Battle for Height 776

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Battle for Height 776
date February 29, 2000 to March 1, 2000
place Ulus-Kert , ( Chechnya )
output Victory of the Chechen rebels
consequences Parts of the rebels escape the encirclement
Parties to the conflict

Flag of Chechen Republic of Ichkeria.svg Chechen rebels Foreign mujahideen
Flag of Jihad.svg

Flag of Russia.svg Russia

Commander

Shamil Basayev
Ibn al-Khattab

Gennadiy
Troschew (Colonel General) Mark Evtjuchin (Lieutenant Colonel) †

Troop strength
1,500–2,500 fighters 90 paratroopers
losses

between 100 and 400 dead

84 dead

The battle for the height 776 took place during the Second Chechen War in the spring of 2000 about 3.5  km southeast of the Chechen town of Ulus-Kert. It was a military conflict between a company of paratroopers of the Russian Federation and the numerically clearly superior units that had been formed from remnants of the troops of the self-proclaimed Chechen Republic of Ichkeria and foreign mujahideen supporting them.

In the course of the fighting, the rebels succeeded in defeating a Russian company of airborne troops and units supporting them, with heavy losses of their own, in repelling attempts at relief by other Russian units and finally escaping their planned encirclement by Russian units.

Although the battle was only one of several in the area around Ulus-Kert during this period, it gained a high degree of publicity among the Russian public as a result of the high losses and contradicting descriptions of the course of events.

Preparations for the attack on Ulus-Kert

After reports that fighters displaced from the capital following the Argun River after the lost battle for Grozny gathered near Ulus-Kert - 20 kilometers south-southwest of Shali - the Russian high command planned an offensive to gain control of the area win and take out the rebels. The plan was to include the opposing associations in order to then force them to surrender.

Since the region southeast of Ulus-Kert is made up of mountainous terrain without settlements or developed roads, the plans of the Russian commander-in-chief, Colonel General Troschew , envisaged the use of small, mobile airborne units in the first phase, which were key positions at strategically important positions in the area Should occupy points in order to prevent enemy fighters from escaping through the mountain regions and to cut off suspected supply routes of the rebels from Georgia . The main burden of the attack on Ulust-Kert was then to be carried in a second phase by better-armed units from the north.

On February 22, 2000, Russian airborne troops penetrated the plain east of Ulus-Kert, occupied the village of Machkety and set up positions at Selmentausen . The way from Ulus-Kert to the east threatened to be blocked. The city of Shatoi , the administrative seat of the Shatoiski rajon , was occupied by regular Russian troops on February 28th after heavy fighting. This meant that the main road R-305, which ran south from the Ulus-Kert area, could no longer be used by the rebels either.

The way out for the largely enclosed groups - consisting of rebels and foreign mujahideen - which seemed the most sensible, was, despite the Russian presence, the way to the east, since there, in the mountain region around Vedeno , they still had a network of a few bases , which could entertain a larger number of fighters and also offered the opportunity to move towards Dagestan or Georgia .

Colonel General Troschew considered this possibility unlikely. The heavy losses which parts of the rebel troops had suffered only weeks before when they broke out from Grozny and in the fighting of the last few days, the poor supply situation for the enemy and the impassable terrain that would have to be crossed, did not lead him to suspect an offensive action by larger units. On February 29, 2000, he told the press that there were no longer any major "gangs".

On February 26, his staff gave the airborne troops of the 104th Regiment of the 76th Division the order to occupy heights 705.6 / 626 and 787th southeast of Ulus-Kert in the course of the 29th and to allow enemy fighters to break through in the direction of Selmentausen, Elistani, Machkety and Kirov-Yurt to prevent.

The 104th Regiment had three battalions with three companies each, numbered 1 to 9, and an artillery battalion, of which two 2S9 Nona-S tank mortars were available. Each company had a special intelligence group attached to it.

The outbreak

Map of the area with the designations of prominent points

With the encirclement clearly emerging and with no prospect of outside support, some of the trapped fighters decided to break out to the southeast on or around February 28th. The remaining part of the rebel troops, led by Ruslan Gelayev , went north-west to Komsomolski.

After the thaw had partially melted the snow in the area and turned the upper soil layers into slush , the weather deteriorated on the night of February 27th to 28th. Half a meter of fresh snow fell and thick fog lay over the region on the morning of the 28th.

The fighters around Shamil Basayev used a path that leads from Ulus-Kert to the south-east into the mountains. Each fighter wore winter clothing and personal equipment while food, heavy weapons, and ammunition were carried by a column of pack animals . Some fighters were also on horseback .

In the night from the 28th to the 29th the weather improved again and the snow began to melt, so that the solid ground became muddy again.

The 3rd Company had already dug in on the 27th east of Ulus-Kert at heights 666.0 and 574.9 and on the 29th it was the first unit to encounter opposing fighters. Their scouting troops were turned away by the Russian paratroopers at these positions, so that the rebels could not move through the gorge of the Abazulgol River, but had to look for another route to the east.

The 2nd Battalion of the 104th Russian Airborne Guard Regiment of the 76th Airborne Division had marched from Machkety to Selmentausen on the morning of the 28th. Colonel Melentiev, the commander of the 104th, decided on the morning of the 29th that the 6th company of the regiment should leave their previous position east of the Abazulgol River and occupy a position on a ridge near the height 776. This was to prevent enemy units in the mountains from seeping unmolested over narrow paths through the surrounding ring. The 4th Company was to occupy Höhe 787 for the same purpose, which is about 2 kilometers south of 776.

The altitude 776.0 , the name of which is derived from the altitude in meters on Russian maps, is only three kilometers south of the combat zone in which the 3rd Company had rejected the rebel advance shortly before . Since the company commander of the 6th, Major Molodow, had only recently been transferred to the unit, the commander of the 2nd battalion, Lieutenant Colonel Mark Evtjuchin, took command of the company for this mission. Captain Viktor Romanov, who acted as a liaison officer to the artillery of the 104th Regiment and was part of the staff of the 2nd Battalion, also accompanied the company.

The company had three platoons , two normally armed and one platoon equipped with machine guns and grenade launchers. The company was supported by a group of Spetsnaz soldiers.

The Russian paratroopers of 6th Company had to march around 15 kilometers from their starting position to height 776. They crossed the fast-flowing, but flat Abazulgol at a ford and took a narrow beaten path in the direction of height 776. The continuously densely wooded height and its surroundings offered no opportunity to land helicopters . That is why the soldiers on their march were laden with heavy equipment for building positions , with tents, cast-iron stoves, weapons, mines and all sorts of personal equipment, as they were supposed to keep their new position occupied for a long time. Individual soldiers sometimes carried up to 50 kg of luggage. In addition, they only had simple radio devices with which radio messages could not be encrypted.

The groups of the company progressed only slowly and could only march one after the other on the narrow paths on the slopes, so that they spread out over an ever longer distance. Only one group was sent forward with light baggage for reconnaissance. The marching speed of the company was 1 km per hour. The company's reconnaissance troop reached height 776 and found it unoccupied. The first parts of the company did not arrive at the height until 11:20 a.m., while five soldiers of the reconnaissance troop continued to advance on the ridge to explore height 705.6.

The Battle of Height 776

Map with the movements of Russian troops (red) and Chechen rebels (green) during the battle until the rebels infiltrated in the direction of Selmentausen

The bulk of the 6th Company arrived at 776 around 12:00 p.m., but the last of the marching groups was still a long way off at this point. The soldiers gathered at the western foot of the hill, began to set up a westward line of defense along the ridge and, according to some reports, began to cook food for themselves.

Arrived near 705.6, the reconnaissance troop got into a firefight with around 20 rebels at around 12:30 p.m. They recognized the weakness of the Russian troops, put them under pressure immediately and began to encircle the Russian soldiers. In order to avoid the enclosure, the five Russian soldiers withdrew towards Height 776. The combat-experienced rebels retained the initiative and pursued the fugitives, interrupted by exchanges of fire, to their starting position.

Major Moldow, actually company commander of the 6th, went with some men to meet the soldiers of the reconnaissance troop to support them, but was fatally wounded in a firefight with the troop's pursuers. Intercepted radio traffic on ultra-short waves between Chattab and Shamil Basayev, who did not personally take part in the battle as a result of his serious injury, indicates that the fighters had not known about paratroopers in the area up to this point. According to the intercepted radio messages, Chattab decided to attack the Russian troops, while Basayev had initially pleaded for the position at 776 to be bypassed.

The first rebel force of around 160 men under the command of Chattab split and bypassed Height 776 on both sides. Divided into groups of around 50 fighters, she included the paratroopers. A short time later the mass of the rebels arrived. Their total number is controversial; Depending on the source, information varies between 1,500 and 2,500 fighters.

The still missing group of the paratrooper company was caught by surprise on the route and overrun by the rebels before they could unite with the rest of the company.

After realizing the positions of the Russian paratroopers, the rebels began putting them under mortar fire to prevent them from digging in. The shelling only ended when their fighters had worked their way up to the positions of the paratroopers and the actual attack began.

Shot at with machine guns, sniper rifles and bazookas , the surviving paratroopers withdrew with their wounded to the top of Height 776 towards the end of the day, leaving some of their equipment, such as food and sleeping bags, on the slope.

The paratroopers in turn requested artillery fire from the two 2S9 Nona-S tank mortars of their airborne regiment, which began around the afternoon of February 29th, and, according to the artillery commander, Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Taustika, ultimately the entire stock of ammunition , by radio via the artillery officer accompanying them, Captain Romanov devoured.

General Troschew describes this subject in his memoirs as follows: « 1200 (!) Снарядов“ высыпали ”артиллеристы 104-го полка в район высоты 776,0 с полудар 1 с полудня 29 аферар 1 с полудня 29 аферар [29] »(German:" 1,200 grenades "poured" the artillerymen of the 104th Regiment in the area of ​​altitude 776.0 from the afternoon of February 29th to the early hours of March 1st [...]; ")

However, no statement can be made about the effectiveness of this artillery support. 31 soldiers of the 6th Company were killed on the first day, which is almost half the total strength of the unit.

The company's calls over the radio were not encrypted and could be overheard by the rebel fighters. A relief attempt of two trains of Spetsnaz - Special Forces failed then, when these soldiers long before they reached level 776, crossing the Abazulgol -Flusses east to a locked position of Ulus-Kert fell and had to retreat under the fire of the rebels.

At 3:00 a.m., a platoon with 15 soldiers from the 4th Company - led by Deputy Battalion Commander Major Alexander Dostawalow (he was Company Commander of the 6th until 1999) - managed to break through the encircling ring from the south and join the 6th Company to get. The platoon leader, a lieutenant, was killed in the action, the major seriously wounded. At around 5 a.m., on the morning of March 1, 2000, the rebels intensified their attacks again after initially not sending any fighters to the heights since midnight. To repel this attack, the company requested artillery fire on targets that were only 50 meters away from its own positions.

At 6:00 a.m., a wave of attacks crowded the surviving paratroopers into a very small space. Two Russian Mi-24 attack helicopters that circled the area in the morning had to turn after being shot at by the rebels with heavy machine guns from the forest .

The position of the last paratroopers was presumably overrun around 6:50 a.m. in another attack and the few survivors were killed in close combat.

On the morning of March 2, parts of the 1st Company of the 1st Battalion reached Height 776 and found only dead. After warning of further rebel units in the area, the bodies of the paratroopers could not be recovered until two days later.

The last radio message

A 2S9 armored mortar. Suitable as a high-angle firearm for use in mountainous terrain, weapons of this type provided artillery support for the 6th Company.

There are controversial reports about the last radio message from those trapped at around 6:10 a.m. After the information was spread that some of the Russian soldiers had been killed by their own artillery fire, the last radio message is described in several sources as the request for artillery fire at one's own position, either by Lieutenant Colonel Evtjuchin or by Captain Romanov.

On the website of the Izvestia daily newspaper , the wording of the last radio message, here by Captain Romanov, is reproduced in an article from August 2001 as follows: « Прощайте, мужики. Высота занята боевиками. Огонь по высоте 776! »(German:" Farewell boys, the height is occupied by militants. Fire at height 776! ")

The journalist Vladimir Swartsewitsch evaluated shortly afterwards from the recordings of radio traffic.

According to Swartsewistsch, the wording of the last radio message was: « Вы козлы, вы нас предали, суки! »(German:" You bullies, you betrayed us, sons of bitches! ")

Losses and consequences

losses

Patriarch Alexius II and Vladimir Putin at a memorial service for the killed soldiers on March 14, 2000 in Moscow

Six paratroopers survived the battle and were picked up by 1st Company during the course of March 2nd. Two were in hiding, three said they had sneaked from the heights on the instructions of a superior before the last attack, the sixth claimed to have surrendered in the course of the battle and was pillaged by the rebels and passed out after being hit with rifle butts in the face been left behind.

84 dead Russian paratroopers and Spetsnass soldiers from the 6th and 4th Company platoons were later found at Height 776 and the surrounding area. The rebels are said to have transported some of their dead on horse-drawn carts before Russian troops secured the site. It is unclear how many rebels and mujahideen actually perished. While initial reports of around 100 fighters were killed, Major Andrei Lobanov, who belonged to the group that reached the height a few days later, reported that he had counted around 200 fighters dead. The Russian press later reported a figure of 400 dead rebels and foreign mujahideen.

consequences

The bulk of the rebel troops escaped the impending encirclement through the gap that had emerged at 776.

In his memoirs, General Troschew attributed the breakup of the rebel unit to the 6th Company, but it only split up into smaller marching units. Some of them reached the Wedeno room in individual groups, where they reunited. Among these fighters was Shamil Basayev , who was responsible for numerous terrorist attacks in the following years , such as the hostage-taking in Moscow's Dubrovka Theater in 2002 and the 2004 assassination of Akhmat Kadyrov . Chattab went with 500 fighters to the southern Sharo-Argun.

A rebel group of around seventy fighters who escaped encirclement was, according to Russian information, captured a little later at Selmentausen.

Media war

The Russian Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev initially forbade his officers to publish information about events at Ulus-Kert because he had only recently officially declared the war over.

Even before Russian relief troops had reached the height on March 2, rebels gathered 776 bodies at the height. The reason was initially unclear, but a little later eight photos showing lined up groups of killed Russian soldiers were uploaded to a pro-Chechen separatist website. Days later, a camera team from the Russian television broadcaster Rossija 1 filmed the bodies of individual rebels who had been killed in the vicinity of the heights.

The news about the losses could no longer be suppressed and slowly came to the public. Although unconfirmed rumors of 86 deaths surfaced in the press on March 3, the number of officially admitted fatalities rose only slowly, so that a realistic figure was only admitted in a statement of March 10, 2000.

Error and cause research

Monument to the dead of the 76th Airborne Division in Pskov . The signatures of the 84 dead have been transferred to the inside of the 20 meter high dome.

The paratroopers' courage and individual performance were praised in all reports. Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev even compared their performance with that of the soldiers of Ivan Panfilov from the Second World War .

As a fundamental mistake in connection with the events of February 28 to March 1, 2000, the Russian military leadership is accused of a lack of or inadequate tactical reconnaissance . The paratroopers were sent into the area with no reliable information about the number, condition or intentions of the enemy.

The 104th Airborne Regiment should have carried out tactical reconnaissance itself in order to find out at an early stage what was happening in front of or next to the companies, so that there would have been enough time for appropriate measures as soon as the threat had been recognized.

This was not possible, however, because since the loss of such a reconnaissance unit in November 1999, the Russian troops were no longer allowed to use reconnaissance units on the ground as long as they were outside the range of their own artillery or air support . Since the 2S9 Nona tank mortars reached altitude 776 from their positions near Machkety, but Ulus-Kert was already out of range, a reconnaissance mission that would have penetrated to the site was in fact prohibited.

The 6th Company did not have an air force control officer who could have requested and instructed air support, so that the attack helicopters that had flown over the battlefield could not attack due to the poor visibility .

The high command did not give the regimental commander of the 104th permission to withdraw the 6th Company, despite repeated requests. At the same time, the remaining parts of the regiment are said to have been forbidden from leaving their positions to support the 6th Company.

According to reports, the 15 soldiers of the 4th Company who joined the 6th that night acted contrary to orders and were all volunteers. The battalion commander, Lieutenant Colonel Evtjuchin, reportedly refused an attempt to provide support over the radio, fearing that the troops would be wiped out by the rebels before they could reach his position.

When approaching the height 776, the company is said to have also taken their heavy infantry support weapons with extensive ammunition stocks, which meant that the soldiers arrived at the height completely exhausted despite the high physical performance even through the mountainous terrain, and their combat strength even before the start of the battle was reduced.

public perception

Putin during a memorial service for the fallen

In combination with an ambush on March 3, 2000 near Grozny, in which a column of vehicles carrying parts of the OMON special unit was attacked and several police officers died, the slow and contradictory information policy of the Russian military led to massive public criticism.

In the aftermath of the events, President Vladimir Putin campaigned for the surviving relatives of the soldiers. After attending a memorial service in Moscow on March 14th, he signed a decree on July 21st, 2000 instructing the administration of Pskov , the home base of the 76th Airborne Division, to erect a memorial for the killed soldiers of the 6th Airborne Division . Company of the 104th Guards Airborne Regiment of the 76th Division. At the same time, he recommended all government agencies of the Russian Federation to take action to preserve the memory of the soldiers. Then on August 2, 2000, he traveled to Pskov to speak at the unveiling of a temporary memorial stone. The final memorial was completed in August 2001. A street in Grozny was also named after the company. According to reports on Russian state television, he also visited Höhe 776 in April 2001.

All paratroopers were highly decorated. Twenty-one were posthumously awarded the title Hero of the Russian Federation , 63 were posthumously awarded the Medal for Valor. One of the six survivors was also awarded the title Hero of the Russian Federation, while the remaining five received the medal for bravery.

art

The events at height 776 have been the subject of several Russian television films , including: Russian Victim (Russian: Русская жертва ) a television film from 2008, and Breakthrough! (Russian: Прорыв ), a film by Vitaly Lukin from 2006. There are also numerous works by Russian musicians and poets .

Evidence and references

Remarks

  1. In a first statement on Friday, March 10, 2000, the Deputy Commander of the Russian Airborne Forces is quoted in the Independent with the duration of the battle from February 29 to March 3. So also Michael D. Wilmoth, Peter G. Tsouras: Ulus-Kert: An Airborne Company's Last Stand . (PDF) army.mil; Retrieved October 1, 2010
  2. According to the survivors, 120 mm mortar shells also came from the direction of Selmentausen, which may indicate a possible involvement of the artillery of the neighboring 108th Airborne Regiment. Report in novayagazeta of April 23, 2001 on Vladimir Vorobyov's investigation into the events, accessed on September 28, 2010
  3. Other sources report that the group suffered no losses on the breakthrough.
  4. The statement is occasionally taken as an indication of possible corruption in the Russian military leadership. In combination with radio communications from the separatist leaders, in which they advised on negotiating with the Russian soldiers, this is seen as an indication of bribery of official bodies that guaranteed safe passage for a fee, but did not initiate the paratroopers. So in Sergei Turchenko's article. svpressa.ru, March 1, 2010; Retrieved October 2, 2010.
  5. Some sources name seven survivors, so in the article, Incapable Generals Sacrifice Soldiers - Ten Years Tragedy of the 6th Company in Chechnya, from March 2, 2010 on de.rian.ru
  6. Sergei Baran, on the other hand, states that at the time of the operation all reconnaissance activities for the regiment were even limited to visibility or a maximum of 500 meters in front of their own positions. Interview with Colonel Sergei Ivanovich Baran on army.lv, accessed October 2, 2010.
  7. Sergei Baran reports that Yevtjuchin refused his help on this grounds at 11:45 p.m. Interview with Colonel Sergei Ivanovich Baran on army.lv, accessed on October 2, 2010.

literature

  • Gennady Nikolayevich Troschew: My war. Chechnya memories of a trench general. (Russian .: Моя война. Чеченский дневник окопного генерала), Verlag (Вагриус), 2001, ISBN 5-264-00657-1 .
  • Paul J. Murphy: The wolves of Islam: Russia and the faces of Chechen terror. Brassey's, ISBN 1-57488-830-7 .
  • CW Blandy: Conflict Studies Research Center: Chechnya Two Federal Disasters. 2002, ISBN 1-903584-78-7 .

Television documentaries

  • Высота 776 (height 776), Rossija 1 , 2000

Web links

Commons : Battle for Height 776  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
  1. Article in "The Independent" dated March 10, 2000 with official comments, accessed October 1, 2010
  2. Article on RIA Novosti from March 2, 2010 (German)
  3. Article on kavkazcenter.com - Propaganda site that appears to be a Chechen separatist site , accessed October 1, 2010

Individual evidence

  1. a b svpressa.ru, accessed on October 2, 2010.
  2. ^ Statement by General Troschew dated March 10, 2000 on independent.co.uk, accessed October 1, 2010
  3. ^ A b Conflict Studies Research Center: Chechnya Two Federal Disasters , CW Blandy, p. 22.
  4. a b c d e f g Article of August 1, 2001 on izvestia.ru, accessed October 2, 2010.
  5. a b Incapable generals sacrifice soldiers. from March 2, 2010 on de.rian.ru; Retrieved October 3, 2010.
  6. a b c d e Michael D. Wilmoth, Peter G. Tsouras: Ulus-Kert: An Airborne Company's Last Stand . (PDF) army.mil, p. 92 and following; Retrieved October 1, 2010
  7. a b c d e f Interview with Colonel Sergei Ivanovich Baran on army.lv, accessed on October 2, 2010.
  8. a b c d e f g h i Report on Lebed.com, issue 559, March 9, 2008 by Juri Swarog, accessed on September 29, 2010
  9. a b Report in the novayagazeta of April 23, 2001 on Vladimir Vorobyov's investigation into the events, accessed on September 28, 2010
  10. a b c d e f My war. Chechnya memories of a general. Chapter 8.
  11. ^ CW Blandy: Conflict Studies Research Center: Chechnya Two Federal Disasters. P. 18.
  12. Chronological sequence of events, on army.lv, accessed on October 3, 2010
  13. Press release on highbeam.com, accessed on October 1, 2010 ( Memento from October 22, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
  14. so on sdokin.narod.ru/memory.htm
  15. Interview with Swartsewistsch from February 8, 2010 on chelyabinsk.ru, accessed on October 2, 2010. ( Memento from November 19, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
  16. Interview with the survivor Alexander Suponinski
  17. Article by W. Pyatkov and K. Raschchepkina on redstar.ru viewed on October 1, 2010 ( Memento from May 3, 2001 in the Internet Archive )
  18. ^ The wolves of Islam: Russia and the faces of Chechen terror , Paul J. Murphy, p. 115
  19. BBC article, March 6, 2000, accessed October 29, 2010
  20. specnaz.ru, accessed October 1, 2010
  21. высоты 776 (height 776), Rossija 1 , 2000
  22. Article from March 3, 2000 on rferl.org, accessed on March 1, 2011
  23. ^ Statement by Igor Sergejew dated March 10, 2000, quoted on independent.co.uk, accessed October 1, 2010
  24. a b c of November 15, 2002 at izvestia.ru, accessed on October 2, 2010.
  25. Article by Sergei Turchenko from March 1, 2010, on svpressa.ru, accessed on October 2, 2010.
  26. pskovgorod.ru, accessed October 1, 2010
  27. report in the moscowtimes of 16 April 2001 called on 1 October 2010. ( Memento of 2 April 2015, Internet Archive )
  28. Homepage with photos of the killed on the Russian site with the name of the award given, accessed on October 1, 2010

Coordinates: 42 ° 57 ′ 47 "  N , 45 ° 48 ′ 17"  E