Exactly 10 years ago, on March 1, 2000, the 6th company of the 104th Guards Airborne Regiment almost completely died in the Argun Gorge. At the cost of their lives, our fighters stopped the advance of a Chechen gang of up to 2,000 guns. This drama unfolded like this.

After the fall of Grozny in early February 2000, a large group of Chechen fighters retreated to Shatoisky district Chechnya, where on February 9 it was blocked by federal troops. Part of the militants managed to break out of the encirclement: Gelaev’s group broke through in a northwestern direction to the village of Komsomolskoye ( Urus-Martanovsky district), and the Khattab group - in the north-east direction through Ulus-Kert (Shatoi region), where the battle took place. A consolidated detachment of paratroopers under the command of Guards Lieutenant Colonel Mark Evtyukhin was tasked with taking a line four kilometers southeast of Ulus-Kert by 1400 on February 29, 2000 in order to prevent a possible breakthrough of militants in the direction of Vedeno. In the early morning of February 29, the 6th company of the 104th Guards Regiment, an airborne platoon and a regimental reconnaissance group began to advance towards Ulus-Kert. At 12.30 the reconnaissance patrol came into combat contact with a bandit group of about 20 militants. Evtyukhin ordered the 6th company to gain a foothold on the dominant height of 776. At 23.25, the bandits launched a massive attack. Their number, according to various sources, was estimated from 1.5 to 2.5 thousand trunks. The leaders of the bandits several times offered the paratroopers to let them through in exchange for saving lives. But this issue was not even discussed among the fighters.

Feat at height 776

At five in the morning on March 1, despite huge losses, the bandits broke into the positions of the company. Guard Lieutenant Colonel Yevtyukhin in this situation made a courageous decision and called the fire of the regimental artillery on himself. Hundreds of bandits were burned in the fiery hell. But only a few of our guys survived. They talked about the last minutes of the dead.

The commander of the reconnaissance platoon of the Guards, Senior Lieutenant Alexei Vorobyov, in a fierce battle, personally destroyed the field commander Idris, decapitating the gang. The commander of a self-propelled artillery battery of the guard, Captain Viktor Romanov, was blown off both legs by a mine explosion. But until the last minute of his life, he corrected the fire of artillery. Guards Private Yevgeny Vladykin was beaten until he lost consciousness in hand-to-hand combat with the militants. I woke up, half-dressed and unarmed, at the positions of the bandits. He beat off his light machine gun and made his way to his own.

So each of the 84 paratroopers fought. Subsequently, all of them were permanently listed in the 104th Guards Regiment, 22 paratroopers were awarded the title of Heroes of Russia (21 posthumously), and 63 were awarded the Order of Courage (posthumously). One of the streets of Grozny is named after 84 Pskov paratroopers.

Will we know the truth?

Relatives and friends of the victims immediately after the tragedy demanded from the state an answer to simple and natural questions: how could intelligence squander such a cluster of militants in the Ulus-Kert area? Why, during such a long battle, the command could not send sufficient reinforcements to the dying company?

In the memorandum of the then Commander of the Airborne Forces, Colonel-General Georgy Shpak to the Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation Igor Sergeyev, the answer to them is: difficult terrain conditions did not bring success. What is behind this phrase? According to many experts, the high dedication of the lower combat level and incomprehensible inconsistencies in the highest. At 3 o'clock in the morning on March 1, a reinforcement platoon was able to break through to the encircled, which was headed by Deputy Yevtyukhin of the Guard, Major Alexander Dostavalov, who later died along with the 6th company. But why only one platoon?

The fighters of the 1st company of the battalion also sought to help their comrades. But during the crossing of the Abazulgol River, they were ambushed and were forced to gain a foothold on the shore. Only on the morning of March 2 did the 1st company manage to break through. But it was too late - the 6th company was killed. What did the higher command do on March 1 and 2, why weren't more powerful reinforcements sent to this area? Could the 6th company be saved? If yes, then who is to blame for the fact that this was not done?

There are suggestions that the passage from the Argun Gorge to Dagestan was purchased by the militants from high-ranking federal leaders. “All police checkpoints were removed from the only road leading to Dagestan,” the newspapers wrote at the time. The price for the corridor for the retreat was also called - half a million dollars. According to Vladimir Vorobyov, the father of the deceased Senior Lieutenant Alexei Vorobyov, “Commander Melentiev asked for permission to withdraw the company, but the commander of the Eastern Group, General Makarov, did not give permission for the retreat.” Vladimir Svartsevich, a military observer, director of the photo service of the Moscow bureau of the AiF, argued in an article that "there was a frank betrayal of the guys by specific officials."

On March 2, 2000, the military prosecutor's office of Khankala launched an investigation into this case, which was then sent to the Directorate of the Prosecutor General's Office of the Russian Federation for the Investigation of Crimes in the Sphere of Federal Security and Interethnic Relations in the North Caucasus. At the same time, the investigation established that “the actions of military officials, including the command of the Joint Group of Troops (Forces) ... in the performance of duties for the preparation, organization and conduct of combat by units of the 104th paratrooper regiment do not constitute a crime.” Soon the case was closed by Deputy Prosecutor General S. N. Fridinsky. However, questions remained, and over the past 10 years no one bothered to answer them.

"Inconvenient" Heroes

The attitude of the authorities towards the memory of the hero paratroopers is also surprising. It seems that the state, having hastily buried and awarded them in 2000, tried to forget about the "inconvenient" heroes as quickly as possible. At the state level, nothing has been done to perpetuate the memory of their feat. There is not even a monument to the Pskov paratroopers. The parents of the dead children experience a disdainful attitude on the part of the state.

“Many single mothers, each of whom gave their only son to the Motherland, have a lot of problems today,” the mother of the deceased paratrooper Lyudmila Petrovna Pakhomova told me, “but the authorities do not hear us, they do not help. In fact, she betrayed the guys twice. And 10 years ago, when I left without help one on one with a 20-fold superior enemy. And today, when he prefers to consign to oblivion their feat.

The country that sent these guys into battle did not allocate a penny, and for a documentary film about the 6th company - "Russian Victim". It was shown on the eve of the 10th anniversary of the feat of the Pskov paratroopers at the Moscow cinema "Khudozhestvenny". Relatives of the dead were invited to this event from different parts of Russia. But the public organizations of veterans of the special services "Combat Brotherhood" and "Rus" paid for the travel and stay in Moscow. Just like making the film itself.

- About this feat of the paratroopers, - the director of the film "Russian Victim" Elena Lyapicheva told me, - the films "I have the Honor", "Breakthrough" had already been created before. These are good films about the truth of the Chechen war, about the heroism of soldiers. At the same time, the images of the main characters in them are collective, and the films are created with great artistic fiction. The film "Russian Victim" reflects real heroes, real names are preserved. The script was compiled according to the stories of miraculously surviving soldiers of the 6th company, relatives of the dead paratroopers. The film reveals the "kitchen" of the betrayal of the 6th company and the interests of Russia in general by some state and military officials. The film is based on the real diary of Senior Lieutenant Alexei Vorobyov. This is a parallel line - the officer's thoughts about the history of Russia and its present day, about betrayal and honor, about cowardice and heroism. Unlike other works that reveal the feat of the Pskov paratroopers, the film "Russian Victim" tells not so much about the military, but about the spiritual feat of the heroes. This film is a reflection on the deep spiritual meaning of the military oath, on faith and fidelity, on the history of the Russian people, in which the feat of Russian soldiers always shines with a bright light, on the ways of the national and spiritual revival of Russia.

It seems that with human, earthly understanding it is impossible to comprehend where these boys drew strength of mind from. But when you learn the story of their short life, it becomes clear what kind of power it is and where it comes from.

Most of the guys are hereditary warriors, many are from the Cossack family, their ancestors served in the Cossack troops, some in the Don, some in the Kuban, some in the Siberian. And the Cossacks have always been the defenders of the Russian land. Here, for example, is the fate of Senior Lieutenant Alexei Vorobyov. Being from a family of hereditary Cossacks, he spent his childhood in a Siberian village. Even at school, he differed from his peers in his depth, romance, faith, love for Russia and its history. At the age of 14, he wrote in his diary: “I am proud that I am a Russian Cossack. All my ancestors, be that as it may, served Russia, fought for the Faith, the Tsar and the Fatherland. I also want to dedicate my life to the Motherland, as my Cossack ancestors did.”

And the state refused to allocate funds for a story about such patriots. The film was made without state support, as they say, in clubbing, on the pennies of ordinary people. Huge thanks to them. Many thanks for the help to the Governor of the Moscow Region, Chairman of the All-Russian Public Organization of Veterans "Combat Brotherhood" Boris Gromov, the former commander of the Airborne Forces Valery Yevtukhovich, and the personnel of the 76th Airborne Assault Chernigov Red Banner Division.

People's Artists of Russia Lyudmila Zaitseva, Alexander Mikhailov, Aristarkh Livanov, real fighters and paratrooper officers, relatives and friends of the victims were filmed in the film.

In a conversation with me, Lyudmila Zaitseva, who played the role of the mother of paratrooper Roman Pakhomov, emphasized:

- In our time, when moral guidelines are often knocked down, the feat of these guys is the most important guideline so that each of us can adjust our life course. He teaches us not to sag in the difficult, sometimes vile circumstances of modern life, where meanness and betrayal often reign, so that we remain human even in inhuman conditions. The film also tells about the feat of mothers and fathers who raised such children and blessed them to defend the Fatherland. Low bow to them!

“These 18-19-year-old boys fought with 35-40-year-old thugs,” continued the conversation with actor Alexander Ermakov, who played the role of his brother paratrooper Oleg Ermakov, “who were trained in sabotage camps around the world. Moreover, they were not afraid to go hand-to-hand, they chopped the bandits with sapper shovels, and when they were surrounded by superior enemy forces, they exploded grenades on their chests. When our units arrived at the place of the unequal battle, the battered officers knelt down and wept in front of the mutilated bodies of the courageous paratroopers. And the commander of the Marine Corps in Chechnya, Major General Alexander Otrakovsky, could not stand his heart, and he suddenly died after learning the details of this battle. The drama of what happened was intensified by the fact that many guessed, and some knew for sure, about the betrayal of individual generals associated with the part of the Moscow oligarchy rushing to power, which is directly stated in the film.

The memory of the feat of the Pskov paratroopers is needed first of all by us, who are left to live on this sinful earth. Where else can we draw strength, if not in the fact that we are compatriots and co-religionists of these guys. They, who went through hell on earth and became truly immortal, when trouble comes to us, when our hands give up, will help us live honestly and overcome difficulties.

This material stands out from a number of other materials in this section of our site. There is no detailed portrait of one person here. This is a collective portrait of the feat of 90 Russian soldiers and officers who simply fulfilled their military duty to the Motherland. And yet this feat shows an example of the strength of the human spirit and inspires. Especially against the background of meanness and betrayal, which took place at the same time, in the same place, and became one of the causes of the tragedy.

Khattab paid $500,000 for getting out of the encirclement. But the 6th company of the 104th Guards Airborne Regiment stood in his way. 2,500 Chechen fighters attacked 90 Pskov paratroopers.

It happened eleven years ago, on March 1, 2000. But Sergei Sh., an officer of the Special Purpose Unit (OSNAZ) of the Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) of the General Staff, had more than just a memory. In his words, “for history”, he kept separate copies of documents with records of radio intercepts in the Argun Gorge. From conversations on the air, the death of the 6th company appears in a completely different way than the generals have been saying all these years.

Paratroopers of the 6th company in the Argun Gorge. Photo and documentary video below.

That winter, the scouts-"hearers" from OSNAZ rejoiced. The "Shaitans" were driven out of Grozny and surrounded near Shatoi. In the Argun Gorge, the Chechen fighters were supposed to arrange a "little Stalingrad". About 10 thousand bandits were in the mountain "boiler". Sergey says that in those days it was impossible to sleep.

Everything rumbled around. Day and night the terrorists were "ironed" by our artillery. And on February 9, Su-24 front-line bombers, for the first time during the operation in Chechnya, dropped volume-detonating aerial bombs weighing one and a half tons on militants in the Argun Gorge. From these "one and a half" bandits suffered huge damage. With fright, they screamed on the air, interfering with Russian and Chechen words:

- Rusnya used a prohibited weapon. After the hellish explosions from the Nokhchi, not even ashes remain.

And then came the tearful pleas for help. The leaders of the militants surrounded in the Argun Gorge, in the name of Allah, called on their "brothers" in Moscow and Grozny not to spare money. The first goal is to stop dropping "inhumane vacuum" bombs on Ichkeria. The second is to buy a corridor for access to Dagestan.

From the "aquarium" - the headquarters of the GRU - the commandos in the Caucasus received a particularly secret task: to record all the negotiations not only of the militants, but also of our command around the clock. Agents reported on the planned conspiracy.

On the last day of February, Sergei recalls, we managed to intercept a radio conversation between Khattab and Basayev:

- If there are dogs in front (as the militants called representatives of the internal troops), we can agree.

- No, they are goblins (that is, paratroopers, in the jargon of bandits).

Then Basayev advises the Black Arab, who led the breakthrough:

- Listen, can we go around? They won't let us in, we'll just find ourselves...

- No, - Khattab answers, - we will cut them. I paid 500 thousand US dollars for the passage. And these goblin jackals were set up by the bosses to cover their tracks.

And yet, at the insistence of Shamil Basayev, they first went on the radio to the commander of the battalion, Lieutenant Colonel Mark Yevtyukhin, who was in the 6th company, with a proposal to let their column “in a good way”.

“There are a lot of us here, ten times more than you. Why are you in trouble, Commander? Night, fog - no one will notice, and we will pay very well, - exhorted in turn either Idris or Abu Walid - field commanders from especially close to Khattab.

But in response there was such a virtuoso obscenity that the radio talks quickly stopped. And off we go...

6th company, 90 against 2500 - they resisted!

The attacks came in waves. And not mental ones, as in the film "Chapaev", but dushman ones. Using the mountainous terrain, the militants were selected almost closely. And then the fight turned into hand-to-hand combat. In the course were bayonet-knives, sapper shovels, metal butts of “bitches” (a shortened landing version of the Kalashnikov assault rifle, with a folding butt).

The commander of the reconnaissance platoon of the Guards, Senior Lieutenant Alexei Vorobyov, in a fierce battle, personally destroyed the field commander Idris, decapitating the gang. The commander of a self-propelled artillery battery of the guard, Captain Viktor Romanov, was blown off both legs by a mine explosion. But until the last minute of his life, he corrected the fire of artillery.

The company fought, holding the height, for 20 hours. Two battalions of "White Angels" - Khattab and Basayev - pulled up to the militants. 2500 vs 90.

Of the 90 paratroopers of the company, 84 died. Later, 22 were awarded the title of Heroes of Russia (21 posthumously), and 63 were awarded the Order of Courage (posthumously). One of the streets of Grozny is named after 84 Pskov paratroopers.

The Khattabites lost 457 selected fighters, but they could not break through to Selmentauzen and further to Vedeno. From there the road to Dagestan was already open. By high order, all checkpoints were removed from it. So, Khattab did not lie. He actually bought the passage for half a million bucks.

Sergei pulls out a spent cartridge case from a bookshelf. And without words it is clear from there. Then he dumps a pile of papers on the table. He quotes the former commander of the group in Chechnya, General Gennady Troshev: “I often ask myself a painful question: was it possible to avoid such losses, did we do everything to save the paratroopers? After all, your duty, General, is to take care of saving lives first of all. No matter how hard it is to realize, but, probably, we didn’t do everything then.

The Hero of Russia is not for us to judge. He died in a plane crash. But until the last, his conscience apparently tormented him. After all, according to the intelligence officers, during their reports from February 29 to March 2, the commander did not understand anything. He poisoned himself with scorched vodka from the Mozdok spill.

For the death of paratrooper heroes, the "switchman" was then punished: the commander of the regiment, Melentiev, was transferred to Ulyanovsk as the chief of staff of the brigade. The commander of the eastern group, General Makarov, remained on the sidelines (Melentiev asked him six times to give the company the opportunity to retreat, not to destroy the guys) and another general, Lentsov, who led the task force of the Airborne Forces.

In the same March days, when the 6th company had not yet been buried, Chief of the General Staff Anatoly Kvashnin, like other well-known generals of the last Chechen war - Viktor Kazantsev, Gennady Troshev and Vladimir Shamanov, visited the capital of Dagestan. There they received from the hands of the local mayor Said Amirov silver Kubachi checkers and diplomas on conferring on them the title of "Honorary Citizen of the City of Makhachkala". Against the background of the huge losses suffered by the Russian troops, this looked extremely inappropriate and tactless.

The scout takes another piece of paper from the table. In the memorandum of the then commander of the Airborne Forces, Colonel-General Georgy Shpak, to the Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation Igor Sergeyev, the general's excuses are again: “Attempts by the command of the operational group of the Airborne Forces, PTGr (regimental tactical group) of the 104th Guards PDP to release the encircled grouping due to heavy fire from bandit formations and difficult conditions areas did not bring success.

What is behind this phrase? According to the staff member, this is the heroism of the soldiers and officers of the 6th company and still incomprehensible inconsistencies in the highest echelon of leadership. Why didn't help come to the paratroopers in time? At 3 o'clock in the morning on March 1, a reinforcement platoon was able to break through to the encircled, which was headed by Deputy Yevtyukhin of the Guard, Major Alexander Dostavalov, who later died along with the 6th company. But why only one platoon?

“It’s scary to talk about it,” Sergei picks up another document. - But two-thirds of our paratroopers died from the fire of their artillery. I was on March 6 at this height. There, the old beeches are beveled like an oblique. Nona mortars and regimental artillery fired about 1,200 rounds of ammunition at this place in the Argun Gorge. And it is not true that Mark Evtyukhin allegedly said on the radio: "I am calling fire on myself." In fact, he shouted: “You goats, you betrayed us, bitches!”

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