In the war in Afghanistan, a Hero Star was promised for a captured sample of an American anti-aircraft complex Soviet Union. Who was the first? 30 years later, Zvezda found the unknown heroes of that story. In the autumn of 1986, already distant, the command of a limited contingent of Soviet troops in Afghanistan received an order: by all means, recapture at least one serviceable American portable from the dushmans anti-aircraft missile system"Stinger". The order was brought to the personnel of all units. It sounded like this: whoever captures the Stinger first will become a Hero of the Soviet Union. In a few months, our fighters obtained eight samples of American weapons. Until now, it was believed that the first was a group of senior lieutenant Vladimir Kovtun from the GRU special forces: on January 5, 1987, special forces from helicopters noticed spirits fleeing on motorcycles, destroyed them and found a “suitcase” with MANPADS among the trophies. But 30 years later, a reserve colonel military intelligence Airborne Forces Igor Ryumtsev places a document in front of me. This is a response to a request to the archive of the Ministry of Defense, from which it follows that the first anti-aircraft complex was captured earlier - on December 26, 1986. And the guys from the reconnaissance company of the 66th Separate Motorized Rifle Brigade of the Vyborg Brigade, in which Igor Ryumtsev served, did it. It was with Operation Stinger that his combat biography began.
Go to Jalalabad
The first "Stingers" appeared in the eastern regions of Afghanistan. In September 1986, in the Jalalabad region, our turntables began to be shot down, and intelligence reported that the arsenal of the “engineer Gafar” gang was replenished with “pipes”. An engineer in Afghanistan is not a specialty, but a respectful treatment, something like "doctor" in India. Gafar, perhaps, was not very versed in technology, but he was a well-known field commander. The Stingers, which outperformed other MANPADS in terms of range, targeting accuracy and destructive power, made his gang extremely dangerous. This horror of helicopter pilots had to be considered and understood how to deal with it. In addition, the captured sample proved the supply of MANPADS to terrorists by the United States. 
In the autumn of 1986, Senior Lieutenant Igor Ryumtsev had just arrived in the 66th Brigade. He got to Afghanistan after several "hacked" reports and with a dream to serve in the airborne assault battalion. In Kabul, they offered a warm place in the protection of the embassy - he flatly refused. Well, free will, Ryumtsev was sent to Jalalabad. There was a saying in Afghanistan: "If you want a bullet in the ass, go to Jalalabad." Ryumtsev quickly appreciated this humor. 
- They usually went to the fighting, disguised as spirits, - says Ryumtsev. - Even mustaches and beards were glued, they were specially brought to us from the film studio "Belarusfilm". I remember the first fight well. There were 16 of us, in the village we ran into two gangs at once total strength up to 250 spirits. Miraculously, they managed to retreat and take up defense. They fought for several hours. Dushmans were already bypassing us, I thought: that's it, I fought back. But thank God, help arrived. Like in a movie: our turntables appear from behind the mountain, the spirits immediately begin to depart. Rocket, one more... Those who survived are being carried away. At that moment, Ryumtsev realized with every cell that helicopters and pilots must be taken care of like themselves. Five scouts - already a lot
At the end of November, information about the arrival of Stingers to the militants was flooded with intelligence reports. All the forces of the special forces were thrown into the search. The fighters lost their rest and sleep: anxiety followed anxiety, sometimes less than a day passed between sorties in the mountains, the guys barely had time to reload their automatic magazines. True, intelligence sometimes turned out to be a dummy.
“The dushmans themselves traded information,” says Igor Baldakin, a subordinate of Ryumtsev. In Afghanistan, he served as an urgent, in the 86th he was the commander of a reconnaissance platoon. - You are alerted, you rush into some gorge, where the complexes seem to be buried, and ... nothing. I remember once a local brought us into a trap. The whole day he drove through the mountains, showed where to dig. In the end, he brought me to an abandoned village. And shots rang out from behind the walls. We were ready for this, took up positions, opened fire in return. Apparently, there were few Dushmans, they quickly retreated. A large-caliber machine gun fired from a dominant height - a whole airborne assault battalion dug into the ground and could not raise its head. The commander of the reconnaissance company, Senior Lieutenant Cheremiskin, called Starley Ryumtsev and ordered to bypass the dushmans and suppress the firing point. The five of us went. - They walked around the height, climbed, - Ryumtsev recalls. - We see an adobe duval and two platforms protected by stone walls. A large-caliber machine gun, an anti-aircraft mining installation, spirits are fussing around - about ten people. It became uncomfortable. But the effect of surprise was on our side. Prepare grenades - throw - attack. Five spirits remained lying, slashed by fragments, the rest rushed down the gorge. Two were taken out of the machine gun, the rest left. Height taken! When the deputy battalion commander of the DSHB, captain Rakhmanov, came up to us, he was surprised: “Are there only five of you?” I will never forget how our intelligence officer Private Sasha Linga answered. He said: "Five scouts is already a lot." Those were his last words. A few minutes later, the militants tried to recapture the height and opened heavy fire from three directions. The bullet hit Sasha in the head. Dushmans went on a counterattack with an unprecedented pressure for them. They fired from 120-mm mortars, they managed to push the enemy back with great difficulty and serious losses. Why the spirits clung to this height so much became clear a little later: seven large warehouses were equipped not far from the positions. - There were uniforms, and weapons with ammunition, and generators, and radio stations, - says Igor Ryumtsev. - They even found Strela anti-aircraft systems. But there were no Stingers.
Mina on the trail
How did they land in Afghanistan? For a couple of seconds. The helicopter descends a meter and a half and hangs only for a moment, necessary for the transition to climb. The paratroopers pour out one by one - "go, go." The latter are already jumping from three meters, and this is with full ammunition. Who did not have time - flies to the base, the turntable will not enter the second time. On December 26, 1986, the landing was even faster. From the duvals of the village of Landiheil, which was to be combed by the reconnaissance company, automatic bursts were heard - the turntables left almost instantly. One fighter did not have time to jump out, the rest scattered behind the boulders and took the fight. - There were fifteen of us, - says Igor Baldakin. - Spirits, apparently, about the same. They had a positional advantage: after all, they fired from behind the walls, and we - from behind the stones. The fight lasted for about an hour. I had a grenade launcher and three shots. Used up everything. In the end, they managed to knock out the spirits from the village, they retreated along the gorge. We saw how they dragged the wounded. The company broke up into groups of three, the soldiers began to explore the surroundings. Ryumtsev's group, which included the starley himself, Igor Baldakin and sergeant Solohiddin Radjabov, headed for the gorge. Step by step we moved along a narrow path - on one side a mountain, on the other a cliff. About 100 meters from the village there was a fork, a small path went up. And a little higher the ground seemed to be slightly loosened. Mine? And there is! Having neutralized the charge, the fighters moved up, observing all conceivable precautions. After all, an ambush could wait behind every stone. Or stretching.
Here is a crevice not visible from the road - such that only one person will squeeze through. And behind it is a cave where a man's foot has obviously stepped. One remained sentry, two more went down. A few minutes later I heard from below: "Take it." - There was a large warehouse, - says Igor Ryumtsev. - The same walkie-talkies, generators and weapons ... But there were also two pipes. We had not seen the Stingers before and did not suspect that we were lucky. Yes, and there was no time to rejoice too much, they called helicopters, handed over everything they found, and then we were transferred to another point. In the evening, when we were warming ourselves by the fire in the mountains, the radio suddenly came to life: from the headquarters they were ordered to urgently transfer the data of those who discovered the cave. Ryumtsev and his comrades found out that the two pipes were the same Stingers two days later at the base. The brigade commander gathered the personnel of the brigade in the club and announced: in accordance with the telegram of the Minister of Defense, Ryumtsev, Baldakin and Radzhabov would be presented to the highest government awards. The guys were congratulated, clapped on the shoulder ... But they never found their awards. To restore justice
If you type in an Internet search engine a query about hunting for the Stinger, the World Wide Web will turn out a lot of information. The operation of the Kovtun group and other cases of the capture of MANPADS will be described in detail. But not a word about Igor Ryumtsev and his comrades. And it was this historical injustice that the Afghan veterans decided to correct. "But why did you wait so long?" I ask. - You remember what time it was. - says Ryumtsev. - War, then the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, the collapse of the Union ... We scattered throughout the country. Even by country - Solohiddin Radjabov is from Tajikistan. Haven't seen each other for 20 years. And recently they began to meet, to remember the fighting youth. And somehow the question arose by itself: why does no one know that we were the first? We decided to send a request to the archive of the Ministry of Defense. I read the document again: "... intelligence implementation ... captured ... Stinger installation - 2 pcs."
That's right, it was 11 days earlier than Kovtun. True, there is no information in the combat log who specifically captured the MANPADS. But the award list of Igor Baldakin states: it was he who participated in the operation. Information about the rest should also be in the archives of the Ministry of Defense or the GRU, they just need to be found. And what will happen when they find it? Get Heroes? Why not. After all, none of those who mined the Stingers ever received the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. Either the ideas were lost somewhere, or they didn’t exist at all ... In 2012, 25 years later, the title of Hero of Russia was awarded to GRU officer Yevgeny Sergeev, to whom Kovtun’s group was subordinate. True, by the time of the award, Sergeev had already died for 4 years. Yes, and the Hero was given to him not for the Stinger, but for the totality of his merits. However, for Igor Ryumtsev, it’s far from awards. “We want our children and grandchildren to know how we fought and what we did for the country,” says Igor Ryumtsev. - We want anyone who is interested in hunting Stingers in Afghanistan to find out how it really was. Maybe we were lucky - just a little bit. But this is not just a find. We combed the mountains and villages, stormed the heights and lost comrades. And it seems to us that both we and those who died deserved the simple recognition of the fact that we were the first. You can read other materials from the latest issue of the Zvezda weekly by downloading the electronic version of the newspaper.
The hunt for the Stinger continued throughout the year. Only on January 5, 1987, during the course of a military operation of scouts, the first copy of this weapon was captured.
Reconnaissance group of lieutenants Vladimir Kovtun and Vasily Cheboksarov of the 186th Separate Detachment special purpose conducted aerial reconnaissance. Suddenly, from the helicopter board, the special forces noticed several Mujahideen at high speed rushing along the bottom of the Meltakai Gorge on motorcycles. Mi-24 with a special forces unit began the pursuit of alleged terrorists.
The intelligence of the scouts did not disappoint. As soon as they noticed that they were being pursued from the air, the motorcyclists stopped and opened fire indiscriminately from small arms. However, obviously realizing that it would not cause much harm to the helicopter, the Mujahideen took out two sets of "stingers" and launched missiles. Fortunately, the rockets passed by, and one of the "turntables" landed in the gorge and landed the scouts. Another link of Soviet helicopters followed, and the special forces took the fight on the ground.
By joint efforts, the Mujahideen were destroyed. When Vladimir Kovtun examined the trophies, he found not only the Stinger MANPADS launch canister, but also a complete set of its technical documentation. This find looked like a huge success.
Kovtun's comrades, meanwhile, found another intact Stinger MANPADS near the motorcycles. The helicopters were saved from hits by the fact that, under intense shelling, the spooks did not have time to deploy antennas on the complexes and actually fired from them, like from ordinary grenade launchers.
A day later, in all military units of the Soviet troops stationed in Afghanistan, real jubilation began over the Stingers captured by the special forces.
In total, during the hunt for the Stinger MANPADS installations, the Soviet military captured eight complexes of these weapons, but no one received the promised Hero star. Managed less significant orders and medals.
The effect was colossal. Soviet and then Russian aviation designers in the shortest possible time managed to develop effective means of combating imported MANPADS, thereby saving the lives of hundreds of domestic military pilots.
When in 1986 the United States began to supply the Stinger MANPADS to the Afghan Mujahideen, the OKSV command promised the title of Hero of the Soviet Union to anyone who captured this complex in good condition. During the years of the Afghan war, Soviet special forces managed to get 8 (!) Serviceable Stinger MANPADS, but none of them became a Hero.
"Stinging" for the Mujahideen
Modern fighting unthinkable without aviation. From the time of World War II to the present day, air supremacy has been one of the primary goals for victory on the ground. However, air supremacy is achieved not only by aviation itself, but also air defense, which neutralizes the enemy Air Force. In the second half of the XX century. anti-aircraft guided missiles appear in the air defense armament of the advanced armies of the world. The new was divided into several classes: long-range anti-aircraft missiles, medium, small and short-range anti-aircraft missile systems. The main short-range air defense systems, which are entrusted with the task of combating helicopters and attack aircraft at low and extremely low altitudes, have become portable anti-aircraft missile systems - MANPADS.
Helicopters, which became widespread after the Second World War, significantly increased the maneuverability of ground and military units. airborne troops in defeating enemy troops in his tactical and operational-tactical rear, pinning down the enemy in a maneuver, capturing important objects, etc., they became the most effective means of fighting tanks and other small targets. Airmobile actions of infantry units became the hallmark of armed conflicts in the second half of the 20th - early 21st centuries, where irregular armed formations, as a rule, become one of the warring parties. With such an adversary, the domestic armed forces in our new country faced in Afghanistan in 1979-1989, where the Soviet army for the first time had to conduct a large-scale counter-guerrilla struggle. The effectiveness of military operations against the rebels in the mountains without the use of army and front-line aviation was out of the question. It was on her shoulders that the entire burden of aviation support for the Limited Contingent of Soviet Forces in Afghanistan (OKSVA) was placed. The Afghan rebels suffered significant losses from air strikes and airborne operations of the infantry units and OKSVA special forces, so the most serious attention was paid to the issues of combating aviation. The armed Afghan opposition constantly increased firepower Air defense of their units. Already by the mid-80s. of the last century in the arsenal of the rebels there was a sufficient number of short-range anti-aircraft weapons that optimally corresponded to the tactics of guerrilla warfare. The main means of air defense of the armed formations of the Afghan opposition were 12.7-mm DShK machine guns, 14.5-mm anti-aircraft mountain installations ZGU-1, coaxial anti-aircraft machine gun installations ZPGU-2, 20-mm and 23-mm anti-aircraft guns, as well as portable anti-aircraft missile systems.
Rocket MANPADS "Stinger"
By the beginning of the 1980s. in the United States, General Dynamics created the second-generation Stinger MANPADS. Portable anti-aircraft missile systems of the second generation have:
an improved IR-GOS (infrared homing head), capable of operating at two separated wavelengths;
long-wave IR-GOS, providing all-aspect guidance of the missile at the target, including from the side of the front hemisphere;
a microprocessor that distinguishes a real target from fired IR traps;
a cooled IR sensor of the homing head, which allows the missile to more effectively resist interference and attack low-flying targets;
short reaction time to the target;
increased range of fire on targets on a collision course;
greater missile guidance accuracy and target engagement efficiency compared to first-generation MANPADS;
identification equipment "friend or foe";
means of automating the processes of launching and preliminary target designation for gunners-operators. The second-generation MANPADS also include the Strela-3 and Igla complexes developed in the USSR. The basic version of the Stinger FIM-92A missile was equipped with a single-channel all-angle IR seeker
with a cooled receiver operating in the 4.1-4.4 µm wavelength range, an efficient mid-flight dual-mode solid-propellant engine that accelerates the rocket within 6 s to a speed of about 700 m/s.
The Stinger-POST (POST - Passive Optical Seeker Technology) variant with the FIM-92B missile became the first representative of the third generation MANPADS. The seeker used in the missile operates in the IR and UV wavelength ranges, which ensures high performance in the selection of air targets, in conditions of background noise.
Since 1986, both versions of the Stinger missiles have been used in Afghanistan.
Of the entire listed arsenal of air defense systems, MANPADS were, of course, the most effective for combating low-flying targets. Unlike anti-aircraft machine guns and cannons, they have a long range of effective fire and the probability of hitting high-speed targets, they are mobile, easy to use and do not require long-term preparation of calculations. Modern MANPADS are ideal for partisans and reconnaissance units operating behind enemy lines to fight helicopters and low-flying aircraft. The most massive MANPADS of the Afghan rebels throughout the "Afghan war" remained the Chinese anti-aircraft complex "Hunyin-5" (an analogue of the domestic MANPADS "Strela-2"). Chinese MANPADS, as well as a small number of similar Egyptian-made SA-7 systems (MANPADS "Strela-2" in NATO terminology) began to enter service with the rebels from the beginning of the 80s. Until the mid 80s. they were used by Afghan rebels mainly to cover their facilities from air strikes, and were part of the so-called air defense system of fortified base areas. However, in 1986, American and Pakistani military advisers and experts in charge of Afghan illegal armed formations, after analyzing the dynamics of the losses of the rebels from air strikes and systematic airborne operations of Soviet special forces and infantry units, decided to increase the combat capabilities of the air defense of the Mujahideen by supplying them with American Stinger MANPADS ("Stinging"). With the advent of the Stinger MANPADS among the rebel formations, it became the main fire weapon in setting up anti-aircraft ambushes near the airfields based on the army, front-line and military transport aviation of our Air Force in Afghanistan and the Afghan government Air Force.
MANPADS "Strela-2". USSR ("Hunyin-5". PRC)
The Pentagon and the CIA of the United States, arming the Afghan rebels with Stinger anti-aircraft missiles, pursued a number of goals, one of which was the opportunity to test the new MANPADS in real combat conditions. By supplying the Afghan rebels with modern MANPADS, the Americans "tried on" them for the supply of Soviet weapons to Vietnam, where the United States lost hundreds of helicopters and planes shot down by Soviet missiles. But the Soviet Union provided legitimate assistance to the government of a sovereign country fighting an aggressor, and American politicians armed anti-government armed formations of the Mujahideen ("international terrorists" - according to the current American classification).
Despite the strictest secrecy, the first reports of funds mass media about the supply of several hundred Stinger MANPADS to the Afghan opposition appeared in the summer of 1986. American anti-aircraft systems were delivered from the United States by sea to the Pakistani port of Karachi, and then transported by road armed forces Pakistan to the Mujahideen training camps. The supply of missiles and training of Afghan rebels in the vicinity of the Pakistani city of Rualpindi was carried out by the US CIA. After preparing the calculations at the training center, they, together with MANPADS, went to Afghanistan in pack caravans and vehicles.
Rocket launch MANPADS "Stinger"
Gafar strikes
The details of the first use of the Stinger MANPADS by the Afghan rebels are described by the head of the Afghan department of the Pakistan Intelligence Center (1983-1987), General Mohammad Yusuf, in the book “The Bear Trap”: located only one and a half kilometers northeast of the runway of the Jalalabad airfield ... Fire crews were at a shouting distance from each other, located in a triangle in the bushes, since no one knew from which direction the target might appear. We organized each team in such a way that three people fired, and two others held containers with missiles for quick reloading .... Each of the Mujahideen selected a helicopter through an open sight on launcher, the “friend or foe” system signaled with an intermittent signal that an enemy target had appeared in the coverage area, and the Stinger captured thermal radiation from helicopter engines with its guidance head ... When the lead helicopter was only 200 m above the ground, Gafar commanded: “Fire "... One of the three rockets did not work and fell without exploding, just a few meters from the shooter. Two others crashed into their targets... Two more missiles went into the air, one hit the target as successfully as the previous two, and the second passed very close, as the helicopter had already landed... In the following months, he (Gafar) shot down ten more helicopters and planes with the help of "Stingers".
Mujahideen of Gafar near Jalalabad
Combat helicopter Mi-24P
In fact, two rotorcraft of the 335th separate combat helicopter regiment, returning from a combat mission, were shot down over the Jalalabad airfield. On approaching the airfield on the pre-landing direct Mi-8MT captain A. Giniyatulin was hit by two Stinger MANPADS missiles and exploded in the air. The crew commander and flight engineer, Lieutenant O. Shebanov, died, pilot-navigator Nikolai Gerner was thrown out by the blast and survived. A helicopter of Lieutenant E. Pogorely was sent to the area where the Mi-8MT fell, but at an altitude of 150 m his car was hit by a MANPADS missile. The pilot managed to make a rough landing, as a result of which the helicopter collapsed. The commander was seriously injured, from which he died in the hospital. The rest of the crew survived.
The Soviet command only guessed that the rebels used the Stinger MANPADS. We were able to materially prove the use of the Stinger MANPADS in Afghanistan only on November 29, 1986. The same group of Engineer Gafar set up an anti-aircraft ambush 15 km north of Jalalabad on the slope of Mount Vachkhangar (elev. 1423) and as a result of firing five Stinger missiles "The helicopter group destroyed the Mi-24 and Mi-8MT (three missile hits were recorded). The crew of the driven helicopter - art. Lieutenant V.Ksenzov and Lieutenant A.Neunylov died after falling under the main rotor during an emergency escape from the side. The crew of the second helicopter hit by a missile managed to make an emergency landing and leave the burning car. The general from the headquarters of the TurkVO, who was at that time in the Jalalabad garrison, did not believe the report about the defeat of two helicopters by anti-aircraft missiles, accusing the pilots that "helicopters collided in the air." It is not known how, but the aviators nevertheless convinced the general of the "spirits" being involved in the plane crash. The 2nd motorized rifle battalion of the 66th separate motorized rifle brigade and the 1st company of the 154th separate special forces detachment were alerted. The special forces and infantry were tasked with finding parts of an anti-aircraft missile or other material evidence of the use of MANPADS, otherwise all the blame for the crash would have been placed on the surviving crews ... Only after a day had passed (the general took a long time ...) by the morning of November 30 in the area of the fall of helicopters arrived on armored search units. There was no longer any question of intercepting the enemy. Our company did not manage to find anything except burnt fragments of helicopters and the remains of the crew. The 6th company of the 66th Motorized Rifle Brigade, when examining the probable missile launch site, quite accurately indicated by helicopter pilots, found three, and then two more launch expelling charges of the Stinger MANPADS. These were the first physical evidence of the supply of anti-aircraft missiles by the United States of America to Afghan anti-government armed groups. The company commander who discovered them was presented to the Order of the Red Banner.
Mi-24 hit by fire from the Stinger MANPADS. Eastern Afghanistan, 1988
A careful study of the traces of the enemy's stay (one firing position was located on the top and one in the lower third of the slope of the ridge) showed that an anti-aircraft ambush was arranged here in advance. The enemy waited for a suitable target and the moment of opening fire for one or two days.
Hunt for Gafar
The OKSVA command also arranged a hunt for the Engineer Gafar anti-aircraft group, whose area of \u200b\u200boperation was the eastern Afghan provinces of Nangar-har, Laghman and Kunar. It was his group that was beaten on November 9, 1986 by the reconnaissance detachment of the 3rd company of 154 ooSpN (15 obrSpN), destroying several rebels and pack animals 6 km southwest of the village of Mangval in the province of Kunar. The scouts then also seized a portable American shortwave radio station, which was provided by the CIA agents. Gafar took revenge immediately. Three days later, from an anti-aircraft ambush 3 km southeast of the village of Mangval (30 km northeast of Jalalabad), a Mi-24 helicopter of the 335th "Jalalabad" helicopter regiment was shot down by fire from the Stinger MANPADS. Accompanying several Mi-8MT, performing an ambulance flight from Asadabad to the hospital of the Jalalabad garrison, a pair of Mi-24s overcame the ridge at an altitude of 300 m without shooting IR traps. A helicopter shot down by a MANPADS missile fell into a gorge. The commander and the pilot-operator left the board, using a parachute from a height of 100 m, and were picked up by their comrades. Special forces were sent to search for the flight engineer. This time, squeezing the maximum allowable speed out of the infantry fighting vehicles, the 154 oSpN scouts arrived in the helicopter crash area in less than 2 hours. and its right ridge) simultaneously with the arriving helicopters 335 obvp. Helicopters entered from the northeast, but the Mujahideen managed to launch MANPADS from the ruins of a village on the northern slope of the gorge in pursuit of the leading twenty-four. The "spirits" miscalculated twice: the first time - making a launch towards the setting sun, the second time - not finding out that not the slave helicopter of the pair (as usual), but four links of combat Mi-24s are flying behind the lead machine. Fortunately, the rocket passed just below the target. Her self-liquidator worked late, and the exploding rocket did not harm the helicopter. Quickly orienting themselves in the situation, the pilots inflicted a massive air strike on the position of the anti-aircraft gunners with sixteen combat rotorcraft. The aviators did not spare ammunition ... From the place of the helicopter crash, the remains of the flight engineer of st. Lieutenant V. Yakovlev.
At the crash site of a helicopter shot down by a Stinger
The commandos who captured the first Stinger. In the center is Senior Lieutenant Vladimir Kovtun.
Wreckage of Mi-24 helicopter
Parachute canopy on the ground
The first Stinger
The first man-portable anti-aircraft missile system "Stinger" was captured by Soviet troops in Afghanistan on January 5, 1987. In the course of conducting aerial reconnaissance reconnaissance groups of Senior Lieutenant Vladimir Kovtun and Lieutenant Vasily Cheboksarov of the 186th Separate Special Forces Detachment (22 Special Forces) under the general command of the deputy commander of the detachment, Major Evgeny Sergeev, in the vicinity of the village of Seyid Umar Kalai, noticed three motorcyclists in the Meltakai gorge. Vladimir Kovtun described further actions as follows: “When they saw our turntables, they quickly dismounted and opened fire from small arms, and also made two quick launches from MANPADS, but at first we mistook these launches for RPG shots. The pilots immediately made a sharp turn and sat down. Already when they left the board, the commander managed to shout to us: “They are shooting from grenade launchers.” Twenty-fours covered us from the air, and we, having landed, started a battle on the ground. Helicopters and special forces opened fire on the rebels to kill, destroying them with fire from NURS and small arms. Only the leading board landed on the ground, on which there were only five special forces, and the leading Mi-8 with the Cheboksarov group insured from the air. During the inspection of the destroyed enemy, Senior Lieutenant V. Kovtun seized the launch container, the Stinger MANPADS instrumentation unit and a complete set of technical documentation from the rebel he had destroyed. One combat-ready complex, strapped to a motorcycle, was captured by Captain E. Sergeev, and another empty container and a rocket were captured by the group's scouts, who landed from a slave helicopter. During the battle, a group of 16 rebels was destroyed and one was captured. "Spirits" did not have time to take up positions for an anti-aircraft ambush.
MANPADS "Stinger" and its regular capping
Helicopter pilots with special forces on board were ahead of them by several minutes. Later, everyone who wanted to become the heroes of the day “clung” to the glory of helicopter pilots and special forces. Still, “Special Forces captured the Stingers!” - thundered the whole of Afghanistan. The official version of the capture of the American MANPADS looked like special operation with the participation of agents who tracked the entire route of delivery of the Stingers from the arsenals of the US Army to the village of Seyid Umar Kalai. Naturally, all the “sisters received earrings”, but they forgot about the true participants in the capture of the Stinger, paying off with several orders and medals, but it was promised that the first to capture the Stinger would receive the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.
The first two MANPADS "Stinger", captured by special forces 186 ooSpN. January 1986
national reconciliation
With the capture of the first American MANPADS, the hunt for the Stinger did not stop. The GRU special forces were tasked with preventing the saturation of the enemy armed formations with them. All winter 1986-1987. special forces units of a limited contingent of Soviet troops in Afghanistan hunted for the Stingers, with the task not so much to prevent their entry (which was unrealistic), but to prevent their rapid spread throughout Afghanistan. By this time, two special forces brigades (the 15th and 22nd separate special forces brigades) and the 459th separate special forces company of the 40th combined arms army were based in Afghanistan. However, the special forces did not receive any preferences. January 1987 was marked by an event of "tremendous political importance", as the Soviet newspapers of the time wrote, the beginning of a policy of national reconciliation. Its consequences for OKSVA turned out to be much more devastating than the supply of American anti-aircraft missiles to the armed Afghan opposition. Unilateral reconciliation without taking into account military-political realities limited the active offensive operations of OKSVA.
How mockery looked like the shelling of a Mi-8MT helicopter with two MANPADS missiles on the first day of national reconciliation on January 16, 1987, making a passenger flight from Kabul to Jalalabad. On board the "turntable" among the passengers was the chief of staff of 177 oSpN (Gazni), Major Sergei Kutsov, currently the head of the Intelligence Directorate of the Internal Troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia, lieutenant general. Without losing his cool, the commando officer knocked off the flames and helped the rest of the passengers to leave the burning board. Only one passenger could not use the parachute, as she was wearing a skirt and did not put it on ...
The unilateral "national reconciliation" was immediately taken advantage of by the armed Afghan opposition, which at that moment, according to American analysts, was "on the verge of disaster." It was the difficult situation of the rebels that was the main reason for the supply of the Stinger MANPADS to them. Starting in 1986, the airmobile operations of the Soviet special forces, whose units were assigned helicopters, so limited the ability of the rebels to supply weapons and ammunition to the interior of Afghanistan that the armed opposition began to create special combat groups to fight our intelligence agencies. But, even well-trained and armed, they could not significantly affect the combat activities of the special forces. The likelihood of them detecting reconnaissance groups was extremely low, but if this happened, then the clash was of a fierce nature. Unfortunately, there is no data on the actions of special groups of rebels against the Soviet special forces in Afghanistan, but several episodes of clashes according to a single pattern of enemy actions can be attributed specifically to the “anti-special forces” groups.
The Soviet special forces, which became a barrier to the movement of "caravans of terror", were based in the provinces of Afghanistan bordering Pakistan and Iran, but what could the special forces, whose reconnaissance groups and detachments could block no more than one kilometer of the caravan route, or rather, directions. The “Gorbachev reconciliation” special forces, which limited their actions in the “reconciliation zones” and in close proximity to the border, took it as a stab in the back, during raids on the villages where the rebels were based and their caravans stopped for the day. But still, due to the active actions of the Soviet special forces, by the end of the winter of 1987, the Mujahideen experienced significant difficulties with food and fodder at the "overcrowded" transshipment bases. Although in Afghanistan it was not hunger that awaited them, but death on mined paths and in special forces ambushes. In 1987 alone, reconnaissance groups and special forces intercepted 332 caravans with weapons and ammunition, capturing and destroying more than 290 units heavy weapons(recoilless rifles, mortars, heavy machine guns), 80 MANPADS (mainly Hunyin-5 and SA-7), 30 PC launchers, more than 15 thousand anti-tank and anti-personnel mines and about 8 million small arms ammunition. Acting on the communications of the rebels, the special forces forced the armed opposition to accumulate most of the military-technical cargo at transshipment bases in the border areas of Afghanistan, which are hard to reach for Soviet and Afghan troops. Taking advantage of this, aviation of the Limited contingent and Air force Afghanistan began systematically bombing them.
Meanwhile, taking advantage of a temporary respite, kindly granted to the Afghan opposition by Gorbachev and Shevardnadze (at that time the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the USSR), the rebels began to intensively build up the firepower of their formations. It was during this period that combat detachments and armed opposition groups were saturated with 107-mm rocket systems, recoilless rifles and mortars. Not only the Stinger, but also the English Blowpipe MANPADS, Swiss 20-mm Oerlikon anti-aircraft guns and Spanish 120-mm mortars are beginning to enter their arsenal. An analysis of the situation in Afghanistan in 1987 indicated that the armed opposition was preparing for decisive action, the will for which the Soviet “perestroika” had no will to do, who headed for the surrender of international positions by the Soviet Union.
It was on fire in a helicopter hit by a Stinger missile. Chief of the RUVV of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation, Lieutenant General S. Kutsov
Special forces on caravan routes
Limited in conducting raids and reconnaissance and search operations (raids), the Soviet special forces in Afghanistan stepped up ambush operations. The rebels paid special attention to ensuring the safety of caravan escort, and the scouts had to show great ingenuity when leading an ambush to the ambush area, secrecy and endurance - in anticipation of the enemy, and in battle - stamina and courage. In most combat episodes, the enemy significantly outnumbered the special forces reconnaissance group. In Afghanistan, the effectiveness of special forces operations in conducting ambush operations was 1: 5-6 (scouts managed to engage the enemy in one case out of 5-6). According to data published later in the West, the armed opposition managed to deliver 8090% of the goods transported by pack caravans and vehicles to their destination. In the spetsnaz areas of responsibility, this figure was much lower. The subsequent episodes of the capture by the Soviet special forces of the Stinger MANPADS fall precisely on the actions of scouts on caravan routes.
On the night of July 16-17, 1987, as a result of an ambush by the reconnaissance group 668 ooSpN (15 arr. Special Forces), Lieutenant German Pokhvoshchev, a pack caravan of rebels was scattered by fire in the province of Logar. By morning, the ambush area was blocked by an armored group of the detachment led by Lieutenant Sergei Klimenko. Fleeing, the rebels unloaded their horses and disappeared into the night. As a result of the inspection of the area, two Stinger and two Bluepipe MANPADS were found and captured, as well as about a ton of other weapons and ammunition. The fact of the supply of MANPADS to Afghan illegal armed groups, the British carefully concealed. Now the Soviet government has the opportunity to catch them in the supply of anti-aircraft missiles to the Afghan armed opposition. However, what was the point when more than 90% of the weapons to the Afghan "mujahideen" were supplied by China, and the Soviet press shyly hushed up this fact, "stigmatizing" the West. You can guess why - in Afghanistan, our soldiers were killed and maimed soviet weapons marked "Made in China", developed by domestic designers in the 50-50s, the production technology of which the Soviet Union transferred to the "great neighbor".
Landing WG SpN in a helicopter
Reconnaissance group of Lieutenant V. Matyushin (in the top row, second from the left)
Now it was the turn of the rebels, and they did not remain indebted to the Soviet troops. In November 1987, two anti-aircraft missiles shot down a Mi-8MT 355 obvp helicopter carrying 334 ooSpN (15 obvp) scouts. At 05:55, a pair of Mi-8MT under cover of a pair of Mi-24s took off from the Asadabad site and went to outpost No. 2 (Lahorsar, mark 1864) with a gentle climb. At 06:05, at an altitude of 100 m from the ground, the Mi-8MT transport helicopter was hit by two Stinger MANPADS missiles, after which it caught fire and began to lose altitude. The flight technician Captain A. Gurtov and six passengers died in the crashed helicopter. The crew commander left the car in the air, but he did not have enough height to open the parachute. Only the pilot-navigator managed to escape, landing with a partially opened parachute canopy on a steep slope of the ridge. Among the dead was the commander of the special forces group, Senior Lieutenant Vadim Matyushin. On this day, the rebels were preparing a massive shelling of the Asadabad garrison, covering the positions of the 107-mm jet systems salvo fire and mortars by MANPADS anti-aircraft gunners. Winter 1987-1988 the rebels practically won air superiority in the vicinity of Asa-dabad with man-portable anti-aircraft systems. Before that, Major Grigory Bykov, the commander of 334 Special Forces, did not allow them to do this, but his successors did not show firm will and determination ... Front-line aviation still attacked rebel positions in the vicinity of Asadabad, but acted ineffectively from extreme heights. Helicopters, on the other hand, were forced to transport personnel and cargo only at night, and during the day they made only urgent medical flights at extremely low altitudes along the Kunar River.
Patrolling the area of the inspection WG Special Forces by helicopters
However, the scouts of other special forces units also felt the restrictions on the use of army aviation. The zone of their airmobile operations was significantly limited to the safety of army aviation. In the current situation, when the authorities demanded a “result”, and the capabilities of the intelligence agencies were limited by directives and instructions from the same authorities, the command of 154 oSpN found a way out of a seemingly impasse. The detachment, thanks to the initiative of its commander, Major Vladimir Vorobyov and the head of the engineering service of the detachment, Major Vladimir Gorenitsa, began to use complex mining of caravan routes. In fact, the 154 ooSpN scouts created in Afghanistan back in 1987 a reconnaissance and fire complex (ROK), the creation of which in modern Russian army there are only conversations. The main elements of the system for combating rebel caravans, created by the special forces of the "Jalalabad battalion" on the Parachnar-Shahidan-Panjshir caravan route, were:
Sensors and repeaters of reconnaissance and signaling equipment (RSA) "Realiya" installed at the borders (seismic, acoustic and radio wave sensors), from which information was received on the composition of caravans and the presence of ammunition and weapons in them (metal detectors);
Mining lines with radio-controlled minefields and non-contact explosive devices NVU-P "Okhota" (seismic target movement sensors);
Areas of ambush by spetsnaz reconnaissance units adjacent to the lines of mining and installation of SAR. This provided a complete blockage of the caravan route, the smallest width of which in the area of crossings over the Kabul River was 2-3 km;
Lines of barrage and areas of concentrated artillery fire from outposts guarding the Kabul-Jalalabad highway (122-mm self-propelled howitzers 2С1 "Gvozdika", on the positions of which the operators of the RSA "Realiya" were located, reading information from receiving devices).
Helicopter-accessible patrol routes with special forces screening reconnaissance groups on board.
The commander of the inspection Rg SpN, Lieutenant S. Lafazan (in the center), who captured the Stinger MANPADS on February 16, 1988
Combat-ready MANPADS "Stinger", captured by reconnaissance 154 oo Special Forces in February 1988
Such a troublesome "economy" required constant monitoring and regulation, but the results showed up very quickly. The rebels more and more often fell into a trap cleverly arranged by the special forces. Even having their observers and informers from among the local population in the mountains and nearby villages, probing every stone and path, they faced the constant “presence” of special forces, suffering losses in controlled minefields, from artillery fire and ambushes. Inspection groups on helicopters completed the destruction of scattered pack animals and collected the "result" from the caravans crushed by mines and shells. February 16, 1988 inspection reconnaissance group special purpose 154 oSpN Lieutenant Sergei Lafzan found a group of pack animals 6 km northwest of the village of Shahidan, destroyed by mines MON-50 of the NVU-P “Hunting” set. During the inspection, the scouts captured two boxes of Stinger MANPADS. The peculiarity of the NVU-P is that this electronic device identifies the movement of people by ground vibrations and issues a command to sequentially detonate five fragmentation mines OZM-72, MON-50, MON-90 or others.
A few days later, in the same area, scouts from the inspection group of the "Jalalabad" special forces detachment again captured two Stinger MANPADS. This episode ended the epic hunt of the special forces for the Stinger in Afghanistan. All four cases of its capture by Soviet troops were the work of special forces units and units operationally subordinate to the Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff of the USSR Armed Forces.
Since 1988, the withdrawal from Afghanistan of a limited contingent of Soviet troops began with ... the most combat-ready units that terrified the rebels throughout the "Afghan war" - separate special forces. For some reason (?), it was the special forces that turned out to be the “weak link” in Afghanistan for the Kremlin democrats ... Strange, isn't it? Having exposed the external borders of Afghanistan, at least somehow covered by Soviet special forces, the short-sighted military-political leadership of the USSR allowed the rebels to increase the flow of military aid from outside and gave Afghanistan to them at their mercy. In February 1989, the withdrawal of Soviet troops from this country was completed, but the government of Najibullah remained in power until 1992. From this period, chaos reigned in the country civil war, and the "Stingers" provided by the Americans began to spread to terrorist organizations around the world.
It is unlikely that the Stingers themselves played a decisive role in forcing the Soviet Union to withdraw from Afghanistan, as is sometimes portrayed in the West. Its reasons lie in the political miscalculations of the last leaders. Soviet era. However, after 1986, the trend towards an increase in the loss of aviation equipment due to the destruction of it by the fire of MANPADS missiles in Afghanistan was traced, despite the significantly reduced intensity of flights. But, to attribute this merit only to the "Stinger" is not necessary. In addition to the same Stingers, the rebels still received large quantities of other MANPADS.
The result of the hunt of the Soviet special forces for the American "Stinger" was eight combat-ready anti-aircraft systems, for which none of the special forces of the promised Golden Star of the Hero ever received. the highest state award was awarded to Senior Lieutenant German Pokhvoshchev (668 oSpN), awarded the Order of Lenin, and then only for capturing the only two Blowpipe MANPADS. An attempt by a number of public veteran organizations to obtain the title of Hero of Russia to reserve lieutenant colonel Vladimir Kovtun and posthumously to lieutenant colonel Evgeny Sergeev (died in 2008) runs into a wall of indifference in the offices of the Ministry of Defense. A strange position, despite the fact that at the present time of the seven special forces awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union for Afghanistan, no one is left alive (five people were awarded it posthumously). Meanwhile, the first Stinger MANPADS samples obtained by the special forces and their technical documentation allowed domestic aviators to find effective methods of confronting them, which saved the lives of hundreds of pilots and passengers of aircraft. It is possible that some technical solutions were used by our designers in the creation of domestic second and third generation MANPADS, superior to the Stinger in some combat characteristics.
MANPADS "Stinger" (above) and "Hunyin" (below) the main anti-aircraft systems of the Afghan Mujahideen in the late 80s.
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Second half of the eighties. The Soviet Union has been waging a protracted and bloody war on the territory of neighboring Afghanistan for seven years, helping the government of the republic to cope with the armed formations of radical fundamentalists and nationalists supported by the United States, Pakistan, and Iran.
Army aviation plays the most important role in carrying out operations against the Mujahideen. Soviet helicopters, having become a real headache for the militants, attack their positions, support the actions of motorized riflemen and paratroopers from the air. Air strikes became a real disaster for the Mujahideen, as they were deprived of their support - helicopters destroyed caravans with ammunition, food. It seemed that a little more and the DRA government troops, together with the OKSVA forces, would be able to neutralize the armed opposition.
However, very effective portable anti-aircraft missile systems soon appeared in the arsenal of the militants. During the first month of their use, the Mujahideen managed to shoot down three Mi-24 helicopters, and by the end of 1986, OKSVA lost 23 aircraft and a helicopter, which were shot down as a result of fire from the ground - from portable anti-aircraft missile systems.
The army aviation command decided to fly helicopters at extremely low altitudes - this was how they expected to avoid getting cars into the capture of the homing head of the missile, but in this case the helicopters became an easy target for the heavy machine guns of the enemy. It is clear that the situation required an early resolution, and the headquarters were racking their brains over what to do and how to secure helicopter flights over the territory of Afghanistan. There was only one way out - to find out what kind of weapon the Mujahideen use to fight Soviet helicopters. But how was it to be done?
Naturally, the command immediately came to the conclusion that it was necessary to carefully study the portable anti-aircraft missile systems used by the militants in order to decide by what means or what tactics they could be countered. It is clear that such MANPADS could not have Afghan or Pakistani production, so the Soviet command immediately "took the trail" of the United States, more precisely, the US Central Intelligence Agency, which almost from the very beginning of hostilities in Afghanistan provided comprehensive support to the formations of the Mujahideen.
The Soviet troops were given the difficult task of capturing at least one MANPADS used by the Mujahideen, which would allow developing more effective tactics to counter the new weapon. This task was to be carried out, as one would expect, by the special forces of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff of the USSR Armed Forces.
In Afghanistan, the special forces solved a variety of tasks. Being the best trained fighters both in combat and morally and psychologically, Soviet military intelligence officers carried a very significant part of the entire combat load that Soviet troops faced in this southern country. Naturally, tasks like the capture of the Stinger MANPADS could only be entrusted to the GRU special forces.
On January 5, 1987, the reconnaissance group of the 186th separate special forces detachment went on a combat mission. This detachment was formed in February 1985 on the basis of the 8th separate brigade special purpose. It included not only officers and soldiers of this brigade, but also servicemen of the 10th separate special-purpose brigade, then stationed in the Crimea, servicemen of the 2nd separate special-purpose brigade from Pskov and the 3rd separate special-purpose brigade from Viljandi. The support units were staffed by officers and ensigns from motorized rifle troops. On March 31, 1985, the 186th ooSpN was transferred to the 40th combined arms army, and organizationally included in the 22nd separate special forces brigade.
It was the scouts of this unit who had to perform a unique, very difficult and dangerous task - to capture MANPADS. Soldiers under the command of Major Evgeny Sergeev and Senior Lieutenant Vladimir Kovtun advanced to the combat mission. On two Mi-8s, Soviet servicemen set off towards Kalat, where they were to comb the territory near the road to Kandahar. Soviet helicopters flew at a very low altitude, which allowed the military to clearly see three Mujahideen moving along the road on motorcycles.
At that time in Afghanistan, only the Mujahideen could ride motorcycles on the mountain roads. Local peasants, for obvious reasons, did not have motorcycles and could not have. Therefore, Soviet intelligence officers immediately understood who they saw on the ground. Everyone understood and motorcyclists. As soon as they saw Soviet helicopters in the sky, they immediately dismounted and began to shoot from machine guns, and then fired two launches from MANPADS.
Later, Senior Lieutenant Kovtun realized that the Mujahideen did not hit the Soviet helicopters from their MANPADS only because they did not have time to properly prepare the complex for battle. In fact, they fired from MANPADS, like from a grenade launcher, offhand. Perhaps this oversight of the militants saved the Soviet military from losses.
Senior Lieutenant Vladimir Kovtun fired at the Mujahideen with a machine gun. After that, both Mi-8s went for a short landing. The scouts landed from helicopters, dispersed on the ground and engaged in battle with the Mujahideen. However, after a short time, reinforcements approached the latter. The battle became more and more fierce.
Vasily Cheboksarov, who commanded inspection group No. 711, later recalled that the Mujahideen and Soviet soldiers “beat” each other almost point-blank. When the machine gunner Safarov ran out of ammunition, he did not lose his head and "knocked out" the Mujahideen with a blow from the butt of his Kalashnikov machine gun. Surprisingly, in such a fierce battle, Soviet intelligence officers did not lose a single person, which cannot be said about the Afghan Mujahideen.
During the battle, one of the Mujahideen, clutching some kind of long bundle and a “diplomat”-type case, ran out of cover and ran, trying to hide. Senior Lieutenant Kovtun and two scouts ran after him. As Kovtun later recalled, the action movie in itself interested him least of all, but the oblong object and the diplomat were very interesting. Therefore, Soviet intelligence officers chased the Mujahideen.
The militant, meanwhile, fled and had already managed to gain a distance of two hundred meters from the Soviet soldiers, when Senior Lieutenant Kovtun managed to put him in the head with a shot. No wonder the Soviet officer was a master of sports in shooting! While Kovtun "took" a militant with a diplomat, other scouts destroyed the remaining fourteen militants who participated in the shootout. Two more "dushmans" were taken prisoner.
Huge assistance in defeating the Mujahideen group was provided by helicopters, which did not stop firing at the militants from the air, supporting Soviet intelligence officers. Subsequently, the officer in command of the helicopters will also be presented with the main award of the USSR - the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, but he will never receive it.
The destruction of the Mujahideen detachment was far from the only and, moreover, not the most important victory of the Soviet intelligence officers. Senior Lieutenant Vladimir Kovtun, who shot the militant with an oblong bundle, naturally became interested in what kind of object was wrapped in a blanket carried by the militant. It turned out that this was the Stinger portable anti-aircraft missile system.
Soon the scouts brought two more "pipes" - one was empty and the other equipped. But most importantly, a diplomat fell into the hands of Soviet intelligence officers, which contained all the documentation for a portable anti-aircraft missile system. It was truly a "royal" find. After all, the bag contained not only detailed instructions for using MANPADS, but also the addresses of American suppliers of the complex.
The captured Stingers were taken to Kandahar, to the brigade headquarters. The scouts continued to carry out combat missions. Naturally, such an event could not go unnoticed by the command. Four scouts from the reconnaissance group that participated in the operation were presented to the high rank of Hero of the Soviet Union. On January 7, 1987, the commander of the 186th separate special forces detachment of the 22nd separate special forces brigade, Major Nechitailo, prepared presentations for the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.
But, for some reason, things did not go beyond the presentation. Although the capture of the Stinger, and even with detailed documentation, was indeed a real feat, and most importantly, it made it possible to solve the long-standing problem of ensuring the safety of Soviet army aviation.
Vladimir Kovtun says:
The commander of the brigade, Colonel Gerasimov, arrived. They decided to introduce me, Sergeyev, Sobol, the commander of the board on which we flew, and one sergeant from the inspection group to the Hero. For registration of the submission to the Hero, it is necessary to photograph the candidate. The four of us were photographed and ... In the end, they did not give anything. In my opinion, the “Banner” was given to Sgt. Zhenya had a party penalty that had not been lifted, and a criminal case was opened against me. Why they didn’t give the Hero the helicopter pilot, I still don’t know. Probably, he, too, was in disgrace with his command.
The result of the operation carried out by the GRU special forces soldiers was the capture of existing models of the most modern and effective American man-portable anti-aircraft missile system at that time. Experts were immediately puzzled by the development of countermeasures against the Stingers. Not much time passed and the losses of the Soviet army aviation in Afghanistan were sharply reduced.
As for the captured Stingers captured by scouts, they were presented at a press conference of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the DRA as irrefutable evidence of Western powers helping the Mujahideen. It turned out that the Stingers captured by Soviet intelligence officers were the first of a batch of 3,000 pieces, which was purchased by the Afghan Mujahideen in the United States for use against Soviet aircraft.
However, no one denied this assistance. The US CIA launched the most active activity among the Afghan Mujahideen groups, and the closest US ally in the region at that time, Pakistan, directly participated in the Afghan war, sending its instructors to the Mujahideen formations, placing camps and bases of the Mujahideen on the territory of the border provinces, and even places of detention of Afghan and Soviet prisoners of war.
Years, decades have passed, and few today remember the feat of the Soviet military personnel who captured the Stingers. Evgeny Georgievich Sergeev, who then commanded the reconnaissance group, after the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan, continued to serve in the armed forces, participated in the localization of the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict.
In 1995, with the rank of lieutenant colonel, Evgeny Sergeev retired from the armed forces due to disability, last years lived in Ryazan, and in 2008, at the age of 52, he died as a result of a long and serious illness resulting from injuries and contusions received in Afghanistan. But the well-deserved award nevertheless found Evgeny Sergeev - by the Decree of the President Russian Federation dated May 6, 2012, Lieutenant Colonel Sergeev Evgeny Georgievich was posthumously awarded the high title of Hero of the Russian Federation for the courage and heroism shown during the hostilities in Afghanistan.
Vladimir Pavlovich Kovtun rose to the rank of colonel, and in 1999, at a young age, he was dismissed from the ranks of the RF Armed Forces - also for health reasons. But "in civilian life" a military officer quickly found his soul's work and took up farming in the Vladimir region.
MOSCOW, November 5 - RIA Novosti, Andrey Kots. Elite fighters leave no traces and are ready to be thrown into any theater of operations every minute - today, November 5, centenary noted military intelligence. Over these 100 years, they have carried out thousands of the most difficult sorties behind enemy lines and decided the outcome of more than one major battle. Many special operations are still classified. One of the most striking is the capture by the GRU special forces of the American Stinger portable anti-aircraft systems during the Afghan war. About this raid - in the material RIA Novosti.
Operation Cyclone
The first "stingers" appeared among the Afghan dushmans in September 1986, after a special operation by the CIA, which received the designation "Cyclone". The army aviation of the joint contingent of Soviet troops (OKSV) by that time had long been a headache for bandit formations. Helicopters unexpectedly attacked the caches of militants, covered the columns of dushmans on the march with fire, landed tactical troops in troubled villages and, most importantly, smashed caravans with weapons and ammunition coming from Pakistan. Due to the actions of Soviet pilots, many gangs in Afghanistan were on starvation rations, and military supplies intended for them were burned in the desert and on mountain passes. The White House considered that the supply of modern MANPADS to militants would force OKSV to curtail flights and the USSR would lose air superiority.
At first, the Stingers really came as an extremely unpleasant surprise for Soviet helicopter pilots. Only in the first month of using MANPADS, militants shot down three Mi-24 strikes, and by the end of 1986, the USSR lost 23 aircraft and a helicopter from fire from the ground. The new weapon forced the Soviet command to completely reconsider the tactics of using army aviation. Helicopter crews have since flown at extremely low altitudes to avoid being caught by the missile's homing head. But this made them vulnerable to heavy machine guns. It was clear that the new tactic was only a half-measure.
Ambush at the airfield
In order to effectively counter the emerging threat, it was necessary to carefully study the samples of MANPADS. Firstly, it is necessary to understand the principle of their operation, and secondly, to prove the direct support of the spooks from the CIA. The GRU special forces of the General Staff announced a full-scale hunt for the Stinger. The first one to get the launch tube was promised to be awarded the star of the Hero of the Soviet Union immediately and without further ado. But long months of reconnaissance activities did not give any result - the "spirits" took care of MANPADS as the apple of their eye and developed complex tactics for them combat use. This is how the head of the Afghan Intelligence Center of Pakistan (1983-1987), General Mohammad Yusuf, described the successful attack in his book "The Bear Trap".
"About 35 Mujahideen secretly made their way to the foot of a small high-rise overgrown with bushes, one and a half kilometers northeast of the runway of the Jalalabad airfield. Fire crews were at a shouting distance from each other, located in a triangle in the bushes, since no one direction, a target may appear.We organized each team in such a way that three people fired, and the other two held containers with missiles for quick reloading.Each of the Mujahideen selected a helicopter through an open sight on the launcher, the system "friend or foe" signaled with intermittent signal, that an enemy target appeared in the coverage area, and the "Stinger" captured the thermal radiation from the helicopter engines with its guidance head. When the lead helicopter was only 200 meters above the ground, Gafar commanded: "Fire." One of the three missiles did not work and fell without exploding , just a few meters from the shooter.Two others crashed into their targets.Two more The helicopters went into the air, one hit the target as successfully as the previous two, and the second passed very close, since the helicopter had already landed.
Dushmans used the tactics of mobile sabotage reconnaissance anti-aircraft groups (DRZG) - small detachments that secretly operated near Soviet airfields. Weapons and ammunition were delivered to the launch site in advance, often with the help of local residents. It was difficult to resist such attacks without knowing the technical features of the anti-aircraft missiles used. Surprisingly, the special forces managed to capture the operating MANPADS by pure chance.
forehead to forehead
On January 5, 1987, the reconnaissance group of the 186th separate special forces detachment under the command of Major Evgeny Sergeyev and Senior Lieutenant Vladimir Kovtun went on a free hunt in two Mi-8 helicopters. The special forces planned to comb through the suspicious "greenery" near Kalat on the road to Kandahar and, if necessary, destroy the detected enemy targets. "Turntables" were at extremely low altitude and literally nose to nose collided with three militants on motorcycles.
© AP Photo / Mir Wais Mujahideen with MANPADS "Stinger" in Afghanistan
© AP Photo / Mir Wais
Kovtun, fired at the bandit group with tracers from a machine gun, marking their position for the second side. Both helicopters made a short landing, the scouts dispersed on the ground and opened fire on the enemy. A fierce battle ensued. Soon, help approached the dushmans, and one of the "spirits" ran out from behind the shelter with an oblong bundle in his hands and rushed to his heels. He did not go far - the starley laid the militant with a well-aimed shot in the head. Other dushmans were also unlucky - the GRU special forces destroyed all 16 attackers without loss.
Vladimir Kovtun was the first to discover the coveted "Stinger" wrapped in a blanket. A little later, the fighters brought two more "pipes" - empty and equipped. But the real jackpot was the "diplomat" of one of the dushmans, in which the scouts found complete documentation on MANPADS - from the addresses of suppliers in the United States to detailed instructions for the use of the complex. Four scouts were presented to the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. However, as is often the case, no one received a high award. As the commandos admitted - because of not the best relations with high authorities. However, the scouts were not upset: for them, such tasks are a routine.
As a result of an accidental but brilliantly conducted military intelligence special operation, Soviet designers received operational samples of the advanced Western MANPADS. In the shortest possible time, countermeasures were developed, and Soviet helicopters in Afghanistan began to be shot down much less frequently.
