILLERY FIRE.
After a three-day artillery shelling of the city of Dubossary, a crowd of fifteen thousand local residents blocked the road for the tank and motorized rifle companies of the 14th Army returning from the training ground. 10 T-64BV tanks and 10 BTR-70 tanks were captured. An armored group was immediately formed. She was thrown into an area from where heavy shelling was taking place. The armored group managed to suppress the artillery of Moldova. But not without losses. One of the T-64s was set on fire by an unidentified anti-tank weapon. As a result, the ammunition detonated, and the tank was destroyed.
Early summer 1992. AN ATTEMPT TO PEACELY SETTLEMENT OF THE CONFLICT.
Moldovan parliamentarians, together with Pridnestrovian deputies, approved the basic principles of a peaceful settlement.
Transnistrian guards and other paramilitary units launched a vicious attack on the local police station. According to Pridnestrovian sources, on that day, the Moldovan police captured an officer of the PMR guards, and a group of guardsmen who came to his aid were fired upon. After that, the leadership of the Republic of Moldova issued an order to conduct an operation in the city of Bendery.
Victims of the battles in Bendery
Moldovan columns of armored personnel carriers, artillery, several T-55 tanks entered Bender along the Chisinau and Caushan highways. For several hours the city was occupied by divisions and units of the Moldavian army. Indiscriminate firing from all types of weapons led to a huge number of casualties among the civilian population. The Moldavian units inflicted massive blows on the building of the city executive committee, the barracks of the guards, and the city police department.
Parts of the Moldovan army captured the Bendery-1 station, Zhilsotsbank. The fire was fired by tanks, self-propelled guns, armored personnel carriers. From the village of Lipkany, a mortar shelling of the city was carried out. One of the mines hit the fuel depot of military unit 48414 of the 14th Army of Russia, which led to the death of Russian soldiers. Several tanks of the PMR armed forces tried to break into Bendery to help the defenders, but were stopped by the fire of Rapira anti-tank guns.
In the afternoon, units of the Moldovan army stormed the Bendery fortress, where the missile brigade of the 14th army was located. When the attack was repulsed from the Russian side, there were killed and wounded. Several more servicemen were injured from shells that accidentally flew into the territory of the military units of the Russian army. Nevertheless, units of the 14th Army continued to take a position of strict neutrality. At the same time, women from the so-called "Bendery Strike Committee" helped the guards, Cossacks and militias to capture several units of military equipment of the 59th motorized rifle division of the Russian army. This technique moved from Tiraspol to Bendery, crushing both batteries of Moldovan artillery on the bridge, and made its way to the besieged building of the city executive committee. The tanks broke through the siege ring. The most fierce fighting unfolded near the city police department. The Pridnestrovians pulled everything they could there: about two hundred infantrymen, a platoon of T-64BV tanks (one soon broke down and went to Tiraspol for repairs), two BMP-1s, a Shilka, four MTLBs. The Moldavian troops began to retreat.
By morning, Moldovan troops controlled only two Bender microdistricts and the suburban village of Varnitsa.
Around 12:00 pm June 21, 1992. Mortar shelling of the Leninsky microdistrict began. Moldovan snipers operated in the city, shooting at any moving target. Due to the ongoing hostilities, it was impossible to remove the corpses on the streets, which in the 30-degree heat created a threat of an epidemic.
The Moldovan Air Force tried to destroy the strategically important bridge across the Dniester, connecting Transnistria with Bendery. For the strike, two MiG-29 aircraft were involved, which carried six OFAB-250 bombs each. To control the results of the raid, one MiG-29UB took part in the operation. At 19.15, the Moldovan pilots bombed, but inaccurately, and the bridge remained intact, and all the bombs fell on the nearby village of Parkany. A direct hit destroyed the house, in which the whole family died. Moldovan officials initially denied their Air Force involvement in the raid; however, later the Minister of War of the Republic of Moldova acknowledged the fact of the destruction of the house, but rejected the statements of the media about the loss of life.
There was relative calm. The city council managed to negotiate a ceasefire with the police department to bury the dead, whose number had reached three hundred during the previous night. There was no electricity in the city, telephone communication did not work, the gas was turned off. Snipers were still active. The local police, holding part of the city with the support of a special police detachment (OPON), mined the streets, erected barricades, and equipped trenches.At about 14:00 3 planes land in Tiraspol. The commander of the 14th Army, General Netkachev, meets an officer in the uniform of a paratrooper colonel. It was Major General Alexander Ivanovich Lebed, deputy commander of the Airborne Forces for combat training, a specialist in "hot spots". A meeting of the Military Council of the Army was held, which was attended by the commanders of the armed formations of Transnistria. It became clear that there was no connection between the 14th Army and the military forces of the PMR.
The Military Council of the 14th Army issued a statement. Addressing the heads of government and the peoples of the Commonwealth of Independent States, the military council condemned the use of Moldovan aviation for peaceful purposes in Transnistria. This action did not impress Chisinau. Then Alexander Lebed said at a press conference that the 14th Army was in "armed neutrality - until they touch us, and we will not touch anyone."
Major General Alexander Lebed takes over as commander of the 14th Army instead of Netkachev. Which strictly followed the order of the Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation, occupied complete neutrality, despite significant losses among the personnel of the army and the destruction of its material base
At about 19:00, the Moldovan army resumed massive shelling of the city from howitzers, mortars, grenade launchers and small arms. The armed formations of the PMR managed to suppress some enemy firing points only after three or four days.
The new commander gives the order to the artillery to destroy the enemy's ammunition depots, fuel and lubricants and artillery. On the night of June 30, one of the Russian divisions strikes at the BM-21 Grad rocket battery of Moldova on the Kitskan bridgehead, completely destroying it.
July 1, 1992.A mortar battery and an ammunition depot were destroyed at the site of hostilities in the area of Koshnitsa and Dorotsky.
July 2, 1992A mortar battery, an observation post and a police column were destroyed. On the night of July 2-3, a blow was struck at the recreation centers of the Special Purpose Police Detachment and the regular army of Moldova, fuel depots, artillery batteries and a command post.
Chisinau was made clear that a few more days - and not to avoid a tank attack.
The presidents of Moldova and Russia meet in Moscow and make decisions. First: cease hostilities and disengage the warring forces; second: to determine the political status of Transnistria; third: withdraw units of the 14th Army in accordance with bilateral agreements, but only after the implementation of the first two points; fourth: to form and send units from the Russian Airborne Forces to Transnistria to conduct a peacekeeping mission.
Major General Lebed makes a statement sharply accusing the Moldovan action of “restoring constitutional order”. He said that only the Transnistrian side, the number of killed reaches 650 people, wounded - up to four thousand. He called the fascist regime of President Snegur and the cannibal of the Minister of Defense of Moldova, General Kostash.
The Moldovan side puts forward a demand for a truce. Once again, an agreement was reached on a ceasefire, which, however, was constantly violated not only in Bendery, but also along the entire confrontation line up to Dubossary. In Bendery, parts of Moldova systematically destroyed enterprises whose equipment could not be taken out. Throughout the month, battles were fought in different parts of the city.
During the targeted shelling of the House of Soviets of the city of Dubossary, 8 heads of enterprises and organizations of Pridnestrovie were killed.
Presidents of Russia and Moldova Boris Yeltsin and Mircea Snegur signed an agreement "On the principles of peaceful settlement of the armed conflict in the Transnistrian region of the Republic of Moldova".
July 1992 THE LAST ATTEMPT OF THE MOLDOVANS.
An attempt by the Moldavian army to take Bender was unsuccessful. The new commander of the 14th Army, Major General Alexander Lebed, ordered to block the approaches to the city and the bridge across the Dniester.
Russia, Moldova and Transnistria declared the strip along the Dniester a security zone, control over which was entrusted to a trilateral peacekeeping force consisting of Russian, Moldovan and Transnistrian contingents under the supervision of the Joint Control Commission (JCC). A "special regime" was introduced in Bendery.
At the airfield in Tiraspol, military planes are landing, on board of which there are Russian military peacekeepers.
Russian peacekeepers enter Bendery. The inhabitants of the city, as in 1944 during the liberation from the fascist occupation, bring flowers and bread to the liberators, many have tears in their eyes, but these are tears of deliverance and joy. Peace came to the long-suffering Pridnestrovian land.
Russian peacekeepers in Transnistria Meeting of Russian military in Bendery
LOSSES:
According to various estimates, the losses during the conflict were as follows. By mid-July 1992, 950 people were killed on both sides, about 4.5 thousand were injured. Only the Transnistrian side lost about 600 people dead, 899 were injured, and about 50 were missing, but experts believe that the real losses were large. 1,280 residential buildings were destroyed and damaged, of which 60 were completely destroyed. 19 public education facilities were destroyed (including 3 schools), 15 healthcare facilities. 46 industrial, transport and construction enterprises were damaged. 5 high-rise residential buildings of the state housing stock were not subject to restoration, 603 state houses were partially damaged. The city suffered damage in excess of 10 billion rubles at 1992 prices.
How they tried to resolve the conflict in Transnistria after the war.
May 8, 1997in Moscow, a memorandum was signed on ways to normalize relations, providing for the construction of relations between the parties within the framework of a common state within the borders of the former Moldavian SSR.
1999 STEPASHIN WAS GOING TO DISARM TRANSNISTRIUM.
Russian Prime Minister Stepashin prepared scandalous agreements with the Republic of Moldova, according to which the armed forces of the PMR were disarmed and the statehood of the PMR was actually liquidated.In the first half of November, the new Prime Minister of Russia, Vladimir Putin, amended these agreements. The threat to the independence of Transnistria is no more.November 25, 2003.Moldova unexpectedly rejected Russia's proposed settlement plan, which provides for the existence of Transnistria and Gagauzia as subjects of an "asymmetric federation."
September 17, 2006.A referendum was held in Transnistria, in which 97% of the inhabitants voted for joining Russia.
February 19, 2008.The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the PMR announced the need to recognize the independence of the republic following the example of Kosovo. In March, the State Duma stated that Transnistria is a separate case and Russia sees it as part of Moldova with a special status.
In July 2012. The Russian Foreign Ministry reaffirmed its position on the basic principles of resolving the conflict through the federalization of Moldova and the receipt of firm guarantees of its neutral status.
Every year on June 19, for the past 23 years, mourning events have been held in Bendery. Citizens go with flowers to the Memorial of Glory, as well as to other memorable places associated with the heroic defense of the city from the aggression of the Moldovan army.
Despite the fact that many years have passed, it is very difficult for the residents of the city to forget those terrible events when an aggressor armed to the teeth attacked a peaceful unarmed city. Bendery survived and gave a worthy rebuff to the enemy. And today we again recall the chronicle of those tragic days when a radical change occurred in the history of our young state. Having survived, the Benders gave the entire PMR the opportunity to live and develop.
The battle for Bender, which took place from June 19 to 21, 1992, was the culmination of the armed conflict between Chisinau and Tiraspol. The idea of the operation was to clear the city of national guards with the help of a special police brigade and unblock the local departments of the Moldovan police.
On June 19, 1992, the Moldovan police captured an officer of the PMR guards, and a group of guardsmen who came to his aid were fired upon. One way or another, a small skirmish turned into street fighting. At 19.00, Moldovan columns of armored personnel carriers, artillery, T-55 tanks entered Bender along the Chisinau and Caushan highways.
Within a few hours the city was occupied by the Moldovan army. Indiscriminate firing from all types of weapons led to a huge number of casualties among the civilian population. Massed strikes were carried out by the RM units on the building of the city executive committee, the barracks of the guards, and the city police department.
I would like to note the feat of the Cossacks of the Black Sea Cossack army. Which still on June 19 at 21.00 barely managed to get into the blocked city. This group of 30 people was headed by the marching ataman Sergey Makarovich Driglov. The Cossacks brought with them 6 grenade launchers, which greatly facilitated the task of protecting the city from the equipment of the Moldovan army advancing from all sides. Ataman divided his detachment into 6 groups according to the number of grenade launchers, which took up defensive positions on the outskirts of the city executive committee. Driglov himself and several members of his group died fighting in an unequal battle with superior enemy equipment.
At dawn on June 20, units of the Moldovan army captured the Bendery-1 station, a housing and social bank. The fire was fired by tanks, self-propelled guns, armored personnel carriers; from the village of Lipkany there was a mortar shelling of the city. One of the mines hit the fuel depot of military unit 48414 of the 14th Army of Russia, which led to the death of Russian soldiers. Several tanks of the PMR armed forces tried to break into Bendery to help the defenders, but were stopped by the fire of Rapira anti-tank guns.
In the afternoon, units of the Moldovan army stormed the Bendery fortress, where the missile brigade of the 14th army was located. When repulsing the attack from the Russian side, there were killed and wounded. Several more servicemen were injured from "accidentally" flying into the territory of the military units of the Russian army. Throughout the day on June 20, the provocations of the Moldovan army against the 14th Army, which took a position of strict neutrality in the conflict, continued.
Seeing how the city was being destroyed, women from the Bendery strike committee captured several units of military equipment of the 59th motorized rifle division of the Russian army. On this technique, the guardsmen, Cossacks and militias from Tiraspol moved to Bendery, crushing both artillery batteries of Moldova on the bridge, made their way to the besieged building of the city executive committee. These tanks broke through the siege ring. The troops of the Republic of Moldova began to randomly retreat. By the morning of June 21, they controlled only two Bender microdistricts and the suburban village of Varnitsa.
On Sunday, June 21, the fighting for the city continued. At about 12.00 mortar shelling of the Leninsky microdistrict began; the city was filled with Moldovan snipers, shooting at any moving target. Due to the ongoing hostilities, it was impossible to remove the corpses on the streets, which in the 30-degree heat created a threat of epidemics. Residents buried the dead right in the yards, at the place of death.
On June 22, the fighting in Bender did not stop. The Bulgarian village of Parkany was subjected to brutal shelling.
On June 23, the Moldovan Air Force was given the task of destroying the strategically important bridge across the Dniester, connecting Transnistria with Bendery. For the strike, two MiG-29 aircraft were involved, which carried six OFAB-250 bombs each. Probably, one MiG-29UB took part in the operation to control the results of the raid.
At 19.15, Moldovan pilots bombed, but inaccurately, the bridge remained intact, and all the bombs fell on the nearby village of Parcany. A direct hit destroyed the house, in which the whole family died. Moldovan officials initially denied their Air Force involvement in the raid; however, later the Minister of War of the Republic of Moldova admitted the fact of the destruction of the house, but completely rejected the statements of the media about the death of people.
However, on June 23 there was a relative calm. The city council managed to negotiate a ceasefire with the police department to bury the dead, whose number had reached three hundred during the previous night. There was no electricity in the city, telephone communication did not work, there was no gas. The snipers were still active. The local police, holding part of the city with the support of OPON, mined the streets, erected barricades, dug trenches.
On June 29, the lull ended: around 19:00, the Moldovan army resumed massive shelling of the city from howitzers, mortars, grenade launchers and small arms. The armed formations of the PMR managed to suppress some enemy firing points only after three or four days.
In early July, an agreement was again reached on a ceasefire, which, however, was constantly violated not only in Bendery, but also along the entire line of confrontation up to Duboscap. In Bendery, parts of Moldova systematically destroyed enterprises whose equipment could not be taken out. Throughout the month, battles were fought in different parts of the city.
During the hostilities of 1992, Bendery suffered severe destruction, 80 thousand inhabitants became refugees, about one and a half thousand were killed and wounded. Now the main part of the destruction has been eliminated, but the traces of the battles still remind of themselves. For the courage and heroism shown by the people of Bendery in defending the gains of the PMR, in 1995 the city was awarded the highest award - the Order of the Republic.
An attempt by the Moldavian army to take Bendery, undertaken in July on the orders of Chisinau, failed. The then commander of the 14th Army stationed in Transnistria, Major General Alexander Lebed, ordered to block the approaches to the city and the bridge across the Dniester.
During all 40 days, the Moldovan military bullied everything that came to their hand, tried to knock down the Pridnestrovian flag, which was raised on the administration building on the main square of the city of Bendery.
No one expected such a turn of events, therefore, during the summer hostilities, more than 500 people were killed by the Pridnestrovians, 80 were missing. The Moldovan side does not disclose the number of victims of its military to this day.
Only on July 21, the Presidents of Russia and Moldova, Boris Yeltsin and Mircea Snegur, signed an agreement "On the Principles of the Peaceful Settlement of the Armed Conflict in the Transnistrian Region of the Republic of Moldova."
The agreement was signed, but the conflict has not been resolved so far.
Only on July 29, 1992, the Tula Airborne Division entered Bendery and established peace in the region. The peacekeeping forces of Russia to this day contain the confrontation and prevent the possibility of hostilities in Bendery.
Russia, Moldova and Transnistria declared the strip along the Dniester a security zone, control over which was entrusted to a trilateral peacekeeping force consisting of Russian, Moldovan and Transnistrian contingents under the supervision of the Joint Control Commission (JCC). Bendery was declared a "safety zone" with a special regime.
During the events of the summer of 1992, at least 489 people died in Bendery, of which 132 were civilians, 5 were children. 1242 people were injured, of which 698 were civilians, 18 were children. Missing - 87 people. Subsequently, 40 people died from their wounds. 1,280 residential buildings were destroyed and damaged, of which 60 were completely destroyed. 19 objects of public education were destroyed (including 3 schools), 15 healthcare facilities. 46 industrial, transport and construction enterprises were damaged. 5 high-rise residential buildings of the state housing stock cannot be restored, 603 state houses are partially damaged. The city suffered damage in excess of 10 billion rubles at 1992 prices.
Head of the "Memorial Tarabuchkin V.M.
Museum of the Bendery Tragedy"
Konstantin Antoch
Incident in Bendery- fighting between the Moldovan forces of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, carabinieri, volunteers, the national army and special self-defense units on the one hand and the PMR guards, the Black Sea Cossack army, volunteers from abroad, territorial rescue units, militia units and units of the 14th army on the other side control over Bender during the Transnistrian conflict from June 21, 1992.
Active hostilities continued after June 21, the fighting in the city lasted until July. As a result of the intervention of the 14th Army, a truce was concluded on July 7, and on July 21 agreements were signed on the peaceful settlement of the conflict and the entry of tripartite peacekeeping forces into the city.
On the eve of the incident in Bendery, the city was partly controlled by the Transnistrian authorities and the police, and partly by the police. In Bendery, a police and a police department simultaneously worked, although the city executive committee was accountable to Tiraspol. There were no Moldavian troops in the city before the battle.
Armament and training of troops
The forces of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (police and OPON), the national army, self-defense units and volunteers took part in the battle from the side of Moldova. From the side of Pridnestrovie, the PMR guards, the Black Sea Cossack army, territorial rescue teams (TSO), militias and volunteers took part. The condition of both sides on the eve of the battle was unsatisfactory. In Moldova, the formation of the army of the republic was not completed, the Transnistrian Republican Guard was also recently formed. The number of soldiers who took part in the conflict on both sides is difficult to establish, since irregular militias took part in the hostilities. Volunteers from Romania fought on the Moldovan side, mercenaries and volunteers from Russia, Ukraine and other republics of the post-Soviet space fought on the Transnistrian side.
Of the regular troops, the 2nd Bendery Battalion, four motorized brigades, as well as the Delta and Dniester special-purpose brigades with a total number of 5,000 people and parts of the 14th Army fought on the Transnistrian side (the exact number of its fighters who took a direct part in the battles , not installed). According to Romanian sources, there were 1,200 Cossacks and guards in Bendery on June 19. The 1st, 3rd and 4th motorized infantry battalions and the OPON brigade fought on the Moldovan side.
| External images | |
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| Fortified equipment of the PMR Guard | |
| KrAZ, sheathed with armor sheets | |
| Armored car, created on the basis of KamAZ | |
| Reinforced floating conveyor | |
| Cossacks at the "armored personnel carrier" | |
Armored vehicles and artillery were involved in the fighting on both sides. In particular, from the Moldovan side, these were armored personnel carriers, infantry fighting vehicles, BRDM and MTLB, as well as anti-aircraft guns, mortars with a caliber of 82 mm and 120 mm, anti-tank guns with a caliber of 100 mm, about 4 units of ATGM 9K114 Shturm and one anti-hail installation of the Alazan MLRS. The presence of tanks in the Moldovan forces of the Ministry of Internal Affairs is debatable. According to some reports, several T-64s advanced towards Bendery, but no tanks were seen in the city and its environs. Aviation was used in the battles - two MiG-29s, one of which, according to the unconfirmed assertion of the Russian side, was shot down. From the Pridnestrovian side, several dozen armored personnel carriers, infantry fighting vehicles, BRDM and MTLB units and several tanks taken from the 14th army were also involved. There were also several mortars, howitzers, anti-hail MLRS "Alazan" and ZSU "Shilka". The number of Moldovan armored vehicles exceeded the number of Pridnestrovian ones, so the guardsmen used vehicles not intended for military operations in battle. In particular, PTS with a reinforced front part of the hull, armored BAT-M, KamAZ, KrAZ trucks sheathed with armor sheets, etc. went into battle.
The headquarters of the 14th Army was located in Tiraspol. The number of its troops that took part in the battle is controversial, and is estimated at 5,000 to 10,000 people, despite the fact that the 59th motorized rifle division and the missile brigade took direct part in the battles for Bendery. The 14th Army possessed several dozen T-64s, BTR-60s and BTR-70s.
The course of the battle
Incident at the police station
The reason for the entry of Moldovan troops into the city was the incident near the printing house and the police station, located nearby. It is impossible to determine exactly who opened fire first, as the parties blame each other for this. Both sides assume that the incident was planned by the enemy in order to unleash open hostilities.
Moldovan version of the incident
When the police approached Major Ermakov's car and asked him to show his documents, the guards opened fire on them from an ambush. The police were forced to return fire in order to protect themselves.
Transnistrian version of the incident
Major Yermakov and his driver were detained by the police at the printing house, and were threatened with weapons during the arrest. To understand what happened, a detachment of the 2nd Bendery Battalion arrived at the scene. When the detachment approached the police group, they opened fire on him with machine guns. In order to protect the guards were forced to return fire.
Later, Igor Ermakov was taken from Bendery to Chisinau to the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Moldova and imprisoned in an isolation ward. During the investigation, he stated that he was assigned the role of a bait in a provocation planned in advance by the Pridnestrovian special services. Also, according to his statement, he arrived at the printing house in order to find out the situation in the neighboring police building, located next to the printing house on the parallel Dzerzhinsky Street. The Moldovan authorities consider the incident at the police station a well-planned provocation.
The shootout at the police station did not stop and in the evening, the department was surrounded, all attempts to reach an agreement between the city authorities and the police leaders on the one hand and the police leaders on the other were unsuccessful. By that time, some deputies of the Supreme Council of the PMR and the commander of the Transnistrian Guard were in Bendery.
After one of the policemen was killed, Moldovan police chief Viktor Guslyakov called the Moldovan Interior Ministry and asked for help. The Minister of Internal Affairs of the country, Konstantin Antoch, ordered the entry of the forces of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Moldova into Bendery, the order for the entry of troops of the national army and volunteers into the city was given by the Minister of Defense, Ion Costas. The leadership of the forces of the Ministry of Internal Affairs adopted a plan: to introduce the 1st, 3rd and 4th infantry battalions, a police brigade (OPON) into Bendery and with their forces to release the police station, then take the bridge across the Dniester and take up defense. Later, on June 20, Moldovan President Mircea Snegur spoke on television with an appeal to the citizens of the country. He motivated the entry of the Interior Ministry forces into Bendery by the fact that the Pridnestrovian formations attacked the Bendery police department, and the troops were brought in to prevent the escalation of further hostilities and restore constitutional order.
The entry of Moldovan troops and other formations into Bendery. Bridge fight
At 19:00, columns of Moldovan armored vehicles, OPON, volunteers and units of the national army advanced towards Bender along the Caushan and Chisinau highways. While armored vehicles were moving towards the city, the Transnistrian militias blocked all roads to Bendery with the help of trucks and construction equipment. Moldavian armored vehicles overcame the barriers, ramming them and firing from guns. At 21 o'clock in the evening, a little earlier than the armored units, Moldovan self-defense units and OPON entered the city on buses and infantry fighting vehicles, immediately entering the battle. By that time, a battle was going on near the police station and the printing house, Pridnestrovian formations were converging on the buildings. When a large-scale battle broke out in the city center, the city executive committee accountable to the PMR gave the order to announce the gathering of militias.
At night, additional forces were drawn into the city from both sides. At midnight, Moldavian armored vehicles reached Bendery, immediately entering the city and immediately joining the battle. At the same time, the Pridnestrovian guards and Pridnestrovian self-defense units were mobilized in Bendery. From the village of Giska, located south of Bender and controlled by Moldova since April 1992, a local militia detachment loyal to the PMR set out in the direction of the city. Despite intense hostilities, the leadership of Bendery contacted the Moldovan parliament and government several times by phone. During the night armed clashes, civilians were killed. Already on June 20, mobilization was announced in Tiraspol, neighboring Bendery.
Memorial plate in Bendery
The Pridnestrovian Guard offered scattered resistance, which allowed the Moldovan troops to occupy almost the entire city during the night of June 19-20. At 4 o'clock in the morning, the Moldovan 1st motorized infantry battalion went to the Bendery bridge and blocked it. This made it possible to block the remaining Pridnestrovian detachments in Bendery, cutting them off from Tiraspol and the left bank of the Dniester.
Meanwhile, local battles were going on in the city: the police and the guards occupied the buildings of the police, the city executive committee, the post office, the working committee and the barracks. The Moldovan side made attempts to storm these objects in order to knock out Pridnestrovian fighters from them. The rest of the city was controlled by Moldovan troops.
2 hours after the bridge was blocked, at 6 o'clock in the morning, several Pridnestrovian tanks (their number is estimated at 4-6 vehicles) tried to break through to Bender along it. Two tanks (according to Pridnestrovian sources - 3) were hit by MT-12 Rapira anti-tank guns, the rest stopped their offensive and turned back. On June 20, Moldovan troops began to occupy the industrial enterprises of the city, in the area of the TMR-controlled village of Parkany, an intense exchange of fire took place between Moldovan forces located on the right bank of the Dniester and Transnistrian forces located on the left.
Intervention of the 14th Army
Parts of the 14th army, located near the Dniester, throughout the Transnistrian conflict observed strict neutrality in the confrontation between Moldova and Transnistria. Despite this, the armored vehicles of the 14th Army fell into the hands of the guards. So, in May 1992, the Transnistrian formations received several Soviet tanks, bringing them to positions near Dubossary. Also, parts of this army in September 1991 took control of Slobodzeya, Rybnitsa, Grigoriopol, Dubossary and Tiraspol. Thus, if the Moldovan leadership tried to retake these cities under its control with the help of the forces of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, they would have to face large Russian troops. Although the 14th Army remained neutral, its units stationed on the front line often came under crossfire. Its intervention in the conflict on the side of the Transnistrian leadership occurred after two major incidents in Bendery on June 20. In the afternoon, the Moldovan forces of the Ministry of Internal Affairs unsuccessfully stormed the Bendery fortress, which housed the missile brigade of the 14th Army and the chemical battalion. During the battle for the fortress, the brigade suffered minor losses, the Moldavian forces retreated. The second incident occurred after random artillery fire was opened on the location of the army. The army leadership demanded that the Moldovan command stop hostilities, and later sent troops in the direction of the bridge across the Dniester, standing on the Pridnestrovian side.
By that time, the guards managed to capture three T-64 tanks of the 59th motorized rifle division of the 14th army and head towards the Bendery bridge. At the bridge, five more T-64s joined the three tanks, after which the attack on Bendery began. At 20 pm, a major battle took place on the bridge using tanks and artillery. There are several versions of the fight at the bridge; according to the Moldovan version, the Transnistrians launched a massive infantry attack supported by Russian tanks; according to the Pridnestrovian version, the guards independently attacked the bridge using equipment received from the 14th Army.
According to Romanian and Moldovan experts, without the intervention of the 14th Army, Transnistria would have lost the battle and the war. The entry into the battle of the previously neutral army not only ended the "hot phase" of the conflict, but also ensured the victory of the Pridnestrovians. One of the reasons for the intervention of the 14th Army on the side of Transnistria, and not Moldova, according to Moldovan experts, was the fact that the Moldovan troops could not take control of Dubossary and Bender in the spring of 1992 and gain a foothold in them.
Beginning of street fighting in Bendery
At the war museum in Bendery
After the battle on the bridge, the guard formations defeated two Moldovan batteries on the right bank of the Dniester and went to the city executive committee on Suvorov Street, where one of the Pridnestrovian detachments was located. The Moldavian side lost control over the bridge, which allowed the guards and units of the 14th Army to penetrate the city, connect with the police and guards already in it, and reach the center of Bender by 2 am on June 22. Chaotic fighting began in the city, a large-scale clash between Transnistrian tanks and Moldovan armored vehicles took place on Suvorov Street. Both Moldovan and Transnistrian sides made extensive use of artillery and armored vehicles. At the same time, the exodus of refugees from the city began. Part of the civilians crossed the Dniester bridge and ended up in areas controlled by the PMR, the other part left Bendery for safe areas of Moldova.
By the end of the day, the Moldovan side controlled the south of the city (in particular, the settlements south of Bender and the Leninsky microdistrict), the blocks adjacent to the police station, and the blocks located between the south of Bender and the police station. By the middle of the day on June 22, a "front line" appeared in Bendery, separating the parties. A Moldavian mortar battery was located on Suvorovskaya Mountain, shelling the territories controlled by the guards.
Effects
Later events and political significance
After the Moldovan forces were pushed to the outskirts of Bender, street fighting continued for several more weeks. Both sides actively used artillery and snipers, and also carried out raids and sorties on enemy positions. On the Moldovan side, an unsuccessful attempt was made to bombard the bridge across the Dniester by the Air Force. Although the air raid did not have the expected results and the bridge remained intact, it came as a surprise to the PMR authorities and alerted Tiraspol. During the second flight the next day, one MiG-29 of the Moldovan Air Force, according to unconfirmed reports from the Russian side, was shot down.
From the second half of 1992, with the mediation of Russia, negotiations began on the status of Transnistria, since 1993. According to the President of the PMR, Igor Smirnov, there were 342 dead and 672 wounded in Bendery (perhaps only residents of the city were meant). According to other sources, 489 people died in Bendery, of which 132 were civilians, 5 were children. 1242 people were injured, of which 698 were civilians, 18 were children. According to the data of the Memorial Society and the Transnistrian side, the number of dead is as follows: 203 people, of which 169 are members of the armed formations or the guards of the PMR, 34 people (of which 10 are women) are civilians. 245 people were injured, including 73 women and 13 children. According to Memorial and the Moldovan side, 77 people died, of which 37 were civilians. 532 people were injured, 184 of them were civilians. The number of refugees who left the city is estimated at 100,000, of which 80,000 were registered in Transnistria.
During the fighting, about 1280 residential buildings were damaged and destroyed, of which 60 were completely destroyed. Also, 15 health facilities and 19 education facilities, 5 multi-storey residential buildings of the state housing stock were destroyed, 603 state houses were partially damaged. 46 industrial, transport and construction enterprises were damaged. In general, the city suffered damage in excess of 10,000,000,000 rubles at 1992 prices.
Criminal offenses and violation of human rights
Both sides of the conflict claim massive human rights violations in the Bendery region in June-July 1992. In addition to robberies and robberies, the parties accuse each other of targeted executions of the civilian population (including women, the elderly and children). Snipers and the fight against them brought significant inconvenience to both sides. Due to the constant sniper and mortar shelling of the city, local residents could not bury the dead in cemeteries, so they were buried in the yards. To eliminate snipers, the Pridnestrovian Guard opened fire from grenade launchers on the upper floors of residential buildings, which led to civilian casualties.
The prosecutor's office of Moldova and the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the republic recognize the fact of the robbery of the city by Moldovan volunteers, volunteers from abroad and self-defense units. To combat the illegal export of property from the city, patrols were placed on the roads, detaining freight transport and inspecting cargo. According to the statements of the Pridnestrovian leadership, there were facts of violence against the civilian population from the Moldovan side. Thus, violence against graduates of Bendery schools was reported (battles in Bendery coincided with graduation parties in Moldova and Transnistria) and targeted shooting at civilians. This information has not been confirmed by anything, and Moldova denies it
Notes
- On April 2, 1992, the Russian Federation announced that the 14th Army stationed in Transnistria belongs to it
Everything has just been...
25 years ago, on June 19, 1992, Moldovan nationalists invaded the city of Bendery using tanks, artillery, and aircraft. The most natural war began in Transnistria, the active part of which continued until June 23, in fact, the conflict was completely stopped only on August 1. Over these days according to various sources, about five hundred Pridnestrovians died, more than a thousand were injured, tens of thousands became refugees.
The battle for Bender was the culmination of that war. In terms of the duration of full-scale hostilities, their severity, and the number of victims, the Transnistrian conflict was, of course, the “softest” of the series of wars that tore apart the outskirts of the USSR after the collapse of the Union. What is common with what happened in Nagorno-Karabakh, Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and now also in the Donbass are the reasons that gave rise to these conflicts. As well as their consequences and the fact that they cannot be resolved even today, a quarter of a century after those events, on the contrary, the contradictions are only deepening, threatening to unfreeze the war at any moment.
The Transnistrian conflict began during the existence of the Soviet Union. In fact, its beginning coincided with the course taken by the Chisinau nationalist authorities to leave the USSR and join Romania. The formation of Moldovan, or rather, then rather - Romanian nationalism in Moldova, began back in the late 80s with requirements to recognize identity Moldovan and Romanian , as well as to translate the Moldovan language into Latin script and make it the state language. Then there were demands
Then all this logically and quickly grew into the demands of “suitcase-station-Russia!”, “throw the occupiers across the Dniester!”, into “we are Romanians, period!”.
Of course, on the right bank of the Dniester they did not want to endure this, and September 2 1990 at the II Extraordinary Congress of Deputies of all levels of Pridnestrovie was proclaimedPridnestrovian Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic within the USSR.
The first shots were fired already in November 1990, when three people were killed as a result of clashes on the Dubossary bridge. From that moment, the parallel formation of paramilitary groups of both sides began, clashes between which regularly occurred for the next two years, the escalation grew.
The battles for Bendery in June 1992 became the apotheosis.
The day before, on June 18, the Moldovan parliamentarians, together with the Pridnestrovian deputies, approved the basic principles of a peaceful settlement. However, the government of Moldova, obviously, sought to first suppress the resistance of the Transnistrian people, and only then to negotiate from a position of strength. On June 19, taking advantage of the provoked conflict at the printing house, the forces of the Moldovan army, police and volunteer fighters, supported by armored vehicles and artillery, entered Bendery.
By the dawn of the 20th, they managed to capture the key points of the city and reach the bridge across the Dniester, cutting off the city from the rest of Transnistria.
For four days there were heavy street battles in the city, the city was shelled from mortars, snipers worked, the streets were mined. The result was a huge number of civilian casualties. residents. There was no way to cleancorpses lying on the streets, lying on the streets, which in the 30-degree heat created a threat of an epidemic, the dead were buried right in the yards. They say that the occupiers behaved like their Romanian predecessors during the Great Patriotic War: they looted, robbed and killed civilians.
On that day, graduation parties were celebrated in Bendery schools. There is chilling evidence of how Nazi fighters shot schoolchildren and raped graduates. “The shot graduation” became, along with the “Bendery tragedy”, one of the symbolic names of the events of those days.
25 years have passed. Those Bendery graduates who survived that bloody graduation have long had their own children, many of whom have long graduated from schools. For a long time, those who were born later than those events, who were born in the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic, have been raising children for a long time. Who knew neither the friendship of the peoples of the times of the Union, when Russians, Moldovans and Ukrainians lived on the banks of the Dniester as one friendly family, and it never occurred to anyone to demand that a neighbor speak a different language, nor war, when yesterday's neighbors, brutalized with blood and impunity, came with weapons to peaceful cities.
I personally know several such people who were born in Transnistria after 1992. They know one Motherland - the PMR. Well, and, of course, Russia. For them, any talk about unification with Moldova is like offering the inhabitants of the Russian Far East to join Japan. Wildness!
This is a different country! For more than 25 years, Pridnestrovie and Moldova have been different countries. Together they emerged from the world's first state of workers and peasants, and at the same time built a new life, a capitalist economy. But they built two different states, with a different understanding of not only a common history, but also with a different vision of the future.
One became the heir to the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic - MSSR. No wonder the word "Moldovan" is present in the name of the PMR, and the Moldavian language is one of the three state languages. There is not, was not and will not be close to any kind of ethnic hatred, which was present in Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Karabakh. Even the coat of arms and the flag of the PMR almost exactly repeat the coat of arms and the flag of the MSSR.
And the second one proclaimed a course towards joining Romania, declared Bessarabia to be torn away by Romanian territories (one of the first initiatives of the Popular Front of Moldova that came to power was the denunciation of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, which gave rise to the statehood of the MSSR, which legally deprived Chisinau of claims to the territory that had never been part of Romania Transnistria). The second began to teach their children not the history of the Moldovans, but the history of the Romanians, declared the language of the neighboring country the state language, took the coat of arms and the flag of Romania.
Two opposite worlds located on a small patch. Probably, they simply could not help but collide sooner or later, just as post-Maidan Ukraine, pumped up with hatred for everything Russian, and Novorossiya, which preserved the historical memory, could not but collide. The Moldo-Pridnestrovian conflict was one of the first in the post-Soviet space, having begun, in fact, even when both sides were part of a single state, but it remains unfinished to this day.
It is not legally completed. The conflict, as they say, is frozen. For many years, the 5+2 format has been working on its resolution: Pridnestrovie, Moldova, OSCE, Russia and Ukraine, the USA and the European Union (by the way, that the Minsk talking shop "can last for an infinitely long time), but things are still there. Only peacekeepers are standing on the former line of contact. But a formal solution to the conflict has not yet been found. The whole world, including Russia, recognizes the territorial integrity of Moldova, the whole world, except for Transnistria, to which this territorial integrity does not actually apply in any way.
The republic has been living its own life for a quarter of a century, having built a full-fledged state that did not separate from Moldova, like the Donbass from Ukraine after more than 20 years of joint independence, but formed in parallel with Moldova. Yes, Pridnestrovie today continues to be heavily dependent on Russia, but this is not its fault, this is not due to inefficiency (given that almost the entire industry of the MSSR remained on the territory of Pridnestrovie, the efficiency could be great), but because of the blockade, in which The republic has been in fact since its birth. And it, having no border with Russia (like Abkhazia and South Ossetia, or like Karabakh with Armenia containing it), survives as best it can. Legally, this is Moldova, but in fact there is nothing Moldovan there, except for the language and the word in the name of the state.
The conflict is not completed not only legally, but also mentally. This means that the reasons that gave rise to it have not gone away, which means that it is impossible to talk about any completion. Freeze only. Joe of that moment until someone thinks of unfreezing him and turning him into a full-fledged war.
What was done by Chisinau in order to eliminate the reasons why Pridnestrovie did not want to live with it in the same country? Nothing! Yes, after the departure of the Popular Front, the rhetoric changed. The ideas of "unionism" (unification with Romania) have become less popular, in any case, they have ceased to be almost the official state ideology, which they were in the early 90s. With the coming to power of Voronin and the PCRM for almost ten years, there was a rollback from Romanian nationalism to Moldovan, and the "communist" authorities, knowing full well that the claims of Bucharest and the "unionists" can only be dealt with with the help of Russia, actively flirting with Moscow and supporting integration with Russia voters.
In particular, the hostile rhetoric towards Pridnestrovie has gone. Voronin even almost signed the PMR reintegration plan, known as the "Kozak plan", which would allow creating a de facto federal state in which Pridnestrovie would not feel like a stranger, could influence the adoption of fateful decisions, and the Russian military base would become a guarantor of that there will never be more clashes on the banks of the Dniester. But Voronin caved in under pressure from the West and did not sign the then analogue of today's Minsk agreements on Donbass. So, the conflict, albeit in a frozen form, continued. Moreover, it was under Voronin that the very blockade began in collusion with Ukraine, where the Russophobic “Orange Revolution” won, which has only become tougher all these years.
And the “communists” were replaced by “non-Europeans”, who did not hide their unionist convictions and hostility towards Pridnestrovie. In fact, the rhetoric of the early 90s returned, only under the “sauce” of “European integration”. Opponents were no longer threatened to be drowned in the Dniester, they were promised "carrots" in the form of visa-free travel with Europe, and so on. At the same time, the "whip" did not go away: the blockade became even tougher, which was greatly facilitated by the coup d'état in Ukraine and the Nazi junta's coming to power there. It's just that the scenery has changed a bit. The essence remains: absorption, deprivation of the right to one's own language, history, the right to decide with whom to be friends, with whom to integrate, and whom to call the aggressor, etc. Again, the analogy with Ukraine comes to mind. Only in Transnistria, they don't shoot at the line of demarcation.
They don't shoot because our peacekeepers are there. One "hero" has already tried to shoot at Russian peacekeepers - in the end he got what he deserved.
Nevertheless, the demand for the withdrawal of peacekeepers, who, by the way, mandated by the OSCE and under UN supervision have been going on for the third decade. Russian peacekeepers for Tiraspol guarantee that June 19, 1992 will not happen again. For Chisinau, the main irritating factor that prevents them from “integrating into Europe. That is, they say, withdraw the peacekeepers, and the conflict will be automatically resolved. Again, the analogy with Ukraine, whose politicians say that the transfer of control over the border to Kyiv will mean the end of the conflict.
Yeah. We know how they plan to complete it. They would be embarrassed to openly discuss the schemes of assimilation of the inhabitants of Donbass, “cleansing” and forcible Ukrainization of “quilted jackets” on the air of their television.
Of course, Chisinau officials have not come to this. But the meaning is about the same. About what “European integration” is like when Russia is far away and cannot help, those who survived that “bloody graduation” 25 years ago are well understood.
Since then, apart from the rhetoric, absolutely nothing has changed. And today, Chisinau politicians talk about the lack of alternatives to the "reintegration" of Transnistria without any preconditions. Alas, the recently elected president, who is considered “pro-Russian”, Igor Dodon, who first made a trip to the long-suffering Bendery to meet with his Pridnestrovian colleague, and then again turned on the record about “reintegration”, in solidarity with the anti-Russian government and the Moldovan parliament, is forced to subscribe to this.
However, the newly elected president of Transnistria, Vadim Krasnoselsky, immediately made it clear that there could be no talk of "reintegration". Pridnestrovie is a separate state, the inhabitants of which unambiguously spoke out at the referendum, and even earlier justified their aspirations with blood.
Vicious circle. This can go on indefinitely. And no real desire for rapprochement from the right bank of the Dniester is visible. There is only the desire to impose one's will. There is not even repentance for what happened 25 years ago. And it cannot exist until a government appears in Moldova, which will be guided by other ideological guidelines than its predecessors throughout the years of the existence of the newest Moldovan statehood.
This means that the tragedy of Bendery will stand between the inhabitants of the banks of the Dniester as an insurmountable wall. And the risk of its repetition will make the prospect of unification even more vague and distant, if not impossible.
Please note that the following extremist and terrorist organizations are banned in the Russian Federation: Jehovah's Witnesses, National Bolshevik Party, Right Sector, Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), Islamic State (IS, ISIS, DAISH) , "Jabhat Fath ash-Sham", "Jabhat an-Nusra", "Al-Qaeda", "UNA-UNSO", "Taliban", "Majlis of the Crimean Tatar people", "Misanthropic Division", "Brotherhood" Korchinsky, "Trident them. Stepan Bandera", "Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists" (OUN).
On June 19, 1992, columns of armored vehicles, heavily armed policemen and soldiers of the national army of the Republic of Moldova entered the peaceful city of Bendery on the right bank of the Dniester from three directions, and opened fire to destroy everything that surrounded them. According to eyewitnesses, the Moldovan units entering the city fired from heavy machine guns mounted on armored personnel carriers at residential buildings and yards where civilians were hiding at that moment, at civilian cars with people. The fire was also fired at citizens who were leaving the city, people who were trying to help the wounded defenders of the city. Moldovan nationalists entered Bendery to restore the so-called "constitutional order" here. This is how the tragedy began, dividing the life of the townspeople into "before" and "after" the tragedy of the city.
The attack on the city involved: the forces of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (the police and the OPON brigade), the national army (1st, 3rd and 4th motorized infantry battalions), self-defense units and volunteers from Romania, the Baltic countries, etc. Over the night from 19 on June 20, Moldovan troops occupied almost the entire city. At 4 o'clock in the morning, the 1st battalion of the Moldavian army went to the Bendery bridge, blocked it and thus cut off Bendery from Tiraspol and the left bank of the Dniester. On June 20, Moldovan troops began to occupy industrial enterprises and other objects of the city.
The 2nd Bendery battalion, four motorized brigades, special purpose brigades "Delta" and "Dniester", guardsmen of the PMR, Cossacks of the Black Sea Cossack army, territorial rescue teams, militias and volunteers from Russia, Ukraine and other countries fought on the side of the defenders of the city. The 59th rifle division and the missile brigade of the 14th army of Russia, which was stationed in Transnistria, also participated in the battles for Bendery.
Intervention in the conflict by the 14th Army came after two major incidents in Bendery on 20 June. However, it was possible to repulse the attack of the Moldovan army and police, to stop the atrocities in the city only after Major General Alexander Lebed took command of the 14th Army of the Russian Federation and, on his orders, Russian tanks and other military equipment entered the battle. The fighting lasted until July 7, when plenipotentiaries of the President of Russia arrived in Pridnestrovie and on the same day a ceasefire agreement was signed, and on July 21 in Moscow, the presidents of the Russian Federation and the Republic of Moldova signed an agreement "On the principles for resolving the armed conflict in Pridneprovsky region of the Republic of Moldova".
The events in Bendery are assessed by its inhabitants only as "the tragedy of the city." During the invasion of barbarian nationalists, about 1280 residential buildings were damaged, of which 60 were completely destroyed. Many residential buildings and industrial enterprises were looted, equipment and raw materials were taken away, more than 1,600 apartments were destroyed. 15 healthcare facilities and 19 education facilities were destroyed. Some neighborhoods were completely razed to the ground along with the residents. In fact, almost the entire infrastructure of the city was destroyed. In general, the city suffered damage in excess of 10 trillion rubles at 1992 prices.
As a result of the tragedy in Bendery, according to the authorities, more than 350 citizens were killed and 672 injured - all civilians. They killed everyone: Russians, Moldavians, Ukrainians, Bulgarians, Gagauz and others who came to hand. They killed with particular cruelty and mercilessness: there were cases of burning alive, scalping, some of the dead had parts of their bodies cut off, eyes gouged out. The so-called "volunteers" - bandits released from prisons who killed defenseless children, boys and girls - were especially outrageous. Actively "worked" were snipers - sportswomen in bullet shooting from the Baltic republics, who killed civilians with accurate shots to the head.
The number of refugees who left the city is estimated at 100 thousand people, of which 80 thousand were registered in Transnistria.
The scale of the tragedy is incalculable, cannot be described by dry statistics. Hundreds of dead and wounded. Among them are civilians, women, old people, children. Destroyed, scorched city. People left homeless. Tens of thousands of refugees. Multimillion dollar property damage.
On the other hand, in the days of the invasion of Bendery by Moldovan nationalists, the people of Bendery showed courage and steadfastness in defending their hometown. In 1997, for the courage and heroism shown by the people of Berden to protect the gains of the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic, the city was awarded the highest award of the state - the Order of the Republic.
Today, the city is healing its wounds, which will take decades. As one of the residents of the city of Babilung noted, "the blood that was shed here will rage for a long time. It is absolutely unthinkable and even harmful for our generation, which looked at each other through the sight, to solve something. Only our grandchildren will be able to do it." And so many people think. That is, there is no and never will be forgiveness for the aggressor, his crimes do not have a statute of limitations.
But what about Chisinau? In all likelihood, revanchist sentiments are ripening there in relation to Bendery and the entire Transnistria. This is evidenced, in particular, by the speech at the funeral rally on March 2, 2013 on the occasion of the 21st anniversary of the start of the military conflict on the Dniester, President of the Republic of Moldova Nikolai Timofti, in which he called on current politicians "to do everything to return the territory of the left bank (that is, the PMR) into the constitutional space of Moldova". What kind of "everything" this will be - peaceful or such as in June 1992 in Bendery, President Timofti did not specify this.
In the meantime, in the first place - the withdrawal of Russian troops from Transnistria. On the eve of the president's speech, the new Moldovan ambassador to Russia, appointed in December 2012, Andrey Galbur, said: "We are in favor of the complete withdrawal of Russian troops from Moldova in accordance with international obligations." According to him, Chisinau intends to replace the peacekeeping forces with an international civilian mission.
In turn, President of the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic Yevgeny Shevchuk, commenting on the proposal to replace the "Russian blue helmets" with a mission of civilian observers, once again stated that "Pridnestrovie is against the withdrawal of Russian peacekeepers until the final political settlement of the conflict on the Dniester."
"The task of the Blue Helmets is to prevent new bloodshed. And they fulfill it with honor," the Pridnestrovian leader stressed. Moreover, he spoke in favor of strengthening Russia's peacekeeping contingent.
