received the order to carry out the diversion I again reconnoitered the target visually, but upon returning to the villa
noticed that everyone except those in my group had gone off somewhere, including the leaders of the opposition.
I gathered the group, announced the time the diversion would take place and assigned the mission to also cut
the cable at 1930.
At about 1845 we drive in three vehicles to carry out the command’s mission. Only one officer was left at the
villa whom I ordered, in case the mission failed, to hide everything and go to our Embassy, specifically to the Border
Guards post. Although there were not enough interpreters in the detachment I nevertheless begged for an interpreter
to be assigned to my group.
The further development of events showed that had there not been an interpreter in my group the operation
would not have gone without bloodshed.
Having arrived at the target of sabotage the cover subgroup and I situated ourselves in an UAZ-469 around
the traffic control post. The second cover subgroup stopped around the hotel in a “Volga” [automobile] and Boris
Pleshkunov’s subgroup with interpreter Khayatov in an UAZ-450 directly approached the conduit. At the moment the
conduit hatch was opened the sentry of the communications center security post unexpectedly hailed the saboteurs.
The interpreter ran to the sentry and explained that they were checking communications, offered him a cigarette, and
distracted him with conversation.
The operation to open the hatch, lay the charge in the conduit, and then open the hatch again to throw a
grenade in with tear gas (in their haste they did not put the grenade in with the charge) was carried out, as they say, in
a matter of seconds, although it seemed like quite a long time to all of us. The position of the cover [force] and the
perpetrators and the distance between them allowed us to use visual means of communication. Therefore as soon as
the UAZ-450 with the saboteurs left the site our cover groups also began to move simultaneously.
We returned to the villa without adventure and began to await the explosion without worry. At the moment we
returned two officers of our [KGB] residency and several Afghans were at the villa who were to greet their supporters,
so we armed them.
Among the Afghans was one who spoke Russian quite well. The rest of the Afghans did not know Russian or
gave the appearance that they didn’t understand Russian.
At 1930 a strong explosion thundered rumbled and soon a second one, not far from us, blowing up the army
communications lines.
I reported to the leadership via radio about completion of the mission. And then it began. The shooting in the
area of Amin’s palace was especially intense…”
The explosion was to have served as the start of the assault on Taj-Bek but the special forces had begun
somewhat earlier. According to Sergey Golov: “We had hardly begun to move when our vehicle stopped. The driver-
mechanic was frightened, jumped out of the BMP and fled, but I hadn’t yet managed to decide on his replacement
when he returned - it turned out to be even more frightening outside the vehicle. We started to climb upwards. When
we stopped and began to get out the two Tajik interpreters sitting on the edge were killed right away. It turned out that
behind the BMP was an Afghan guard post whose soldiers opened fire on us. We had to eliminate this guard post and
turn around right away because the main shooting was from above, from the direction of the Palace. Gena Zudin was
rather heavy when he jumped out of the BMP; his legs fell under the track and were crushed. Who gave him [medical]
aid I don’t know because the main mission then was rouse the subunit into the attack and advance. The fire was very
intense. When we managed to make it to the Palace walls to a “dead” space we began to feel a bit better”.
The break-in took place under a hurricane of fire. The combat vehicle of Viktor Karpukhin made it to the
Palace first although it was third in the column. Karpukhin recalled: “I was the commander of one of the subgroups.
When the BMP stopped I scared the driver-mechanic a bit. I told him not to spare the ammunition just shoot as fast as
you can. And he tried; it was impossible to breath in the vehicle from the smoke. All the shells and rounds for the
machine gun coupled with the gun were expended very quickly. But we had left something else entirely in order to get
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to the target. I forced the driver-mechanic to drive closer to the Palace because it was foolish to even be exposed to
such heavy fire. And the driver-mechanic moved the BMP almost to the main gate itself. Thanks to this only two more
in my crew were slightly wounded. All the remaining subgroups suffered much worse. I jumped out first and Sasha
Plyusnin ended up next to me. We began to shoot at everyone who was exposed and was shooting from the windows,
allowing all the rest of the soldiers of our subgroup to get out. They managed to quickly make it under the walls, break
into the building, and continue the mission further…”
The special forces quickly climbed to the area in front of Taj-Bek. They make it under the heavy fire of large-
caliber machine guns. It turned out that they were firing from every quarter.
According
to
Kolomiyets: “We had barely gotten out of the BMP when a shaped-charge grenade hit it. I then
encountered a machinegunner who was sitting inside; his jaw was down and there was a terrible wound in his
stomach. I don’t know whether he remained alive. A fragment had pierced my bulletproof vest but I ran under a
deflector [kozyrek
], and like everyone else not even noticing whether I was wounded or not. There was great
excitement and the desire to go even further”.
The first minutes of battle were the most serious. The KGB special forces went to assault Taj-Bek but the
main forces of Vladimir Sharipov’s company and the platoon of Rustam Tursunkulov covered their operations. The
other subunits of the “Muslim” battalion provided an external covering ring.
According
to
Grishin:
“We began to climb the winding road. It was dark. When we approached the Palace I
saw the guys who had gotten out earlier – Sasha Repin and Zudin. We passed them. Luckily it turned out that the
column had kept somewhat to the right; we had gone around them and drove up to the entrance itself. Bullets hit the
“armor” and there was a feeling of unreality: everything around was lit up, searchlights were blinking, and the guys
were moving quite openly…The guards evidently also valued their lives and were also afraid to expose themselves,
although they threw grenades. There were explosions”.
The bulletproof vest of one of the “Grom” subgroup commanders, Oleg Balashov, was hit by a fragment but
in the excitement he did not feel pain and threw himself at the Palace together with everyone else; however he did not
have enough strength for long and he was sent to the medical battalion. Eh. Kozlov was sitting on the side of the
combat vehicle, still in the BMP; he barely managed to put his leg outside when it was shot but, paying no attention to
it, he jumped out of the BMP, clearing the way for his comrades-in-arms…”
According to Vladimir Fedoseyev:
“I was sitting last in the BMP; Bayev was opposite me with a machine
gun. We were ready to open the hatches at any moment to jump out in time if the vehicle was put out of action. We had
just begun to move, but had not gone probably ten meters when they opened fire from the direction of the Palace. They
knocked out our BMP. The passage was so narrow that two automobiles could separate with difficulty but generally
combat vehicles couldn’t at all. The vehicle began to spin and the BMP commander shouted that an armor fragment
had hit him in the thigh. When the driver tried to get out of the vehicle he was killed immediately. There was a pause
and a dead silence. I turned to Balashov and said: “Oleg! This is an iron coffin. We need to jump out”. But he said to
me: “Where did they say? There’s been no order”. I said “What order could there be? Just one more round and we’re
dead men; or we can do something else. Open the hatches”. We jumped out of the vehicle. Bayev took a position right
away with the machine gun and went behind the BMP and opened fire from a rifle. Balashov lay right next to me.
Afterwards a second grenade hit our vehicle and it began to smoke. An interpreter was also with us. He had been
killed in the first second when he tried to climb out of the vehicle through the upper hatch.
We fired until the magazines were out of rounds. At this time some sort of explosion occurred next to us. I felt
a sharp pain in my legs. My right leg was wrapped around my left. After some time I felt blood trickling down my legs.
A shell landed on the vehicle right next to us and exploded. The terrible impact and shock wave threw me down from
this breastwork. Aleksey Bayev was standing on the breastwork and firing a machine gun. Suddenly there was some
sort of snap and he fell. I started to call him but he did not answer. I tried to drag him to a sentry box; he was big,
about 120 kg, and I couldn’t do it. It’s good that Shvachko helped. We dragged him to the sentry box and I gave him
an injection, and bandaged his thigh. I did not know then that he also had a wound in his neck. We left Bayev in the
sentry box and again went to assault the Palace.
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