preparations for a strategically complex operation are carried out under the leadership of the head of the district operational group, anatoly nesterovich martovitsky. and the immediate operational-tactical actions were led by vladimir egorovich proniche. the operation has been carefully developed for a long time. scouts determine the location of enemy strongholds and their air defense bases. sappers discover and neutralize landmines that the majahideen planted at the entrance to the gorge. helicopter crews are prepared. they know in advance the landing sites, approaches to platforms action plan for paratroopers. they were equipped with appropriate equipment and all necessary weapons. if you are a leader, then you need to save the lives of your subordinates, this is fundamental. the weather in

the mountains is constantly changing, requiring sailors to act only when the weather is stable, and that day has come. april 9, 1986. at the beginning of an operation, pilots use operational stealth. helicopters fly over enemy firing points three times without firing, the fourth time the mujahideen fall into a trap, similar to the landing desan.

in afghanistan since 1983, started with the rank of major as the head of a field operational group of a border detachment, they captured - this whole gorge, i saw for the first time about a thousand 200 italian mines, the italians rushed the whole thing, the real land shook so much, we far from this place, but the ground shook, well, 1,200 anti-tank ones. anti-vehicle mines during the warduzh operation, the gang of the field commander najmuddin was defeated. the border guards set up the garrisons of akshra, umol, gardana. the city of terderan is also under the control of the border guards. all caravan routes for the supply of weapons from pakistan to the democratic republic of afghanistan are blocked. thanks to the high-quality preparation of the operation. despite

all its complexity and duration, from april 9 to may 7, the border guards did not lose a single person. the head of the border troops, army general sailors, visited afghanistan many times during the 10 years of war, risking his life, like all border guards who fought. we were waiting impatiently for him to arrive, howling squad, soldiers.

it was expressed with such humor that it did not offend, but touched the soul very deeply, after that it was impossible to work poorly or overlook some little thing, officially the border troops did not participate in the afghan war, but the opponents understood who they were dealing with, we took another caravan that...

kgb chairman viktor mikhailovich chebrikov , head of border troops vadim aleksandrovich matrosov. on whose initiative the retaliation operation was carried out. as a result of the operation, the latif gang was destroyed. in april 1988 , the geneva agreements on a political settlement around afghanistan were signed and a date was set. five outposts, 10 motorized and air assault maneuver groups, a division of patrol

ships and two air regiments. soviet troops left afghanistan with unfurled banners, like winners. i... i want to say that there is not a single soviet soldier, officer or ensign behind me, this is where my nine-year stay ended, the border guards covering the fortieth army left we were the last to leave afghanistan, although the withdrawal had already passed, there gromov accepted these congratulations, everything, everything, everything, as if all the correspondents had left, we seemed to be left on this territory directly next to the bridge. “zhilkin sergey mikhailovich” began in afghanistan in 1986 with the rank of major as head of a mutomaneuverable group. well then, at about 16 o’clock we receive a command to go forward to the soviet

union, build a column, and let’s go. well, there was no such pomp, the exit of border guards from afghanistan in the border zone squad.

has reached the peak of the greatest heights in terms of reliability, in the sense of continuity in... in the sense of the skill of the command staff, the preparedness of the commanders of the outposts, on whom everything always depends, the nature of the successful actions of the border guards is their courage, highly professional training, certainly strategic thinking and the firm hand of the boss border troops of the kgb of the ussr. vadim alexandrovich matrosov. well, sailors?

you will go to moscow for a course to improve the fister staff. eat. gained experience. it's time for him to share. but the main thing to remember is the personnel. “you should feel sorry, i don’t agree, comrade lieutenant colonel, you should not feel sorry for the soldier, but take care of him, he came up with it himself, you will go far, serve your homeland, in the period from december 1979 to february 1989 in the central asian theater of military operations under the leadership of army general, aleksandrovich matrosov a strategic operation was carried out to

ensure security and reliable cover of the state border of the ussr with the republic of afghanistan. at a front of more than 2,300 km and a depth of more than 100 km. aleksanovich was a very simple person; he is the only leader of the border service of the soviet union.

dedicated to the border guard heroes, defenders of the borders of the homeland in 1979-1989. the film is based on... border guards on fire in afghanistan. the four-volume volume is dedicated to the history of the afghan war, the participation in it of the border troops of the kgb and the ussr. even after.

dear friends, you have watched the film the main frontier, a film about the unknown pages of the afghan war, playing vadim aleksandrovich

matrosov, army general, hero of the soviet union, play the legend. this is, of course, a great reward, a great responsibility, like playing the greatest commander, but in the life of a very modest man, very sincere, quiet, calm, no one has ever seen him irritated, but at the same time this man of the greatest fortitude and courage, what came out main film: the border for us and for all border guards is, of course, a great joy and a great reward.

today in our studio we have vladimir nikolaevich snegerev, honored journalist of the russian federation. a person who has been around for many years worked in afghanistan, covered military operations in the north caucasus, in the middle east, for many years he was involved in the search and release of soviet prisoners of war in afghanistan, now he is a columnist for a russian newspaper, and i am glad that we have such a guest today in our studio on channel one. hello, vladimir nikolaevich, hello, we are meeting with you after watching a wonderful documentary film that talks about... the border guards of the times of the afghan company, and the first question is not idle, how komsomolskaya pravda correspondent, columnist, sports journalist, how did you end up in afghanistan? well, it was the eighty -first year, i was then a member of the komsomorskaya pravda board, i had two departments under me, sports and military, so i came , excuse me, so you were not just

a correspondent, already the second was the head of a small one, the editor of two departments, sports and military. and the komsomol pravda came to us with an order from the central committee of the cpsu, from the authority, as they called it then, to send members of the board to afghanistan for a period of 1 year, well selizin then the editor-in-chief gathers, which means there are members of the board who want to go as volunteers, this is the beginning of the eighty- first year, no one knows anything about what is happening across the river, beyond the abudarya, beyond the panj, what kind of war is there, who are we fighting with, complete darkness, complete secrecy, no articles, no... broadcasts, well, we already know that the coffins are coming, we already know that everyone is scared of war, we lived for many years without any war after the second great patriotic war, the question is who will go, that's all silent, meeting colleagues ends, the next day, again a day later, the editor-in-chief says, the station demands us, we need to give an answer, i ask again, there are volunteers, again everyone

is silent, well, it’s clear why it’s scary, finally the third, third meeting, he’s already in this irritation. gennady nikolaevich, let’s resolve the issues, if no one is willing, i will give you a directive, but it somehow rose in my hands, there were probably some internal reasons for this, maybe i’m already tired of of what was maybe i worked in the field of sports there and military topics, maybe i wanted something else, i didn’t know where i was going, why i was going, i didn’t know anything at all, my hand went up, well, everyone breathed a sigh of relief, thank god , the problem is solved, that’s it, i started preparing for this trip, i didn’t know anything about afghanistan, more... i wrote the letter with the letter v, and not f, afghanistan, it was so dense and at that time, well, not only i, became study the language, began to read books, i was given a month to prepare, and on march 21, just in navrus, the new year's holiday islamic calendar, i arrived in kabul, and you are a family man, i am a family man, i

had a wife and daughter, i understand, before making such a decision, you said yes, i told my wife, and of course it was not easy for her respond positively to my decision, well , she was, in general, the right wife for me, she generally perceived my business trips as all sorts of different, they were different, this is in the northern region...

the headline, i’ll remember now, but the article is precisely about the fact that our soldiers are in afghanistan, before that there was complete darkness, the first the article appeared on the komsomor wire, we made it through the military censorship, and the article was so very neat, but it was a breakthrough, i then received a bag of letters from the mothers and fathers of these soldiers, because for the first time we told that we were in afghanistan, that there our guys are fulfilling their international duty, first, i was very pleased, because it was a breakthrough, second, this was after the withdrawal of... troops from afghanistan, eighty-nine, march, february, no, troops in february came out, i in march jellabat arrived there, got there by miracle, jallabat was then completely surrounded

by spirits, and such was the key city in front of kabul, if jallabat had hit, then palbabul would be the next, then all the mujahideen united, before that they were at enmity with each other, at least we weren’t friends, we united and went to storm jallabat, and i got there with difficulty using afghan helicopters. i stayed there for 49 hours, 49 hours, every hour, it was, it was just horror, you just had to survive at the same time, somehow crawl through these trenches, so 49 hours, i returned to kabul, handed over, i was already working in pravda, an article, it was called 49 hours in besieged jallabad, then all the major world newspapers reprinted it, it was also very important for me, because we thereby showed that afghanistan is still kabul, that it is holding on, that the kabul power is holding on, not only on soviet tentacles, but alone. and that it is capable of resisting the majahits, who were backed by the entire west, and not only the west, but also china. i started with the fact that we watched both you and me, a film, a documentary

a film about border guards, what were your feelings about the film? 2 years ago i was asked by general of the army prodnichev, vladimir yagorovich, to take a video interview with participants in the afghan war, border guards, to record a video interview as a specialist on afghanistan, as a person who knows the topic, and for several months we worked, we... have different profiles, and scouts, security officers, staff officers, sappers, doctors, that is, all the border guards who were involved in the afghan war, this is a unique material in general, because we wrote this interview in the museum the troops were punished, it was such a frank, serious conversation, people remembered afghanistan, their afghan past. unique material, this material became, as it were supposed, it could become the basis for many documentaries and even feature films, there were different collisions, normative, heavy and heroic,

all sorts of different ones in these interviews, well, in fact, it became the basis of these interviews, the basis of this film, and you and i have seen several feature films and documentaries about the border patrol, this one is the most true from documentaries. you managed to talk with very high ranks in the army with people working in the special services, these are generally difficult conversations, not for some reason they are closed, which is correct, which is indicated by the very essence of their service, and it is quite difficult to get them to talk, nevertheless, you somehow... it was possible to do this, in soviet times it was easier, because then we were doing one common thing, we were kind of building that same socialism, but we... are you a

pravda correspondent there or are you, uh, a kgb general, we were doing one thing there - that's a common thing, when i came there to representatives of our intelligence in afghanistan, and often this had to be done, since they had information, they always accepted me, because they understood that i also had information that could be useful to them, i had my sources, and they had theirs, these exchanges of this information, and this cross-pollination of each other, it was useful for the fact that the work that we did, we saw thunder, of course, boris segodovich, i have known him since 1981, he was still the division commander. great, it’s true, there were seven army commanders, but an interesting detail, in the fortieth army there were seven army commanders in 10 years, the fortieth forty, well, a limited contingent, limited in everything, there were seven army commanders in 9 s2 years, and the border guards in these 9.5 years had one, one was sailors, so interesting

detail, have you met him, sailor? how many people have i not talked to, the respect that people have for him is simply, just somehow fabulous, no one said a bad word, not a single person, that’s true, yes, that’s true, tell me, so many years have passed, it’s already 40 years have passed, well, yes, somehow your attitude towards the events then and... now has changed, how old were you, by the way, when you ended up in afghanistan? 33, 33, well, now 40 years for us is already a huge period, your attitude towards those events has changed, i repeat, well , it really has changed, of course, because many things were unknown to us then, we were of course very much blinkered, and for us this concept of international duty, it was based on some ideological guidelines, on our upbringing, on the pioneer organization

komsomol, all of them were party members, naturally, it couldn’t have been any other way, then, when i ended up in afghanistan, of course, many things opened my eyes, it was clear that this was a war in which part of the afghan population participated there, defended the interests of kabul of the kabul authorities, almost communists, for whom we also stood up, and part of the population, maybe even the majority of the population, defended the interests of these same islamic radicals, and it was a very difficult situation, not easy, there was no black... and white, there was no enemy and there was no friend, everything was very mixed up, i remember how already on the way out, even after our troops had left, i was already dealing with the release of our prisoners of war, and just before the fall of kabul, it was spring '92, i ended up at the headquarters of masudah masud, our main afghan enemy, on the outskirts of kabul, and i discovered there at this headquarters that kabul had not yet been taken, najabula was still

sitting there, there was still power. in this headquarters there are 5 6 7 10 people from the environment, that is, these communists who worked for masoud, for the kabul government, so everything was intertwined, today kabul is under us, at night today it is under the mujahideen, it was the same with almost all afghan cities, herat, kandahar, jallabad and everything else, it was very everything is complicated, i have been to different hot spots many times, without at all begging for heroism. the dignity of any other branches of the military, but the attitude towards the border guards everywhere was somehow special, even from that side, even among the general hatred, rage, cruelty, pogrodtsy somehow they always stood a little differently, in afghanistan it was the same, yes, you know, this is an interesting thing, very important, so to say, thank you for this question, well

, firstly, of course, border guards are special. armed forces, special selection based on questionnaires for other qualities, red-handed, yes, this is a tradition too, traditions are still associated with ancient times, no hazing, the porontsy did not have a single defector, there was not a single deserter, there was not a single prisoner, not there was not a single body that was left, not buried in the homeland, nor one case, here you go, border guards, we knew this then, now when i was working on the film and we talked with generals and veterans of the border troops. they all emphasized planning operations, tried not to offend the civilian population, there were the mujahideen, there were these bandits, as they were called then, and there was the civilian population, you know, this is still, as they themselves admit and as is known, this is the only branch of the military , which is considered political, they maintain this position, they hold it, this is very accurate maintains a balance and attitude towards the civilian population, and god forbid trying not

to harm. yes, yes, moreover, the relationship was such that there, throughout the 9 years that the war lasted 9.5, the border guards treated people there, they really really treated people, peasants... one felt respect, the most terrible punishment there was a border guard, if he was not taken into battle, this is the worst punishment, but if an operation was planned and a motorized group or an airborne assault

group went out there into the mountains, into the gorge on operation and someone was left in a unit there in disposition, it was the most terrible punishment, it’s true, when we left afghanistan on february 15, it was a holiday for everyone, i assure you, both for... the soldiers of the military contingent and for the cutters too, another thing is that they were the last to leave, they accompanied the columns, they guaranteed security, when the fortieth army had already left, the fortieth army went out into the termes, and grobov reported that there was no one behind us, nothing like that, the border guards remained there and they were the last left afghanistan, the commander of the difference was then, now colonel pyotr petrovich, he was the last to board the helicopter and fly to our territory, gromov left on foot, left on foot. you wrote the story red, i, to be honest, had never heard of rora peck until i read what you wrote in red,

but how did your friendship with him even begin, how did you even meet, how is it? well, this is a very, very important story for me in my destiny as a journalist and as a human being, very important, very difficult, we met him in the same ninety-first year. but it was in baghdad, operation desert storm, birth while a freelancer was filming uh this is this these battles in baghdad, and i was a special correspondent for truth there, there were no soviets there at all, there were two people there, then me and my colleague, sasha lupukhin, the two of us were there in baghdad, there, that is, in this hotel, where all the foreign press lived, the al-rashid hotel, where we met ruribek, when during the next bombing we were sitting in the basement, and there in the basement was equipped... such a restaurant by candlelight, there are bombs there, there is this everything is shaking, we drank a little wine and talked, and i and the conversation turned to afghanistan and i say: i was there, there, he says, and i was there, there, i was there , there, and i was there, there, there,

only he was on one side with the majahens from pakistan, and i was with ours here, well, the villages, the names of the districts, the operations, everything coincided, that is, here we are... then they grappled with him, at the end of the conversation he did not say, but what are you? left afghanistan, this is the ninety- first year, 3 years have already passed since our departure, they left behind the prisoners, 2 years have passed, how they left the prisoners, i myself was in shock, i didn’t know about it, there was no such word in prisoners at all, they didn’t know anything about prisoners at all, almost nothing, so i was in shock, i returned there to moscow, then we parted ways , i returned in a roundabout way through iran to moscow, came to ruslan aushev, he then already headed the committee for military affairs, here is one legendary friend of mine. let's start saving and he and i went to yakovlev, then the former minister of foreign affairs, i am nikolaevich yakole, a member

of the bullet bureau, then gorbachev, someone else, we started with support right away, so ruri, peter juvenal and i set off with the help of the border guards, krinichenko was then the commander of the border troops. and he is also good, you and maksud negotiated, with masud, yes, and maksud freed, agreed on the release of three prisoners of war, these were difficult negotiations, difficult negotiations, we talked with him for three nights, and he, of course, first very much so, at first i walked all the way

this is 20 days to masud under the legend of a finnish citizen, that’s just the point in the zone where in the north, well, then, when they came to masud, i was forced to admit that i was a soviet, a soviet man, and a journalist and... i came with a mission about the prisoners, here he is, we talked with him for three nights, at first it was not at all, but gradually somehow the ice melted with the help of my maybe some arguments with the help of the same steering wheel. peck, who guaranteed that i did not kill anyone and that i came with a peace mission, that there were mothers, i brought letters from mothers, everything else, i brought maps of minefields, which we gave masud, aushev then organized through the general staff, and masud thawed out, agreed to the release of three prisoners vylku moldovanin, fatiev seryozha siberyak and nazarov from from mariupol, this is out of 300 people, out of 300 people, he then had three prisoners, imasud, and then another they also found three prisoners, in other places already. another story, very difficult. i would, of course, ask you one

question, but i don’t know if there will be an answer to it, so i will. what do you think is the main task of a journalist? i understand perfectly well that you are all addicted, of course, and that not everyone he can say what he thinks, but still , can a journalist now 100% fulfill his task as it is determined by the very status of the profession. about maybe, i don’t know, but i know that i have to, that’s all, i have to - you know, education, that’s what, in general i should have started our conversation with something completely different, here i’ll take out one piece of paper, i prepared it, i didn’t read it at the beginning, i just want everyone to hear what a journalist is, the order of friendship, for active public work and social support for veterans, just for

prisoners, order of the red star, order of honor, honored journalist of the russian federation, medal of the democratic republic of afghanistan, prize of the union of journalists, prize of the union of journalists of the soviet union and prize of the russian federation, yulian semenov prize, golden pen prize. how many times in afghanistan did you feel that the risk exceeded acceptable limits? oh, you know, a good question, but it was like this, when you were working, for some reason it was not only in afghanistan, then i was many times in other hot points, here is the arab spring, i traveled all of it from lebanon there to cairo and through syria and libya and everything else, from libya to cairo and syria and the northern caucasus and karabakh and iran and iraq everything else, when you work, you are in the spirit, this.. . it’s not you , you yourself know, you don’t feel any

fears, but then, when you return, i don’t know how it was with you, as with others, i was overcome, of course, this recovery later, this was a difficult period, when my wife got used to it. , she knew that it was better not to approach me, it was better for me to be there alone, it was hard, but nevertheless, over time it pulls me back, yes, it’s like it’s like a drug, it’s true, it’s true, i came from afghanistan and already held a position, i couldn’t... do it, i always exploded under any pretext, i was leaving for afghanistan, and it was difficult, even an explainable thing, but it seemed to me that i couldn’t, how are our guys doing there, ruslan aushev there, my second business trip to venestan, i’ll be wiping my pants in moscow on the black volga, it’s not good this, endlessly this happened to me, i think, not only with me, i want to tell you the name of another person, i really want to invite him to the studio someday, but in any case , nikolai fetrovich gavrilov responded very well to you. you probably know more about him

than i do, but all the same, if all of gavrilov’s exploits were now revealed, which unfortunately still cannot be said for reasons of secrecy, then a line of hollywood producers and our directors would line up with requests to make blockbusters, it was fantastic.

something a front-line soldier, a front-line soldier, of course, and mine also, and they couldn’t watch films about the war, it immediately started too, too, too, too, an amazing story, probably like this every time, and so the real afghans too. behave themselves, i know this well, you, uh, agreed to consult on this film, someone approached you, why, or well, i already said that vladimir grigorievich prodichev approached me with a request to record these video interviews, i did these video interviews, on with this, my mission was completed, and have you

ever had a desire - to summarize everything that you wrote, did in some book, well, i wrote several books. about afghanistan, one of them is very large, serious, i will do it in collaboration with my friend, a former colonel of foreign intelligence, he was in kabul in residency on the eve of the entry of troops, and such a real afghanist, valery samonin, we made a big book with him, it’s called virus, this is a political investigation, there is the entire politburo, and the cia, and the kgb, naturally, since samonin took this side of the kgb himself, and this is... a big political investigation, it was then published in america, in the states, here it was published in large editions, this is a serious book, it allows you to understand how we ended up in afghanistan, this is the first thing, the red one is about the rudders of the pike, the second book, but there was also a book, that is, i owe this debt in general , i completed my own, this is understandable, but i mean

a story about the profession, about what you, what you experienced as a journalist, and about the very essence of writing. but it seemed to me that there were no blank spots, there were a lot of books, memoirs, and the memoirs of various military leaders, including vorennikov and gromov, and ordinary soldiers, and colonels, and there are memoirs of special services, a lot,

employees there of the special services of the gru and the kgb, and the pgu, there are serious monographs with ... a large number of archival materials, also general likhovsky wrote a huge book telling about our participation in the afghan war, but only recently, thanks to my participation in this project, thanks to vladimir yegorevich pronichiy, i realized that yes , there was a white spot, this story with the border guards, it was top secret, the border guards did not even wear green shoulder straps, green caps, everything was so quiet that they wore a combined arms uniform, and even walked around without shoulder straps for some time. 2 years before the troops were brought in, they were there, they weren’t, they weren’t there, they were establishing groups, groups were establishing relationships, from the year 1982 they were already sort of doing this thoroughly, but everything was so secret that when the troops left, the border guards were in command the troops were destroyed, all the documents regulating

the presence of the troops were destroyed, burned, this is also an interesting fact, so it is difficult to work on this to the historian now the entire entire archive the entire archive is sozha. was, like this, we keep repeating that we know vladimir yegorovich there, and how did you meet him? well, firstly, i always knew with him that he was an afghan, ours, he still fought in those places through which i later walked with ruripek, gulkhan and shkashima, these are the ones who are responsible for him, he was there commander, operational group, now, also a lieutenant colonel, well, then, after all, i followed him, followed his career later and saw him. him when he was in charge of operations for the liberation of this nordost, ruslan aush and i arrived there at night, because these militants demanded a terrorist who was present, i found ruslan, looked for him, we arrived at night then and then yegorich was also there, vladimirich was in charge of this whole operation, well , later we met sporadically,

now we meet regularly, because there’s something to talk about...