Aleksandr Antonovich Lyakhovskiy Working Paper pp

 

We had barely gotten out of the sentry box when an explosion rang out and threw us into the breastwork 

again. I lost consciousness. One of the guys dragged me to the sentry box where Bayev was lying. When I came to 

Kolya Shvachko asked me whether I could go into battle but I couldn’t. I shot at the windows of the Palace with a 

sniper rifle. Bayev and I remained in the sentry box until the end of the assault.”. 

 

 

The “Shilka”s hit Taj-Bek but the 23-mm shells which were not designed for such purposes bounced off the 

thick walls, carving out granite chips. And all the same they exerted a psychological influence on the Afghan 

defenders. 

 

 

Yakov Semenov confirmed that “Gulyabzoy Said was in my crew from the very beginning of the assault on 

the Palace and he travelled the same path that we did”. 

 

 

The hurricane of fire continued from the Palace, pinning the special forces to the ground. This was the 

culminating moment of the battle, which was necessary to rouse people to the attack no matter what the cost. The main 

part of the soldiers were wounded at this moment. The commanders, Eh. Kozlov, G. Boyarinov, V. Karpukhin, and S. 

Golov were first to make an assault. But the people climbed only when a “Shilka” neutralized a machine gun in one of 

the Palace windows. This continued for a short while, possible five minutes, but it seemed an eternity to the attackers. 

Ya. Semenov and his soldiers also threw themselves at the Palace and were met at the entrance by M. Romanov’s 

group…He recalls: “Initially the situation was on the edge of panic. I saw that we could not get a large number of 

people to the Palace. The shooting was horrible. The firing locations, which should have been neutralized by the army 

guys, were shooting at everything. If we had flinched just a bit everything would have turned out differently. And 

suddenly a general outburst: we needed to get to the entrance!  We made a dash to the Palace entrance but Viktor 

Karpukhin was already standing there.  Many Afghan bodies were next to him. It is good that Yasha and his soldiers 

showed up here. We, too, had several guys too. 

 

 

I was in shell shock when I began to organize a second approach to the Palace, either from an RPG round or 

a grenade burst whose shock wave threw me on the BMP, which my head and the left side of my body struck. The blow 

was sharp and blood flowed from my ears and nose. I felt its salty taste on my lips. I started to hear badly as there was 

a constant buzzing in my ears. I even sort of lost consciousness for some time. I regained consciousness – explosions, 

shots, the cannonade. But the mission was still not accomplished, the very heat of the battle. As they say, here I wasn’t 

up to it… 

 

 

We didn’t go by the side but through the windows, on the right side. The guys acted desperately and clearly. 

There were various situations…” 

 

 

Something inconceivable was happening. It was a picture of Hell. The “Shilka”’s were firing well. 

Everything was confused. But everyone acted in a single outburst; there was no one who would have tried to shirk or 

sit it out in shelter and wait out the assault. Zudin was killed back on the approaches and Kuvylin,  Fedoseyev,  Bayev, 

and  Shvachko were wounded. Things were no better with “Zenit”.  Ryazanov, who received a perforation wound in 

the thigh, bandaged his leg himself and went on the attack. But nevertheless they managed to overcome the resistance 

of the Afghans and break into the Palace building. 

 

 

A group of special forces consisting of  Kozlov,  Boyarinov,  Golov,  Sobolev, Karpukhin,  Plyusnin,  

Grishin,  Anisimov,  Kurilov,  Bykovskiy, and  Filimonov attacked through the main entrance and  Romanov,  

Semenov with the “Zenit” forces of  Ryazantsev and  Poddubnyy broke in through a window on the right side of the 

Palace.   Karelin,  Shchigolev, and  Kurbanov attacked the Palace from the rear. Rustam Tursunkulov: “We ran into 

heavy fire. The personnel of the platoon hid behind the APCs and began to dig in because it was simply impossible to 

raise one’s head”. 

 

 

All the groups and soldiers were confused and each was already acting at their own discretion. There was no 

single command. There was a single goal – to make it to the walls of the Palace as quickly as possible, hide behind 

them somehow, and carry out the mission. The special forces were in hostile territory, in a foreign uniform, without 

documents, and without any recognition signs; there was nothing except white armbands on their sleeves. The fire was 

so heavy that the safety glass on all the BMPs was shot out and the skirting was punctured in every square centimeter. 

That is, it had the appearance of a strainer. They special forces were saved only by being in bulletproof vests, although 

they were practically all wounded. 

 

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Yakushev and Yemyshev were first into the central entrance of the building. The Afghans were throwing 

grenades from the second floor but the special forces jumped into the entrance hall. Yemyshev recalls that: 

“Practically no one was left in our crew; they had all jumped out. Under cover of the BMP Yakushev and I rushed to 

the central entrance and jumped into the building. He wanted to rush upstairs right away but I said to him: “Let’s go 

to the left here; we need to destroy the communications center.”  There was no one in the entrance hall besides us. I 

ran to the left and opened the door to the duty officer’s room; the lights were all on but there was no one in it. On the 

right was a hall and further on, the telephone center. I suddenly saw Yakushev fall and ran to him but at this time I 

was hit by something large in the right arm: my automatic weapon fell, my arm was hanging, there were bits of flesh, 

and all the bones had been broken. I fell and started to crawl to the entrance door. At this time Sergey Kolomiyets 

jumped into the entrance hall, shot a round from his automatic weapon to the right, a round to the left, and left. Then 

others rushed in. The guys saw me and helped me. Kolya Berlev wrapped a bandage on the wounded arm and put me 

in a BMP which had been parked right across from the entrance. The shooting was not as strong as in the beginning 

and we were able to move. But the guys went upstairs.” 

 

 According 

to 

Grishin: “We jumped out of the BMP and rushed to the Palace entrance. Viktor Anisimov was 

shooting from a “Mukha” grenade launcher. I was behind him and, although he yelled for everyone behind him to go 

move away, could not manage to avoid it. Evidently I was in shell shock then but I quickly came to my senses. We hid 

behind an overhang on the first floor of the entrance hall. It was lit up and there was shooting everywhere. We 

advanced on Karpukhin’s order. Yemyshev was lying at the ladder which was resting on the second story. But in reply 

to the question posed at the briefing before [the operation] “What do we do with the wounded?” there was dead 

silence and I don’t remember what an Embassy representative said, as I remember, “Generally speaking, you need to 

carry out the mission”. No one said that you don’t need to render aid but no one answered. We understood that the 

main thing was to carry out the mission. 

 

 

Running to the ladder around which Valeriy Petrovich was lying I simply saw his eyes, how he looked at me. 

Both Vitya Anisimov and I simply grabbed him and it seemed the hand of his left arm was torn off. We dragged him to 

under an overhang and tried to bandage his arm, but he said: “Volod’, my arm was torn off there, don’t look so it 

doesn’t shock you”. We were all in a first battle for the first time and had seen wounded people for the first time. We 

bandaged him and left him. When we started to enter the entrance hall again I saw a soldier lying on his back with a 

huge hole in his forehead. It turned out to be Yakushev. When I saw him I were aware of the whole seriousness of this 

operation and felt that all of us were now on the edge of life and death; feelings of danger and caution appeared. I 

then became more attentive and, casting aside fear, reacted to the slightest movement without giving the enemy a 

change to shoot first”. 

 

 

Sergey Golov recalls that: “All the soldiers of my crew except Zudin were able to make it to the building and 

started to operate according to the previously developed plan. We broke in through the center. Sergey Kuvylin and 

Grigoriy Ivanovich Boyarinov ended up next to me. The group which was to have put the communications center out 

of commission could not manage to break in and they were practically all wounded. Grigoriy Ivanovich was also 

wounded by that time. Kuvylin and I helped him – they showered the communications center with grenades. If I recall 

right now, there were so many grenades and cartridges hanging on us as each could carry. I was next to Misha 

Sobolev who was throwing grenades and I was “working” the rooms with a machine gun. The rest were also doing the 

same. The first order was “Don’t take prisoners. No one should be left alive.” 

 

 Likewise, 

Kurilov 

remembers: 

“The roar of battle covered a well-known tenor voice: “Forward, men!’”The 

old soldier Grigoriy Ivanovich evidently felt some mistake in the actions of the defenders. The return fire actually 

started to seem less intense. 

 

 

I leaned out of the parapet, let go a long burst just before jumping, but suddenly felt a strong blow on my left 

which turned up at my elbow; the automatic weapon jerked to the left and the butt hit my shoulder painfully. Such an 

effect I had from a shell exploding in the weapon! I squeezed the cock from inertia but the weapon didn’t fire…I dived 

under a parapet, laid on my side, and began to jerk the bolt – but it wouldn’t move. And there I saw that my weapon 

had been jammed! The bolt had been completely jammed! My left arm had grown numb. I took a glance – my hand 

was all bloody. I felt with the fingers of my right hand. Ugh! The edge of my palm was double its normal size! I 

imagined: probably the bullet had gone through the left hand which was on the front grip of the stock, and hit the 

weapon and jammed it. But where had the bullet come from? Could it have ricocheted around my face? 

 

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