Clash on the Soviet-Chinese border. Damansky Island: the conflict between the USSR and China. USSR and China conflict continues

It has been 44 years since the bloody battles on Damansky Island. This epoch-making event of the 20th century, which brought the world to the brink of war, an inimitable standard of the highest patriotism, courage, heroism, unparalleled courage, selfless love and devotion to one’s Motherland, professional military skill, is little mentioned in the state official media. As if he never existed. As if we, defending our Motherland, on our, I emphasize, on our territory, did something shameful, which is embarrassing to even mention.

Shusharin Vladimir Mikhailovich was born on November 12, 1947 in the city of Kuibyshev, Novosibirsk Region. Russian. He was called up on July 3, 1966 by the Kuibyshev Military Commissariat of the Novosibirsk Region. Private, shooter of the 2nd frontier post of the 57th frontier detachment of the Pacific border district. Killed in battle on about. Damansky March 2, 1969. He was buried on March 6, 1969, in a mass grave on the territory of the 2nd frontier post "Nizhne-Mikhailovka", Pozharsky district of Primorsky Krai. He was reburied on May 30, 1980 at the military section of the city cemetery of Dalnerechensk, Primorsky Krai, the memorial "Glory to the Fallen Heroes". He was awarded the medal "For Courage" and the Badge of Honor of the Central Committee of the All-Union Leninist Young Communist League "For Military Valor" (posthumously).

“... Hello mom, dad, Sasha and Seryozha! Excuse me for not writing for a long time, I really don’t like writing letters, and there’s nothing special to write about. Alive, healthy, don't worry about me... There is nothing new, I still go to work, draw, and wait for demobilization. The weather is warm, it thaws during the day, spring is coming, here it starts early here ... Lyudmila writes often, in general, she’s done well with me.

How are you, my "oldies"! How are the bros! Seryozha has probably become big. And you, Sasha, how are things in sports? Do not be offended that I rarely deprive. Do not think that I am forgetting you, if you only knew how much I missed you all!”

Vladimir Shusharin wrote this letter to his parents on February 27, 1969. And on March 2, when the letter had not yet reached the addressee, on the border where Vladimir served, a monstrous tragedy broke out, which everyone now knows about and which causes pain and indignation in everyone ...

On the night of March 2, about three hundred armed Chinese soldiers, violating the Soviet state border, crossed the channel of the Ussuri River to the Soviet Damansky Island. Dressed in white camouflage robes, they spread out on an island in the forest and bushes, beyond the natural elevation of the area, lay in ambush. On the Chinese coast of the Ussuri, military units and fire weapons were concentrated - mortars, grenade launchers and heavy machine guns.

In the morning, another 30 armed Chinese violators set off from the Chinese coast across the state border of the USSR to Damansky Island.

The commander of the N-outpost, Senior Lieutenant Ivan Strelnikov, together with Senior Lieutenant Nikolai Buinevich, taking with him six border guards, including our fellow Kuibyshev resident Vladimir Shusharin, went out to meet the violators, intending to protest to the Chinese and demand that they leave Soviet land . So the border guards acted repeatedly when Chinese violators appeared in these places. The provocateurs approached Strelnikov's group and suddenly opened fire on it point-blank...

... A large two-story house on the main street of the city seemed to grow dark and quiet. Near the gate are three old women, quietly talking:

What a guy he was! He won't hurt anyone, he'll get along with everyone...

It's about him, about Vladimir. He lived in this house before being drafted into the army, walked along these alleys of the garden, climbed these steps to the eleventh apartment, in which a great, unbearable grief has now settled. A thin woman, exhausted from tears, bent over the photographs laid out on the table. Who can't understand a mother's heart! It is not easy, oh how difficult it is for Anastasia Zinovievna to come to terms with a heavy loss.

The eldest son died. The mother is crying, but along with tears, a harsh condemnation of impudent provocateurs boils in her heart, pride is heard for her son, who heroically gave his life for the inviolability of the sacred borders of our Motherland. The same feeling of pride lives in Vladimir's father, Isai Pavlovich. I heard him say at a rally of energy workers at the Barabinsk State District Power Plant:

Our son died from bandit hands while defending the borders of the Motherland. It's hard for us parents. But we know that he did not flinch at a difficult moment, he fulfilled his soldier's duty to the end. Vladimir grew up in a good family. They brought him up in a good way, managed to instill in him high moral qualities. Parents, the school, the team in which he worked before leaving for the army must be given credit for the fact that a real hero has grown out of a former naughty boy.

Vladimir Shusharin enjoyed special love among the border guards. He was considered in the unit as his artist. While still at school, Vladimir was fond of painting, studied in a circle visual arts. After school, this hobby did not leave him. A circle of drawing lovers worked in the Palace of Culture named after V. V. Kuibyshev. Vladimir Shusharin, a mechanic at motor depot No. 8, was also a regular participant. In the army, in his free time, he usually took a pencil or a brush and, having settled down somewhere in the rest room or on the street, near the outpost, he drew. The Leninsky room of the outpost is decorated and framed by his hands.

Vladimir began his military service in the most "prosaic" way. While still at home, he trained as a locksmith. Therefore, he was sent to a unit where people who knew the technique were needed. But a few months later, the guy asked to go to the border, and his request was granted.

On that fateful morning of March 2, Vladimir Shusharin, together with his friends, was the first to meet the violators. He, like the head of the outpost I. Strelnikov, like all his comrades, did not want blood to be shed on the Ussuri ice. They demanded from provocateurs that they get out of foreign territory. Eight Soviet border guards stopped against thirty Chinese bandits. They were asked to change their minds, and they went on a malicious provocation, opened fire on the border guards. Vladimir Shusharin fell one of the first. Two automatic bursts pierced the chest of a soldier ...

There were many times fewer of them than Chinese bandits. Taking advantage of this, the provocateurs sneered at the wounded and killed. As if fearing that the dead would rise, they continued to barbarously deal with the corpses. But provocateurs paid dearly for the lives of the dead Soviet soldiers. Despite the incomparable superiority in forces, they suffered heavy losses and were thrown out of Soviet soil.

... Once upon a time in the civil war there, in the East, Vladimir's great-grandfather died from a bullet of a White Guard. Later, in the same place, in the east, he guarded the borders of the Motherland, and later heroically fought in the west with the Nazis, his grandfather Zinovy Nikitich Kuzmin, who now lives in our city. A wounded, elderly man, he has many government awards. Vladimir Shusharin did not disgrace the honor of the older generation. He courageously accepted death, defending the inaccessibility of the borders of his beloved Motherland.

“Dear Anastasia Zinovievna and Isai Pavlovich! Your son, Private Shusharin Vladimir Mikhailovich, on March 2, 1969, died a heroic death while guarding and defending the state border of the USSR. The Command and Political Directorate of the Border Troops of the Soviet Union express their deep condolences to you. The feat of your son is a vivid example of selfless service to our great Soviet Motherland, the cause of communism. The bright memory of your son, a faithful and courageous defender of the socialist Fatherland, will forever remain in the hearts of his fighting friends, border guards and the entire Soviet people.

Such a letter was received by Vladimir's parents from the command and political administration of the border troops of the USSR. All Soviet people add their voices to the words of this letter, we will always be proud of the feat of our fellow countryman. There, at the outpost of Strelnikov, the soldiers still carry out their difficult service. And, every time, going on patrol, they come to the mass grave to take an oath of allegiance to the fallen comrades. And we know that the border is closed again, that the work of Vladimir Shusharin and his friends is reliably continued by other Soviet soldiers.

March 2, 1969 Chronicle of events

On the night of March 1-2, 1969, about 300 Chinese military personnel in winter camouflage, armed with AK assault rifles and SKS carbines, crossed to Damansky Island and lay down on the western coast of the island. At 10:40, a report was received from the observation post at the 2nd outpost "Nizhne-Mikhailovka" of the 57th Imansky border detachment that a group of armed people numbering up to 30 people was moving in the direction of Damansky. An alarm group of 32 Soviet border guards under the command of the head of the outpost, senior lieutenant Ivan Strelnikov, drove to the scene in GAZ-69 and GAZ-63 vehicles and an armored personnel carrier BTR-60PB.

At 11:10 Gaz-69 and BTR-60 arrived at the southern tip of the island.

Alarm group of the 2nd frontier post at about. Damansky. Photograph by an unknown Chinese military photographer
Arriving at the place of violation of the border, the border guards split into two groups. The first, of 7 people under the command of Strelnikov, went to the Chinese soldiers who were standing on the ice of the river southwest of the island. The second group of 13 border guards, led by Sergeant Vladimir Rabovich, was supposed to cover Strelnikov's group, moving along the southern coast of the island.

The beginning of the armed provocation was captured by a military photographer, Private Nikolai Petrov, who photographed and filmed the events, recording the fact of border violations and the procedure for expelling violators. The Chinese soldiers took away a movie camera with them, but did not notice the camera, which Petrov, after taking the last picture, put it behind the lapel of his sheepskin coat...

The first photo of Petrov, taken from a distance of 300-350 m, shows soldiers of the Chinese army who violated the state border.

The second picture clearly shows a chain of Chinese and three border guards walking towards them. On the right is the coast of Damansky Island: somewhere there, among the trees and bushes, a Chinese ambush lurked.

Approaching the Chinese, I. Strelnikov protested about the violation of the border and demanded that the Chinese military personnel leave the territory of the USSR. One of the Chinese shouted something loudly to his soldiers, after which those in front parted, and the rear opened automatic fire on our border guards. The last shot was taken by Petrov a few moments before his death: the nearest Chinese soldier raised his hand - most likely, this is a signal to open fire.

Strelnikov, Buinevich and the border guards accompanying them died immediately. The ambush on Damansky opened fire on Rabovich's group. Several border guards were killed, the survivors lay down and opened fire on the Chinese who rushed to the attack. They fought to the last bullet...

The only one who miraculously survived from the group of Sergeant Rabovich was Private Gennady Serebrov. After regaining consciousness in the hospital, he spoke about last moments the lives of your friends

- Our chain stretched along the coast of the island. Pasha Akulov ran ahead, followed by Kolya Kolodkin, then the rest. Yegupov ran ahead of me, and then Shusharin. We were chasing the Chinese, who were leaving along the rampart towards the bush. There was an ambush. As soon as they jumped out onto the rampart, they saw three Chinese soldiers in camouflage suits below. They lay three meters from the rampart. At this time, shots were fired at Strelnikov's group. We opened fire in response. Several Chinese in the ambush were killed. Shot in long bursts...

March 2, 1969 11-25

A group of border guards of junior sergeant Babansky, who arrived at the battlefield, suffered heavy losses, fighting off the pressing Chinese. Ammo ran out. “After 20 minutes of the battle,” Yury Babansky recalled, “out of 12 guys, eight remained alive, after another 15 - five. Of course, it was still possible to retreat, return to the outpost, wait for reinforcements from the detachment. But we were seized with such fierce anger at these bastards that in those moments we wanted only one thing - to put as many of them as possible. For the guys, for ourselves, for this span of land that no one needs, but still our land ... Suddenly we heard a completely wild obscenity and a rolling “hurray!” - it was from the other side of the island that guys from the neighboring outpost of Senior Lieutenant Bubenin rushed to our rescue. The Chinese, leaving the dead, rushed to their shore, and for a long time I could not believe that death had passed by ... "

Senior Lieutenant Vitaly Bubenin commanded the Kulebyakiny Sopki outpost, located fifteen kilometers north of Damansky. Having received a telephone message about what was happening on the island, he hurried with twenty-two border guards in an BTR-60 to help his neighbors ...

March 2, 1969 Damansky Island. Report of the head of the 1st frontier post, Lieutenant Bubenin, via the communication line to the operational duty officer of the 57th border detachment, Major V. Bazhenov:

I report the situation: there is a battle on the island ... on Damansky Island, a battle has been going on for about an hour. Strelnikov? Apparently, his outpost and he died ... Yes, I am fighting with my personnel of 21 people ... Yes, a lot ... heavy fire from mortars, artillery ... automatic and machine-gun fire. Everything is on fire, my armored personnel carrier has been hit, there are dead and wounded... I can’t hear you... I can’t hear you...

The driver of the armored personnel carrier corporal A. Shamov takes the phone.

Comrade Major, Senior Lieutenant Bubenin is losing consciousness... yes, he is seriously wounded, covered in blood, burned... No, he seems to be alive... regaining consciousness.

Yes, I'm Bubenin, I'm listening to you ... Bring people out? No I can not. An open place, they will put everyone, I will lose everyone. My reserve came up, I'm going into battle again. No, I can't, Major... I can't retreat, I'm going into battle, that's all... Farewell...

At that moment, help arrived in time - a group of sergeant Sikushenko arrived from the 1st outpost, and Bubenin, having transferred with seven border guards to the Strelnikov armored personnel carrier, continued the attack ...

From the memoirs of Vitaly Bubenin: “I fought all the further battle on the subconscious, being in some other world. Having got out on the shore and sat in an armored personnel carrier, the fighters and I went to the rear of the enemy. In front of the car, the dumbfounded Chinese got up from under the snow one by one. Only then did we realize how many of them came to our souls ... For more than two hours of fighting, we circled around their positions, crushing and shooting. When, after the next round, we got to the other side, it turned out that four out of the entire outpost were left on their feet. We sent the dead and wounded to the outpost, silently embraced, stood for a while and went back towards the island. Everyone understood that he would not return from this battle.

In the last attack, Bubenin managed to destroy on the island command post Chinese battalion. This decided the outcome of the battle. Chinese soldiers began to retreat to their territory, taking with them the wounded and dead ...

Vladimir Grechukhin, photographer of the district newspaper “Border Guard on pacific ocean”, ended up on the island an hour and a half after the end of the battle. It smelled of gunpowder, blood, death ...

Burnt out GAZ-69 of the 2nd frontier post. Damansky Island. March 2, 1969

A shell hole in the starboard side of the BTR-60 No. 04 of the 2nd frontier post

At the position of the Chinese battalion

Chinese command post destroyed by Bubenin's group
On March 2, 1969, up to 250 Chinese soldiers and 31 Soviet border guards were killed in the battle near Damansky Island, 14 were injured. Komsomol organizer of the Nizhne-Mikhailovka outpost, Corporal Akulov, went missing ...

March 2, 1969 12-00

A helicopter landed near the island with the command of the Iman border detachment. The head of the political department, lieutenant colonel A.D. Konstantinov, organized a search for the wounded and dead directly on Damansky.

From the memoirs of Lieutenant Colonel Konstantinov:

Everything around was burning: bushes, trees, two cars. We flew over our territory, watching Damansky. We saw our soldiers near some tree and landed. I began to send groups of soldiers in search of the wounded, the road was every minute. Babansky said that they found Strelnikov and his group. We crept in there like a plastuna. They lay so close together. First of all, I checked the documents. At Buinevich - on the spot. At Strelnikov's, they disappeared. Private Petrov, sent to the outpost by the political department for film and photo documentation, lost his camera. But under a sheepskin coat we found a camera with which he took his last three shots, which went around the whole world.

They broke branches, laid down the corpses and, standing up to their full height, went to their own. The soldiers dragged the bodies, and the officers and I fell a little behind - with machine guns and machine guns, we covered the retreat. So they left. The Chinese did not open fire ...

Junior Sergeant Alexander Skornyak recalls:

- We went out onto the ice, where the guys died, drove the GAZ-69 cars and started loading the bodies in twos, threes. Some of them were still warm, you see, only recently died from their wounds. You start to lift the guy, and he has a fountain of blood from his mouth. I still remember the smell of blood in the cold, the smell of death. The Chinese even mocked the dead - they stabbed with bayonets. The officers Buynevich and Strelnikov especially got it. The snow was red with blood. The Chinese carried away their dead during the retreat. But we found one of their soldiers between ours. He was dressed warmly, there was an AK-47 machine gun and a field telephone nearby ...

“Our people were tortured both alive and after death. They cut, smashed their heads ... - said Vladimir Grechukhin. - The Chinese dragged off the seriously wounded Komsomol organizer of the Nizhne-Mikhailovka outpost, Corporal Pavel Akulov. I was at the time of the transfer of his body to relatives - the remnants of his hair are gray. Pavel's corpse was mutilated beyond recognition. And only the mother was able to identify her son by a mole on his index finger ...

Chinese soldiers finished off wounded Soviet border guards with point-blank shots and edged weapons. This shameful fact for the People's Liberation Army of China is evidenced by the documents of the Soviet medical commission.

From the report of the head of the medical service of the 57th border detachment, major of the medical service V.I. found that 19 of the wounded would have remained alive, because during the battle they received non-fatal wounds. But then, in a fascist way, they were finished off with knives, bayonets and rifle butts. This is irrefutably evidenced by cut, stab bayonet and gunshot wounds. They shot point-blank from one or two meters. From such a distance, Strelnikov and Buinevich were finished off.

On March 5 and 6, border guards were buried at the outposts. Grechukhin's photographs show rows of coffins. Strict faces of the dead. Many have their heads hidden under white gauze bandages...

The funeral of the dead at the Nizhne-Mikhailovka outpost. March 6, 1969
Junior Sergeant Alexander Skornyak says:

Our guys were buried on the third day. The generals arrived from the district. The parents of the victims arrived. The political department campaigned for everyone to be buried in Nizhne-Mikhailovka, at the frontier post. All the fallen were immediately posthumously awarded: officers were awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, sergeants and soldiers were awarded orders. But that didn't make it any easier. And no one could have imagined that soon the dead border guards and soldiers would be laid next to them again ...

Background to the conflict

The passage of the Russian-Chinese border in the Far East was established by the Nerchinsk Treaty of 1689, the Burinsky and Kyakhta treatises of 1727, the Aigun Treaty of 1858, the Beijing Treaty of 1860, and the Treaty of 1911. According to Article 1 of the Beijing Treaty, “the lands lying on the right bank (to the south), up to the mouth of the Ussuri River, belong to the Chinese state. Further, from the mouth of the Ussuri River to Lake Khinkai, the boundary line runs along the Ussuri and Sungacha rivers. The lands lying ... along the western (left) - the Chinese state.

After the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, a provision appeared that the borders between states should, as a rule (but not necessarily) pass in the middle of the main fairway of the river. But it also provided for exceptions, such as drawing a border along one of the coasts, when such a border developed historically - by agreement, or if one side colonized the other coast before the other began to colonize it. In addition, international treaties and agreements do not have retroactive.

Despite the fact that, according to earlier agreements, the entire Ussuri River and the islands located on it turned out to be Russian, this did not have any effect on Soviet-Chinese relations. Only in the late 1950s, when the PRC, seeking to increase its international influence, came into conflict with Taiwan (1958) and participated in the border war with India (1962), did the Chinese use the new border provisions as an excuse to revise the Soviet-Chinese borders.

The Soviet leadership was sympathetic to the desire of the Chinese to carry out new frontier along the rivers and was even ready for the transfer of a number of lands to the PRC. However, this readiness disappeared as soon as the ideological and then the interstate conflict flared up. Further deterioration of relations between the two countries eventually led to an open armed confrontation on Damansky Island.

The events of March 2 and 15, 1969 on Damansky Island, starting from 1965, were preceded by numerous provocations by the Chinese to arbitrarily seize the Soviet islands on the Ussuri River. At the same time, the Soviet border guards always strictly adhered to the established line of conduct: provocateurs were expelled from Soviet territory, the border guards did not use weapons.

Historical reference.
Damansky Island in the late 60s belonged to the Pozharsky district of Primorsky Krai, bordering on the Chinese province of Heilongjiang. The removal of the island from the Soviet coast was about 500 m, from the Chinese - about 300 m. From south to north, Damansky is extended by 1500-1800 m, and its width reaches 600-700 m. The actual size of the island strongly depends on the season and the level of flood waters . It has no economic or military-strategic value.

Border guards of the 57th Imansky border detachment who died in battle on March 2, 1969

Art. Lieutenant Buinevich Nikolai Mikhailovich, detective of the special department of the 57th border detachment.

1st frontier post "Kulebyakiny Sopki":

Sergeant Ermolyuk Viktor Mikhailovich
Corporal Korzhukov Viktor Kharitonovich
Private Vetrich Ivan Romanovich
Private Gavrilov Viktor Illarionovich
Private Zmeev Alexey Petrovich
Private Izotov Vladimir Alekseevich
Private Ionin Alexander Filimonovich
Private Syrtsev Alexey Nikolaevich
Private Nasretdinov Islamgali Sultangaleevich

2nd frontier post "Nizhne-Mikhailovka":

Senior Lieutenant Strelnikov Ivan Ivanovich
Sergeant Dergach Nikolay Timofeevich
Sergeant Rabovich Vladimir Nikitich
Junior Sergeant Kolodkin Nikolai Ivanovich
Junior Sergeant Mikhail Andreevich Loboda
Corporal Akulov Pavel Andreevich (died in captivity from his wounds)
Corporal Davydenko Gennady Mikhailovich
Corporal Mikhailov Evgeny Konstantinovich
Private Danilin Vladimir Nikolaevich
Private Denisenko Anatoly Grigorievich
Private Egupov Viktor Ivanovich
Private Zolotarev Valentin Grigorievich
Private Isakov Vyacheslav Petrovich
Private Kamenchuk Grigory Alexandrovich
Private Kiselev Gavriil Georgievich
Private Kuznetsov Alexey Nifantevich
Private Nechay Sergey Alekseevich
Private Ovchinnikov Gennady Sergeevich
Private Pasyuta Alexander Ivanovich
Private Petrov Nikolai Nikolaevich
Private Shestakov Alexander Fedorovich
Private Shusharin Vladimir Mikhailovich

Memorial plaque on the mass grave of the border guards of the Nizhne-Mikhailovka outpost

TASS message

On the night of March 2, about 300 armed Chinese soldiers, violating the Soviet state border, crossed the channel of the Ussuri River to Damansky Island. This group, dressed in white camouflage robes, dispersed on the island, lay in an ambush. On the Chinese coast of the Ussuri, military units and firepower were concentrated - mortars, grenade launchers and heavy machine guns.

At 04:10 Moscow time, another 30 armed violators set off from the Chinese coast across the state border of the USSR to Damansky Island. A group of Soviet border guards led by the head of the outpost, Strelnikov, came to the place of violation of the border on the Ussuri ice.
As before, the border guards intended to protest against the Chinese about the violation of the border and expel them from the territory of the Soviet Union. Fire was opened on the Soviet border guards, and they were literally shot at point-blank range. Artillery and mortar fire was opened on another group of border guards from the Chinese coast.

Together with the reinforcements that arrived from the neighboring outpost, the Soviet border guards expelled the violators.
TASS, March 9, 1969

In March-April 1969, protest rallies were held in the city and the region against the Chinese provocation on the Soviet border and meetings with border guards participating in the battles near Damansky Island.

From the newspaper "Working Life". Kuibyshev NSO

Feat on Damansky Island

Sacred are your borders, Motherland!
We angrily stigmatize the Maoist bandits.

1
We are on the high, snowy bank of the Ussuri River, at the Nizhne-Mikhailovka frontier post.

Ussuri is a dazzling white, tightly arched horseshoe covered with ice and snow. On our side, the hills in the unfallen oaks roll, wave after wave, to the distant cape. And on the other side - a lowland, red grasses, bushes ... There - China! From the border tower, through the eyepieces of the rangefinder, you can see dry crowns of trees, fanza under red tiles, smoke ... Between these shores lies Soviet land - Damansky Island, that small island, two kilometers long, where the snow is now ripped open by mines, strewn with spent cartridges, watered with blood .

Ten days ago, on March 2, as already reported in the press, here, on Damansky Island, a small detachment of Soviet border guards took an unequal oh with a Chinese battalion specially trained for sabotage, vilely, under cover of night, violated the Soviet border. The gang of violators was supported from the Chinese coast by an anti-tank battery, heavy mortars, grenade launchers ...

Maoist bandits were defeated and expelled from Soviet soil. But 29 Soviet soldiers and 2 officers died a heroic death in the battle for their homeland.

2
The border guard officer leads us to a pile of equipment abandoned by the Chinese. Here are tin flasks with the remnants of the hypocrite - they drank it all night before the provocation. Here are the shabby mats - the Chinese lay on them after they stole onto the island like thieves at night and hid. Here is a telephone cable, telephones in red plastic cases, through which a command was transmitted from the island to the firing positions of guns and mortars to open fire on Soviet border guards. And from all this - a stupefying, nauseating smell of spilled prude.

We were shown the helmets of our fallen fighters, new green helmets, shot through, with petals of torn metal. There was blood on the straps. It can be seen that the bullet went from top to bottom: they shot at the wounded border guards lying on the snow from the closest distance.

Major of the medical service Vyacheslav Ivanovich Vitko made the following statement to us:

- A special medical examination established that 19 of our border guards, who at first received non-fatal wounds in the leg, arm, shoulder, were then brutally, vilely finished off. This is irrefutably evidenced by cut, bayonet and gunshot wounds. Shot from a distance of one or two meters. So the Maoist bandits finished off the wounded senior lieutenant Strelnikov with a shot at close range. About these atrocities, military doctors - lieutenants of the medical service B. Potavenko, N. Kostyuchenko and I drew up an act. 19 wounded Soviet border guards would have been alive if the killers had not finished them off with knives, bayonets, and bullets.

3
Helicopters one after another descended from the hill. From them, from the approaching cars, the mothers and fathers of the fallen fighters came out and ran along the snowy slope, flooded with a dazzlingly bright sun, to where they could hear the fading, then the growing sounds of the funeral march ...

Tightly pitched tent. Guard of honor with machine guns. The red color hits the eyes: the coffins lined with kumach stand in a row. And in them, frozen, beautiful, despite the terrible wounds, the faces of our soldiers.

Mothers run. They fall for one, for another. Not the one, not the one... There he is! And he falls dead on his son's body, kisses his wounds, grabs his hands, sobs inconsolably. And nearby - another, third ... We stand right there and, unable to hold back tears, listen, write down everything, as it was said here, how it escaped from the mother's heart.

“My son, my hope… What have they, the monsters, done to you… Yes, they cut you all over, stabbed you… You wrote to me that your forelock is growing, but they smashed your whole head…

... The young widow grabbed the stake of the tent: she looks, looks at the one in the coffin, bandaged ...

... The gray-haired father is crying, the soldiers standing in the guard of honor are wiping their tears. The reporter writes something in a notebook, sobbing ...

They carried them on their shoulders and placed them carefully under the sun. Scarlet kumach and a green line of border caps. They lay, young, surrounded by a dense crowd. The sky above them is high, and spring clouds float in it. And in these white flying clouds, it was as if there was still an echo of the recent victorious battle. And there, on the island, their blood burns...

Fallen soldiers are lying, and workers from Iman say goodbye to them, peasants from the surrounding villages, friends, comrades in the border service, officers, generals ... Smoke from a rifle salute flowed over the river. A wide mass grave, native land accepts them. The first handfuls hit the lids of the coffins. And Ussuri, white, bright, opened the wings of her sleeves over this sacred grave.

4
Military hospital. Here lie the wounded heroes of Damansky Island. Twenty-year-old guys, but already scorched by the fire of the first brutal battle in their lives. Here, along with them, their combat commander, Senior Lieutenant Vitaly Dmitrievich Bubenin. He is thirty years old. He was born in Nikolaevsk-on-Amur, in the family of a party worker. After graduating from a technical school, he worked as a mechanic. Then - the army, the border school and, finally, the outpost. He served as political officer at the outpost of Nizhne-Mikhailovka, with Senior Lieutenant Ivan Ivanovich Strelnikov. The same age, young officers, they became friends. Then Bubenin was appointed head of the neighboring outpost. Bubenin fought heroically in battle, captivating all the fighters.

He talks about what remains in the memory and in the heart for life.

Senior Lieutenant Vitaly Bubenin:

- Exactly at eleven o'clock on the second of March, the duty officer from the outpost of my friend, Senior Lieutenant Strelnikov, called us. At Damansky, the battle was already in full swing. Out of fear, we went there. We jumped out onto the island, and here we were met from three sides by Chinese cannons, mortars, grenade launchers. The intensity of the fire was great. I got hurt. I lost consciousness for a minute... When the Chinese knocked out an armored personnel carrier, we moved into another vehicle. And again - bypassing the island ... And I will tell you in honor, the guys fought for their native Soviet land, like lions. Every single one, not sparing life. As a commander, I can only be proud of them.

Private Mikhail Putilov:

- During the battle, we see - two of our wounded are crawling in the snow. We go straight to them. They began to pick them up, and in our armored transporter the Chinese fired cannons. They pierced the "stern" - they wounded us. And the commander too. But we gave them the right amount too... I was lying by a tree, wounded, and I saw how the Chinese were carrying away the dead and wounded from the island, fleeing to their side...

Private Gennady Serebrov:

“I was shot through my right arm and leg. I lay there and saw how they committed atrocities on my wounded comrades - Shusharin and Yegupov. Killed them, you bastards...

We also talked with Colonel D.V. Leonov, the combat commander of the border guards.

“Young guys are coming to serve us. Such a young man puts on a soldier's overcoat, and you think: will he make a real warrior, a combat defender of the Motherland? In the battle on Damansky Island, ours were true heroes. And there is nothing surprising in this. After all, the guy was raised by his father and mother, school, Komsomol, Soviet authority, our party. A wonderful Russian woman, Agniya Andreevna Strelnikova, raised ten children. Senior lieutenant Strelnikov was a talented commander. On May 9, on Victory Day, he would have turned thirty years old ... Strelnikov went to the island with fighters to reason with violators of the border, to demand that our Soviet land be cleared, as happened more than once before. And what about them?!.. They shot Strelnikov point-blank.

Strelnikov's friend, Senior Lieutenant Bubenin, who is now in the hospital, especially distinguished himself in battle. I drove up to the battlefield and saw our friends, the local fishermen Avdeevs, carrying the wounded Bubenin in their arms. His face is covered in blood. We put the senior lieutenant under a tree. I order the doctor to evacuate him immediately.

“I won’t go, Comrade Colonel,” Bubenin objected. “There, in the fire, are my soldiers, and I’m supposed to be with them to the end.”

He got up, but his legs could not hold: apparently, he had lost a lot of blood ... Together with the doctor, we nevertheless put him in the car and sent him to the hospital. What else can I say?.. Real heroes fought on Damansky Island, loyal soldiers of our socialist Fatherland!

5
When the March clear day faded, relatives and friends, comrades of the fallen gathered for the feast. The father of Senior Lieutenant Strelnikov, Ivan Matveevich, gets up. In the Patriotic War, he was a soldier, received 12 wounds.

“Only now we have buried our children,” he said. “I have other sons, and each of them would do the same as Ivan. I can't say more.

The father of the border guard Nikitin got up:
- All of us, fathers, have passed Patriotic War… Today we lost our sons, but the people will not forget them. I curse Mao and his accomplices, this is their dirty work.

Says the father of Sergeant Nikolai Dergach - Timofey Nikitich.

“I turn fifty tomorrow. This is how things turned out... Mao killed my only son... Kolya was only twenty years old, he was just beginning to live... Now, in peacetime, I am a state farm worker. And in the Patriotic War I was an artilleryman. And, by the way, in the forty-fifth year, he came to China with his regiment to drive the Japanese out of Chinese soil. What does it get? Kwantung Army Japanese imperialists we defeated to help the Chinese people. After 1949, plants and factories helped China build. And Mao executes real communists at home and swears at our Soviet land ... Apparently, his deeds are bad, the Chinese people do not believe him, and therefore he is looking for salvation in black robbery.

* * *
... We left the border in the evening. The sun was finishing its journey, gilding the snowy forests, the white hills, the hushed Ussuri and our Damansky Island crouching on its chest.

Here are the first stars in the sky. They will shine over the mass grave. A little time will pass - an obelisk will rise here. And he, like an eternal sentry, will guard the dream of the heroes of Damansky.

Private Vladimir Shusharin

Commendation sheet of the city committee of the Komsomol. 1962 From the archive high school No. 4. Kuibyshev NSO.

Vladimir Shusharin with friends before being drafted into the army. 1966 From the personal archive of Valery Kubrakov

The notice of the death of Private Shusharin dated March 11, 1969, stored in the archives of the Kuibyshev RVC, was signed by Colonel Leonov. On March 15, the head of the 57th Imansky border detachment, Colonel Democrat Vladimirovich Leonov, died in a battle near Damansky Island

Entry in the book of irretrievable losses of the Kuibyshev RVC
An extract from the Survey Report, compiled by the head of the medical service of the 57th border detachment, Major V. I. Kvitko: “Private Shusharin Vladimir Mikhailovich, born in 1947. Multiple bullet wounds in the chest and anterior abdominal wall. Death came from damage to the organs of the chest and abdominal cavity.

Memorial "Glory to the Fallen Heroes"

Commemorative memorial "Glory to the fallen heroes". Dalnerechensk. 2008

Registration card of a military burial in the city of Dalnerechensk from Central Archive Ministry of Defense of the USSR. With her help, it was possible to establish the date of birth of Vladimir Shusharin - November 12, 1947.

On the other side of the border

The events of 1969 on Damansky Island became a symbol of the victory of Chinese weapons over Soviet revisionism

Ten PLA soldiers were awarded the title of "Hero of China"

Hero of the People's Republic of China Zhou Denguo, who was the first to open fire on Soviet border guards on March 2, 1969
In the official interpretation of Beijing, the events on Damansky looked like this:

“On March 2, 1969, a group of Soviet border troops numbering 70 people with two armored personnel carriers, one truck and one passenger car invaded our island of Zhenbaodao, Hulin County, Heilongjiang Province, destroyed our patrol and then destroyed many of our border guards with fire. This forced our soldiers to take self-defense measures.

On March 15, the Soviet Union, ignoring the repeated warnings of the Chinese government, launched an offensive against us with the forces of 20 tanks, 30 armored personnel carriers and 200 infantry, with air support from their aircraft.

Courageously defending the island for 9 hours, the fighters and the people's militias withstood three enemy attacks. On March 17, the enemy, using several tanks, tractors and infantry, tried to pull out a tank that had been hit earlier by our troops. The hurricane return artillery fire of our artillery destroyed part of the enemy forces, the survivors retreated.

A commemorative bas-relief narrating the heroic deeds of soldiers of the People's Liberation Army of China (PLA) in March 1969

The book "Myths of Damansky"

Book by D.S. Ryabushkin "Myths of Damansky" is dedicated to the military border conflicts of March 1969 on Damansky Island. These dramatic events destroyed the "great friendship" between the USSR and the PRC and almost led to a limited nuclear war between them.

The book uses extensive documentary and literary material, eyewitness accounts. The text is accompanied by illustrations, documentary and reference applications.

Intended for a wide range of readers interested in military history. Published in 2004 with a circulation of only 3,000 copies.

Have you read the article to the end? Please take part in the discussion, express your point of view, or simply rate the article.

45 years ago, a conflict began on the Soviet-Chinese border. During the clashes, 58 Soviet soldiers and officers were killed. However, at the cost of their lives, they managed to stop a big war.

Damansky (Zhenbaodao)- small desert island on the Ussuri River. The length is about 1500-1700 m, the width is about 500 m. The island was located 47 m from the Chinese and 120 m from the Soviet coast. However, in accordance with the Beijing Treaty of 1860 and the map of 1861, the border line between the two states did not pass along the fairway, but along the Chinese bank of the Ussuri. Thus, the island itself was an integral part of Soviet territory.

In the spring of 1969, the CPC Central Committee set about preparing for the 9th Congress of the CPC. In this regard, the Chinese leadership was very interested in the "victorious" conflict on the Soviet-Chinese border. First, striking the USSR could rally the people under the banner of the "great helmsman." Secondly, a border conflict would confirm the correctness of Mao's course of turning China into a military camp and preparing for war. In addition, the incident guaranteed the generals solid representation in the country's leadership and the expansion of the powers of the military.

In mid-1968, the Chinese military leadership studied the option of striking in the Suifenhe area. Here, the main posts of the Soviet border guards were located near the territory of the PRC and it seemed easy to capture them. To solve this problem, units of the 16th field army were sent to Suifenhe. However, in the end, the choice fell on Damansky Island. According to Li Danhui, an employee of the Research Institute of Modern China of the Academy of Social Sciences of the People's Republic of China, the Damansky district was not chosen by chance. On the one hand, as a result of the border negotiations in 1964, this island allegedly already went to China, and, consequently, the reaction of the Soviet side should not have been too violent. On the other hand, since 1947 Damansky was under the control of the Soviet army, and, therefore, the effect of the action on this section of the border would be greater than in the area of other islands. In addition, the Chinese side took into account that the Soviet Union had not yet created a sufficiently reliable base in the place chosen for the attack, which is necessary for conducting offensive operations, and, therefore, would not be able to launch a large-scale retaliatory strike.

On January 25, 1969, a group of officers from the Shenyang Military Region completed the development of a combat plan (codenamed "Retribution"). For its implementation, it was supposed to use about three infantry companies and a number of military units, secretly located on Damansky Island. On February 19, the plan, codenamed "Retaliation", was approved. General Staff, agreed with the Foreign Ministry, and then approved by the CPC Central Committee and personally by Mao Zedong.

By order of the General Staff of the PLA, at least one reinforced platoon, transformed into 2-3 patrol groups, was attached to the border outposts in the Damansky area. The success of the action was supposed to provide a factor of surprise. After completing the task, a quick withdrawal of all forces to pre-prepared positions was envisaged.

Moreover, special attention was paid to the importance of capturing from the enemy evidence of his guilt in aggression - samples of Soviet weapons, photographic documents, etc.

Further events unfolded as follows.

On the night of March 1-2, 1969 a large number of Chinese military personnel secretly concentrated on their coast of the island. Later it was established that it was a regular PLA battalion, numbering more than 500 people, five companies, supported by two mortar and one artillery batteries. They were armed with recoilless rifles, heavy and heavy machine guns, hand grenade launchers. The battalion was equipped and armed according to the wartime states. Subsequently, there was evidence that he had undergone six months of special training for combat operations on the border. On the same night, with the forces of three infantry companies numbering about 300 people, they went to the island and took up defense along the line of a natural rampart. All Chinese servicemen were dressed in camouflage suits, and their weapons were fitted so that they did not make an extra sound (the ramrods were filled with paraffin, the bayonets were wrapped in paper so that they would not shine, etc.).

The positions of two 82-mm batteries and artillery (45-mm guns), as well as heavy machine guns, were located so that it was possible to fire at Soviet equipment and personnel with direct fire. Mortar batteries, as the analysis of hostilities later showed, had clear firing coordinates. On the island itself, the battalion's fire system was organized in such a way that it was possible to conduct barrage fire from all fire weapons to a depth of 200 to 300 meters, along the entire front of the battalion.

On March 2, at 10.20 am (local time), information was received from Soviet observation posts about the advancement of two groups of 18 and 12 military personnel from the Chinese border post "Gunsy". They defiantly headed towards the Soviet border. The head of the Nizhne-Mikhailovka outpost, Senior Lieutenant Ivan Strelnikov, having received a sanction for the expulsion of the Chinese, with a group of border guards in an BTR-60PB (No. 04) and two cars advanced towards the violators. The heads of neighboring outposts V. Bubenin and Shorokhov were also informed about the incident. Senior Lieutenant V. Bubenin, the head of the Kulebyakiny Sopki outpost, was ordered to insure Strelnikov's group. It should be said that, despite the fact that the Chinese have been pulling up military units in their immediate border area for a week, and before that they have been improving the exit routes to the border for a long time, no measures have been taken to strengthen the outposts or military surveillance by the command of the Pacific Border Circle. was. Moreover, on the day of the Chinese invasion, the Nizhne-Mikhailovka outpost was only half staffed. On the day of the events, instead of three officers in the state, there was only one at the outpost - Senior Lieutenant I. Strelnikov. There were also slightly more personnel at the Kulebyakiny Sopki outpost.

At 10.40, Senior Lieutenant I. Strelnikov arrived at the scene of the violation, ordered his subordinates to dismount, take machine guns "on the belt" and turn around in a chain. The guards split into two groups. The main commander was Strelnikov. The second group of 13 people was led by junior sergeant Rabovich. They covered Strelnikov's group from the shore. Approaching the Chinese about twenty meters, Strelnikov said something to them, then raised his hand and pointed in the direction of the Chinese coast.
Head of the outpost senior lieutenant I. Strelnikov.
Private Nikolai Petrov, who was standing behind him, was filming and filming, recording the fact of border violations and the procedure for expelling violators. He took several shots with the Zorkiy-4 FED camera, and then raised the movie camera. At that moment, one of the Chinese waved his hand sharply.

THE LAST PICTURES MADE BY THE PHOTOCHRONICER PRIVATE N. PETROV. IN A MINUTE THE CHINESE WILL OPEN FIRE AND PETROV WILL BE KILLED.

The first line of the Chinese parted, and the soldiers standing in the second line opened automatic fire on the Soviet border guards. Shooting was carried out point-blank from 1-2 meters. On the spot, the commander of the outpost, Senior Lieutenant I. Strelnikov, the detective of the special department of the 57th border detachment, Senior Lieutenant N. Buynevich, N. Petrov, I. Vetrich, A. Ionin, V. Izotov, A. Shestakov, died. At the same time, fire was opened on the Rabovich group from the side of the island. It was fired from machine guns, machine guns and grenade launchers. Several border guards were killed immediately, the rest scattered and returned fire. However, being practically in open space, they were very soon completely destroyed. After that, the Chinese began to finish off the wounded with bayonets and knives. Some had their eyes gouged out. Of the two groups of our border guards, only one remained alive - Private Gennady Serebrov. He received bullet wounds in the right hand, leg and lower back, a "control" blow with a bayonet, but survived. Later, Serebrov, who had lost consciousness, was carried out by border guard sailors from the patrol boat brigade, who arrived to help the Novo-Mikhailovka outpost.

By this time, a group of junior sergeant Yu. Babansky arrived at the battlefield, lagging behind Strelnikov (the group was delayed on the way due to a technical malfunction of the machine). The border guards dispersed and opened fire on the Chinese lying on the island. In response, the PLA soldiers opened fire with automatic weapons, machine guns and mortars. Mortar fire was concentrated on armored personnel carriers and vehicles standing on the ice. As a result, one of the cars - GAZ-69 was destroyed, the other GAZ-66 was badly damaged. A few minutes later, the crew of armored personnel carrier No. 4 came to the rescue of Babansky. With fire from turret machine guns, he suppressed enemy firing points, which made it possible for the five surviving border guards of Babansky's group to get out of the fire.

10-15 minutes after the start of the battle, a mangrupp from the 1st frontier post "Kulebyakiny Sopki" under the command of Senior Lieutenant V. Bubenin approached the battlefield.

"Having landed from the armored personnel carrier, under cover east coast, - recalls V. Bubenin, - we turned into a chain and jumped out to the island. It's about 300 meters from where the tragedy just happened. But we didn't know about it yet. There were 23 of us. In battle order, they began to move in the direction of the fading fire. When we got deeper by about 50 meters, we saw that we were being attacked from the rampart up to a platoon of Chinese soldiers. They ran towards us, yelling and firing. The distance between us is from 150 to 200 meters. It dwindled rapidly. I not only heard the shooting, but also clearly saw the flames flying out of the barrels. I understood that the battle had begun, but I still hoped that this was not true. I hoped that the unmarried would be frightened.

With a decisive attack, the Chinese were driven back behind an embankment on the island. Despite the wound, Bubenin, leading the survivors, bypassed the island in an armored personnel carrier, suddenly attacked the Chinese from the rear.

“A dense mass of Chinese,” writes V. Bubenin, “having jumped off a steep bank, rushed to the island through a channel. The distance to them is up to 200 meters. I opened fire from both machine guns to kill. Our appearance in their rear turned out to be so unexpected that the running crowd abruptly slowed down and stopped, as if they had stumbled upon a concrete wall. They were completely at a loss. They didn’t even fire at first. The distance between us quickly decreased. Machine gunners also joined in the shooting. The Chinese fell as if knocked down, many turned and rushed to their shore. They climbed on it, but, defeated, crawled down. The Chinese opened fire on their own, trying to return them to the battle. Everything was mixed up in this heap, fighting, ebullient. Those who were turned around began to make their way to the island in groups. at some point they were so close that we shot them at point-blank range, hit them with the side and crushed them with wheels.

Despite the death of many border guards, the second wound of V. Bubenin and damage to the armored personnel carrier, the battle continued. Transferring to the armored personnel carrier of the 2nd outpost, Bubenin hit the Chinese on the flank. As a result of an unexpected attack, the battalion command post and a large number of enemy manpower were destroyed.

Sergeant Ivan Larechkin, privates Petr Plekhanov, Kuzma Kalashnikov, Sergei Rudakov, Nikolai Smelov fought in the center of the battle formation. On the right flank, junior sergeant Alexei Pavlov led the battle. In his department were: corporal Viktor Korzhukov, privates Alexei Zmeev, Alexei Syrtsev, Vladimir Izotov, Islamgali Nasretdinov, Ivan Vetrich, Alexander Ionin, Vladimir Legotin, Petr Velichko and others.

By 14.00 the island was completely under the control of the Soviet border guards.

According to official data, in a little over two hours, Soviet border guards destroyed up to 248 Chinese soldiers and officers only on the island, not counting the channels. During the battle on March 2, 31 Soviet border guards were killed. About 20 border guards received injuries of varying severity, and Corporal Pavel Akulov was captured. After severe torture, he was shot. In April, his mutilated body was dropped from a Chinese helicopter into Soviet territory. 28 bayonet wounds were counted on the body of the Soviet border guard. Eyewitnesses recall that almost all the hair on his head was torn out, and those shreds that remained were completely gray.
Dead Soviet border guards
The Chinese attack on the Soviet border guards stirred up the Soviet political and military leadership. On March 2, 1969, the government of the USSR sent a note to the government of the PRC, in which it sharply condemned the Chinese provocation. In particular, it stated: "The Soviet government reserves the right to take decisive measures to stop provocations on the Soviet-Chinese border and warns the government of the People's Republic of China that all responsibility for the possible consequences of the adventurist policy aimed at aggravating the situation on the border between China And Soviet Union lies with the government of the People's Republic of China". However, the Chinese side ignored the statement of the Soviet government.

In order to prevent possible repeated provocations, several reinforced motorized maneuver groups from the reserve of the Pacific Border District (two motorized rifle companies with two tank platoons and a battery of 120-mm mortars) were deployed to the area of the Nizhne-Mikhailovka and Kulebyakiny Sopki outposts. The 57th border detachment, which included these outposts, was allocated an additional flight of Mi-4 helicopters of the Ussuri border squadron. On the night of March 12, units of the 135th motorized rifle division of the Far Eastern Military District (commander - General Nesov) arrived in the area of recent battles: the 199th motorized rifle regiment, an artillery regiment, the 152nd separate tank battalion, the 131st separate reconnaissance battalion and a jet division BM-21 "Grad". The operational group created by the head of the troops of the Pacific Border District, headed by the deputy chief of the troops of the district, Colonel G. Sechkin, is also located here.

Simultaneously with the strengthening of the border, reconnaissance activities were activated. According to intelligence, including aviation and space, the Chinese concentrated large forces in the Damansky Island area - mainly infantry and artillery units. At a depth of up to 20 kilometers, they created warehouses, command posts and other structures. On March 7, in the Damansky and Kirkinsky directions, a concentration up to the PLA infantry regiment with reinforcements was revealed. In 10-15 kilometers from the border, reconnaissance discovered up to 10 batteries of large-caliber artillery. By March 15, a battalion of Chinese was identified in the provincial direction, a regiment with attached tanks in the Iman direction, up to two infantry battalions in the Panteleymonovsky direction, and up to a battalion in the Pavlovo-Fyodorovsky direction. In total, the Chinese concentrated a motorized infantry division with reinforcements near the border.

These days, the Chinese were also conducting intensive reconnaissance, and even using aviation for this. The Soviet side did not interfere with this, hoping that, seeing the real strength of the Soviet side, they would stop their provocative actions. That did not happen.

On March 12, a meeting of representatives of the Soviet and Chinese border troops took place. During this meeting, an officer of the Chinese border post Hutou, referring to the instructions of Mao Zedong, expressed the threat of the use of armed force against the Soviet border guards guarding Damansky Island.

On March 14, at 11:15 a.m., Soviet observation posts noticed the advance of a group of Chinese military personnel towards Damansky Island. She was cut off from the border by machine gun fire and was forced to return to the Chinese coast.

At 17.30, two Chinese groups of 10-15 people entered the island. They set up four machine guns and other weapons in firing positions. At 18.45 they took their starting positions directly on the shore from it.

To preempt the attack, by 0600 on March 15, a reinforced mobile group of the border detachment under the command of Lieutenant Colonel E. Yanshin (45 people with grenade launchers) on 4 BTR-60PB was advanced to the island. To support the group, a reserve was concentrated on the shore - 80 people (school of sergeants of the 69th border detachment of the Pacific border district) on seven armored personnel carriers with LNG and heavy machine guns.

At 10:05 the Chinese began to seize the island. The way for the advancing was cleared by the fire of about three mortar batteries, from three directions. The shelling was carried out on all suspicious sections of the island and the river, where Soviet border guards could hide.

Yanshin's group entered the battle.

"... in the command car there was a continuous roar, fumes, powder smoke," Yanshin recalls. and pouring fire while standing.

Without looking back, he holds out his hand for a new jar. Loading Kruglov only manages to load the tapes. Silently they work, with one gesture they understand each other. "Don't get excited," I shout, "save ammo!" I give him goals. And the enemy, under cover of fire, went on the attack again. A new wave rolls to the shaft. Due to continuous fire, explosions of mines and shells, neighboring armored personnel carriers are not visible. I command in plain text: "I'm going to counterattack, cover Mankovsky and Klyga with fire from the rear." My driver Smelov pulled the car forward through the fire screen. Deftly maneuvers among the craters, creates conditions for us to aim shooting. Here the machine gun fell silent. Sulzhenko was taken aback for a moment. Reloads, presses the electric trigger - only a single shot follows. And the Chinese are on the rise. Sulzhenko opened the cover of the machine gun, fixed the malfunction. The machine guns fired. I command Smelov: "Forward!" We repulsed another attack ... ".

Having lost several people killed and three armored personnel carriers, Yanshin was forced to retreat to our shore. However, at 14.40, replacing the personnel and wrecked armored personnel carriers, replenishing ammunition, he again attacked the enemy and knocked him out of his positions. Having pulled up reserves, the Chinese concentrated massive mortar, artillery and machine-gun fire on the group. As a result, one armored personnel carrier was shot down. 7 people died immediately. A few minutes later, the second APC caught fire. Senior Lieutenant L. Mankovsky, covering the retreat of his subordinates with machine gun fire, remained in the car and burned down. An armored personnel carrier, commanded by Lieutenant A. Klyga, was also surrounded. Only half an hour later, the border guards, having "felt" a weak section of the enemy positions, broke through the encirclement and united with their own.

At the time when the battle was going on on the island, nine T-62 tanks approached the command post. According to some information - by mistake. The border command decided to take advantage of the opportunity and repeat the successful raid of V. Bubenin, carried out on March 2. A group of three tanks was led by the head of the Iman border detachment, Colonel D. Leonov.

However, the attack failed - this time the Chinese side was ready for such a development of events. When Soviet tanks approached the Chinese coast, heavy artillery and mortar fire was opened on them. The lead car was almost immediately hit and lost its course. The Chinese focused all their fire on her. The remaining tanks of the platoon withdrew to the Soviet coast. The crew trying to get out of the wrecked tank was shot from small arms. Colonel D. Leonov, who was mortally wounded in the heart, also died.

Damansky Island - a view from the Chinese side.

Two other tanks still managed to break through to the island and take up defense there. This allowed the Soviet soldiers to hold out for another 2 hours on Damansky. Finally, having shot all the ammunition and not having received reinforcements, they left Damansky.

The failure of the counterattack and the loss of the latest T-62 combat vehicle with secret equipment finally convinced the Soviet command that the forces put into battle were not enough to defeat the Chinese side, which was prepared very seriously.

A captured T-62 tank at the PLA Museum. Beijing.

Despite the heavy losses among the border guards, Moscow was still wary of bringing regular army units into battle. The position of the Center is clear. While the border guards were fighting, everything came down to a border conflict, albeit with the use of weapons. The involvement of regular units of the armed forces turned the clash into an armed conflict or a small war. The latter, given the mood of the Chinese leadership, could develop into a full-scale one - and between the two nuclear powers.

The political situation, apparently, was clear to everyone. However, in a situation where border guards were dying nearby, and army units were in the role of passive observers, the indecision of the country's leadership caused disagreement and natural indignation.

“The army men sat on our communication line, and I heard how the regimental commanders covered their superiors for indecision,” recalls the head of the political department of the Iman detachment, Lieutenant Colonel A.D. Konstantinov. “They were eager to fight, but were bound hand and foot with all sorts of directives” .

When a report came from the battlefield about two wrecked armored personnel carriers of the Yanshin group, the deputy chief of staff of the Grodekovsky detachment, Major P. Kosinov, on his own initiative, on one armored personnel carrier, moved to help. Approaching the wrecked vehicles, he covered their crews with the side of his armored personnel carrier. The crews were withdrawn from the fire. However, during the withdrawal of his armored personnel carrier was hit. Leaving the last burning car, Major Kosinov was wounded in both legs. After some time, the unconscious officer was pulled out of the battle and, considered dead, was put in a barn where the dead lay. Fortunately, the dead were examined by a border guard doctor. He determined from his pupils that Kosinov was alive and ordered the wounded to be evacuated by helicopter to Khabarovsk.

Moscow was still silent, and the commander of the Far Eastern Military District, Lieutenant General O. Losik, made the sole decision to help the border guards. The commander of the 135th MSD was ordered to suppress manpower the enemy with artillery fire, and then attack with the forces of the 2nd battalion of the 199th motorized rifle regiment and motorized maneuver groups of the 57th border detachment.

At about 17.10, the artillery regiment and the Grad installation division of the 135th MSD, as well as mortar batteries (lieutenant colonel D. Krupeinikov) opened fire. It ran for 10 minutes. The strikes were delivered to a depth of 20 kilometers across Chinese territory (according to other sources, the shelling area was 10 kilometers along the front and 7 kilometers in depth). As a result of this strike, the reserves, ammunition points, warehouses, etc. of the enemy were destroyed. Severe damage was inflicted on his troops advancing to the Soviet border. In total, 1,700 shells from mortars and the Grad multiple launch rocket system were fired at the Damansky and Chinese coasts. At the same time, 5 tanks, 12 armored personnel carriers, the 4th and 5th motorized rifle companies of the 2nd battalion of the 199th regiment (commander - Lieutenant Colonel A. Smirnov) and one motorized group of border guards went on the attack. The Chinese put up stubborn resistance, but were soon driven off the island.

In the battle on March 15, 1969, 21 border guards of 7 motorized riflemen (servicemen of the Soviet army) were killed, 42 border guards were wounded. Chinese losses amounted to about 600 people. In total, as a result of the fighting on Damansky, Soviet troops lost 58 people. The Chinese - about 1000. In addition, 50 Chinese soldiers and officers were shot for cowardice. The number of wounded on the Soviet side, according to official figures, amounted to 94 people, from the Chinese - several hundred.

At the end of hostilities, 150 border guards received government awards. Including five were awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union (Colonel D.V. Leonov - posthumously, senior lieutenant I.I. Strelnikov - posthumously, senior lieutenant V. Bubenin, junior sergeant Yu.V. Babansky, commander of the machine gun department of the 199th motorized rifle regiment, junior sergeant V.V. Orekhov), 3 people were awarded the Order of Lenin (Colonel A.D. Konstantinov, Sergeant V. Kanygin, Lieutenant Colonel E. Yanshin), 10 people were awarded the Order of the Red Banner, 31 - the Order of the Red Star, 10 - the Order of Glory of the III degree, 63 - the medal "For Courage", 31 - the medal "For Military Merit".

Vitaly Bubenin, a participant in the conflict on Damansky Island: “You don’t need to remember this every day, but you shouldn’t forget it either” ...

In China, the events at Damansky were hailed as a victory for Chinese weapons. Ten Chinese servicemen became Heroes of China.

In the official interpretation of Beijing, the events on Damansky looked like this:

"On March 2, 1969, a group of Soviet border troops of 70 people with two armored personnel carriers, one truck and one passenger car invaded our island Zhenbaodao, Hulin County, Heilongjiang Province, destroyed our patrol and then destroyed many of our border guards with fire. This forced our soldiers to take action self defense.

After the end of the armed clash in the Damansky area, a motorized rifle battalion, a separate tank battalion and a BM-21 Grad rocket division of the 135th motorized rifle division remained in combat positions. By April, one motorized rifle battalion remained in the defense area, which soon also departed for the place of permanent deployment. All approaches to Damansky from the Chinese side were mined.

At that time, the Soviet government took steps to resolve the situation by political means.

On March 15, the leadership of the USSR sent a statement to the Chinese side, in which a sharp warning was made about the inadmissibility of armed border conflicts. In particular, it noted that "if further attempts are made to violate the inviolability of Soviet territory, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, all its peoples will resolutely defend it and give a crushing rebuff to such violations."

On March 29, the Soviet government again made a statement in which it spoke in favor of resuming the negotiations on border issues that had been interrupted in 1964 and suggested that the Chinese government refrain from actions on the border that could cause complications. The Chinese side left these statements unanswered. Moreover, Mao Zedong on March 15 at a meeting of the group on cultural revolution, touching on the issue of current events, called for urgent preparations for war. Lin Biao, in his report to the 9th Congress of the CPC (April 1969), accused the Soviet side of organizing "continuous armed incursions into the territory of the PRC." It also confirmed the course for "continuous revolution" and preparations for war.

Nevertheless, on April 11, 1969, the USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs sent a note to the DPRK Foreign Ministry, in which it proposed to resume consultations between the plenipotentiaries of the USSR and the PRC, expressing readiness to start them at any time convenient for the PRC.

On April 14, in response to a note from the Soviet Foreign Ministry, the Chinese side stated that proposals regarding the settlement of the situation on the border "are being studied and an answer will be given to them."

During the "study of proposals" armed border clashes and provocations continued.

On April 23, 1969, a group of 25-30 Chinese violated the border of the USSR and entered the Soviet island No. 262 on the Amur River, located near locality Kalinovka. At the same time, a group of Chinese servicemen concentrated on the Chinese bank of the Amur.

On May 2, 1969, another border incident occurred near the small village of Dulaty in Kazakhstan. This time the Soviet border guards were ready for a Chinese invasion. Even earlier, to repel possible provocations, the Makanchinsky border detachment was significantly strengthened. By May 1, 1969, he had 14 outposts of 50 people each (and the frontier post "Dulaty" - 70 people) and a maneuver group (182 people) on 17 armored personnel carriers. In addition, a separate tank battalion of the district was concentrated in the detachment’s sector (settlement Makanchi), and according to the plan of interaction with army formations, motorized rifle and tank companies, a mortar platoon of a support detachment from the 215th motorized rifle regiment (settlement Vahty) and a battalion from 369 1st Motorized Rifle Regiment (Druzhba station). Border protection was carried out by observation from towers, patrols on cars and checking the control strip. The main merit of such operational readiness of the Soviet units belonged to the head of the troops of the Eastern Border District, Lieutenant General M.K. Merkulov. He not only took measures to strengthen the Dulatinsky direction with his reserves, but also achieved the same measures from the command of the Turkestan military district.

Subsequent events unfolded as follows. On the morning of May 2, a border detachment noticed a flock of sheep that had crossed the border. Arriving at the scene, the Soviet border guards found a group of Chinese military personnel numbering about 60 people. To prevent an obvious conflict, the Soviet border detachment was reinforced with three reserve groups from nearby outposts, a company of the 369th motorized rifle regiment with a platoon of tanks, and two maneuver groups. The actions of the Soviet border guards were ready to support the fighter-bombers of the air regiment based in Ucharal, as well as the motorized rifle and artillery regiments concentrated in the nearest areas, two jet and two mortar divisions.

To coordinate actions, an operational group of the district was formed, headed by the chief of staff, Major General Kolodyazhny, located at the "Dulaty" outpost. The advanced command post headed by Major General G.N. Kutkikh.

At 16.30, Soviet border guards began to "squeeze out" the enemy, who also received significant reinforcements, from the territory of the USSR. The Chinese were forced to retreat without a fight. The situation was finally resolved diplomatically by May 18, 1969.

On June 10, in the area of the Tasta River in the Semipalatinsk region, a group of Chinese military personnel invaded the territory of the USSR for 400 meters and opened automatic fire on Soviet border guards. The violators were fired back, after which the Chinese returned to their territory.

On July 8 of the same year, a group of armed Chinese, having violated the border, took refuge on the Soviet part of Goldinsky Island on the Amur River and fired from machine guns at Soviet river-waymen who arrived on the island to repair navigation signs. The attackers also used grenade launchers and hand grenades. As a result, one riverman was killed and three were wounded.

Armed clashes also continued in the area of Damansky Island. According to V. Bubenin, in the following summer months after the incident, Soviet border guards were forced to use weapons more than 300 times to counter Chinese provocations. So, for example, it is known that in mid-June 1969, an "experimental" Grad-type multiple launch rocket system arrived from Baikonur (combat crew of military unit 44245, commander - Major A.A. Shumilin) visited the Damanskoye area. The combat crew included, in addition to military personnel, specialists involved in the provision of space programs. Among them were: Yu.K. Razumovsky is the technical manager of the lunar complex, Papazyan is the technical manager of the missile and technical complex, A. Tashu is the commander of the Vega guidance complex, L. Kuchma, the future president of Ukraine, at that time an employee of the testing department, Kozlov is a telemetry specialist, I. A. Soldatova - test engineer and others. The "experiment" was supervised by a high-ranking state commission, which included, in particular, the commander missile troops Kamanin.

Perhaps the blow of the calculation of Major A.A. Shumilin was demonstrative, in order to stimulate the Chinese side to start peaceful negotiations to resolve the contradictions that had arisen. In any case, on September 11, 1969, during confidential negotiations between the head of the Soviet government A. Kosygin and the Premier of the State Council of the PRC, Zhou Enlai, an agreement was reached in Beijing on the start of official negotiations on border issues, which took place on October 20, 1969.

However, a month before the meeting between representatives of the Soviet and Chinese governments, another large-scale armed provocation took place on the Soviet-Chinese border, which claimed dozens of lives.

Damansky Island, because of which the border armed conflict broke out, occupies 0.75 square meters in area. km. From south to north it stretches for 1500 - 1800 m, and its width reaches 600 - 700 m. These figures are quite approximate, since the size of the island strongly depends on the time of year. In the spring, Damansky Island is flooded with the waters of the Ussuri River and it almost disappears from view, and in winter the island rises like a dark mountain on the icy surface of the river.

From the Soviet coast to the island, about 500 m, from the Chinese - about 300 m. In accordance with generally accepted practice, borders on rivers are drawn along the main fairway. However, taking advantage of the weakness of pre-revolutionary China, the tsarist government of Russia managed to draw a border on the Ussuri River in a completely different way - along the water's edge along the Chinese coast. Thus, the entire river and the islands on it turned out to be Russian.

disputed island

This apparent injustice persisted after October revolution 1917 and the formation of the People's Republic of China in 1949, but for some time did not affect Soviet-Chinese relations. And only at the end of the 50s, when ideological differences arose between the Khrushchev leadership of the CPSU and the CPC, the situation on the border began to gradually worsen. Mao Zedong and other Chinese leaders have repeatedly said that the development of Sino-Soviet relations presupposes a solution to the border problem. The “solution” meant the transfer to China of certain territories, including the islands on the Ussuri River. The Soviet leadership was sympathetic to the desire of the Chinese to draw a new border along the rivers and was even ready to transfer a number of lands to the PRC. However, this readiness disappeared as soon as the ideological and then the interstate conflict flared up. Further deterioration of relations between the two countries eventually led to an open armed confrontation on Damansky.

The beginning of disagreements between the USSR and China began in 1956, when Mao condemned Moscow for suppressing unrest in Poland and Hungary. Khrushchev was extremely upset. He considered China to be a Soviet "spawn" that should live and develop under the tight control of the Kremlin. The mentality of the Chinese, who historically dominated East Asia, suggested a different, more equal approach to solving international (especially Asian) problems. In 1960, the crisis intensified even more when the USSR suddenly withdrew its specialists from China, who helped it develop the economy and the Armed Forces. The end of the process of breaking bilateral ties was the refusal of the Chinese Communists to participate in the XXIII Congress of the CPSU, which was announced on March 22, 1966. After the entry of Soviet troops into Czechoslovakia in 1968, the PRC authorities declared that the USSR had embarked on the path of "socialist revanchism."

The provocative actions of the Chinese on the border intensified. From 1964 to 1968, the Chinese organized more than 6,000 provocations involving about 26,000 people in the section of the Red Banner Pacific Border Circle alone. Anti-Sovietism became the basis of the CPC's foreign policy.

By this time, the "cultural revolution" (1966-1969) was already in full swing in China. In China, the Great Helmsman staged public executions of "saboteurs" who hampered Chairman Mao's "Great Economic Policy of the Great Leap Forward." But an external enemy was also needed, on which larger blunders could be attributed.

Khrushchev got stubborn

In accordance with generally accepted practice, the boundaries on rivers are drawn along the main fairway (thalweg). However, taking advantage of the weakness of pre-revolutionary China, the tsarist government of Russia managed to draw a border on the Ussuri River along the Chinese coast. Without the knowledge of the Russian authorities, the Chinese could not engage in either fishing or shipping.

After the October Revolution, the new government of Russia declared all the "tsarist" treaties with China "predatory and unequal." The Bolsheviks thought more about the world revolution, which would sweep away all borders, and least of all about the state benefit. At that time, the USSR was actively helping China, which was waging a national liberation war with Japan, and the issue of disputed territories was not considered important. In 1951, Beijing signed an agreement with Moscow, under which it recognized the existing border with the USSR, and also agreed to the control of the Soviet border guards over the Ussuri and Amur rivers.

Relations between peoples, without exaggeration, were fraternal. The inhabitants of the border strip paid visits to each other and were engaged in barter trade. Soviet and Chinese border guards celebrated the holidays together on May 1 and November 7. And only when disagreements arose between the leadership of the CPSU and the CPC, the situation on the border began to worsen - the question arose of revising the borders.

During the 1964 consultations, it emerged that Mao was demanding that Moscow recognize the border treaties as "unequal," as Vladimir Lenin had done. The next step should be the transfer to China of 1.5 million square meters. km of "previously occupied lands". “For us, such a formulation of the question was unacceptable,” writes Professor Yuri Gelenovich, who in 1964, 1969 and 1979 took part in negotiations with the Chinese. True, the head of the Chinese state, Liu Shaoqi, suggested starting negotiations without preconditions and using the principle of drawing the border line along the fairway of navigable rivers as the basis for demarcation in river sections. Nikita Khrushchev accepted Liu Shaoqi's proposal. But with one caveat - we can only talk about the islands adjacent to the Chinese coast.

a stumbling block that prevented further negotiations on water boundaries in 1964, became the Kazakevich duct near Khabarovsk. Khrushchev became stubborn, and the transfer of the disputed territories, including Damansky, did not take place.

Damansky Island with an area of about 0.74 sq. km territorially belonged to the Pozharsky district of Primorsky Krai. From the island to Khabarovsk - 230 km. The removal of the island from the Soviet coast is about 500 m, from the Chinese coast - about 70-300. From south to north Damansky stretches for 1500-1800 m, its width reaches 600-700 m. It does not represent any economic or military-strategic value.

According to some reports, Damansky Island was formed on the Ussuri River only in 1915, after the river water eroded the bridge with the Chinese bank. According to Chinese historians, the island as such appeared only in the summer of 1968 as a result of a flood, when a small piece of land was cut off from Chinese territory.

FISTS AND BUTS

In winter, when the ice on the Ussuri became strong, the Chinese went out to the middle of the river, "armed" with portraits of Mao, Lenin and Stalin, demonstrating where, in their opinion, the border should be.

From a report to the headquarters of the Red Banner Far Eastern District: “On January 23, 1969, at 11.15, armed Chinese servicemen began to bypass Damansky Island. At the demand to leave the territory, the violators began to shout, brandish quotes and fists. After some time, they attacked our border guards ... "

A. Skornyak, a direct participant in the events, recalls: “Hand-to-hand combat was cruel. The Chinese used shovels, iron bars, and sticks. Our guys fought back with machine gun butts. Miraculously, there were no casualties. Despite the numerical superiority of the attackers, the border guards put them to flight. After this incident, clashes occurred daily on the ice. They always ended in fights. By the end of February, there was not a single fighter “with a whole face” at the Nizhne-Mikhailovka outpost: “lanterns” under the eyes, broken noses, but the mood was fighting. Every day is such a spectacle. And the commanders are ahead. The head of the outpost, Senior Lieutenant Ivan Strelnikov, and his political officer Nikolai Buinevich, the men were healthy. Butts and fists turned quite a few Chinese noses and jaws. The Red Guards were afraid of them like fire and everyone shouted: “We will kill you first!”.

The commander of the Iman border detachment, Colonel Democrat Leonov, constantly reported that at any moment the conflict could escalate into a war. Moscow answered as in 1941: "Do not succumb to provocations, resolve all issues peacefully!" And that means - fists and butts. The border guards put on sheepskin coats and felt boots, took machine guns with one magazine (for a minute of the battle) and went to the ice. To raise morale, the Chinese were given a quote book with the sayings of the Great Helmsman and a bottle of bigot (Chinese vodka). After taking the "doping" the Chinese rushed hand to hand. Once, during a scuffle, they managed to stun and drag two of our border guards into their territory. Then they were executed.

On February 19, the Chinese General Staff approved the plan, codenamed "Retaliation." In particular, it said: “... if Soviet soldiers open fire on the Chinese side with small arms, respond with warning shots, and if the warning does not have the desired effect, give a“ decisive rebuff in self-defense.

Tensions in the Damansky area increased gradually. At first, Chinese citizens simply went to the island. Then they began to come out with posters. Then sticks, knives, carbines and machine guns appeared… For the time being, communication between Chinese and Soviet border guards was relatively peaceful, but in accordance with the inexorable logic of events, it quickly turned into verbal skirmishes and hand-to-hand fights. The most fierce battle took place on January 22, 1969, as a result of which the Soviet border guards recaptured several carbines from the Chinese. Upon inspection of the weapon, it turned out that the cartridges were already in the chambers. The Soviet commanders clearly understood how tense the situation was and therefore all the time called on their subordinates to be especially vigilant. Preventive measures were taken - for example, the staff of each frontier post was increased to 50 people. Nevertheless, the events of March 2 turned out to be a complete surprise for the Soviet side. On the night of March 1-2, 1969, about 300 servicemen of the People's Liberation Army of China (PLA) crossed to Damansky and lay down on the western coast of the island.

The Chinese were armed with AK-47 assault rifles, as well as SKS carbines. The commanders had TT pistols. All Chinese weapons were made according to Soviet models. There were no documents or personal belongings in the pockets of the Chinese. But everyone has Mao's quote book. To support the unit that landed on Damansky, positions of recoilless guns, heavy machine guns and mortars were equipped on the Chinese coast. Here the Chinese infantry with a total number of 200-300 people was waiting in the wings. Around 9:00 am, a Soviet border detachment passed through the island, but they did not find the invading Chinese. An hour and a half later, at the Soviet post, observers noticed the movement of a group of armed people (up to 30 people) in the direction of Damansky and immediately reported this by telephone to the Nizhne-Mikhailovka outpost, located 12 km south of the island. Head of outpost Lieutenant Ivan Strelnikov raised his subordinates "to the gun." In three groups, in three vehicles - GAZ-69 (8 people), BTR-60PB (13 people) and GAZ-63 (12 people), Soviet border guards arrived at the scene.

Dismounting, they moved in the direction of the Chinese in two groups: the first was led along the ice by the head of the outpost, Senior Lieutenant Strelnikov, the second, by Sergeant V. Rabovich. The third group, led by Art. Sergeant Yu. Babansky, moving in a GAZ-63 car, lagged behind and arrived at the scene 15 minutes later. Approaching the Chinese, I. Strelnikov protested about the violation of the border and demanded that the Chinese military personnel leave the territory of the USSR. In response, the first line of the Chinese parted, and the second opened a sudden automatic fire on Strelnikov's group. Strelnikov's group and the head of the outpost himself died immediately. Some of the attackers got up from their "beds" and rushed to attack a handful of Soviet soldiers from the second group, commanded by Yu. Rabovich. Those took the fight and shot back literally to the last bullet. When the attackers reached the positions of the Rabovich group, they finished off the wounded Soviet border guards with point-blank shots and cold steel. This shameful fact for the People's Liberation Army of China is evidenced by the documents of the Soviet medical commission. The only one who literally miraculously survived was Private G. Serebrov. Having regained consciousness in the hospital, he spoke about the last minutes of the life of his friends. It was at this moment that the third group of border guards under the command of Y. Babansky arrived.

Taking up a position at some distance behind their dying comrades, the border guards met the advancing Chinese with machine gun fire. The battle was unequal, there were fewer and fewer fighters left in the group, ammunition quickly ran out. Fortunately, the border guards from the neighboring outpost of Kulebyakina Sopka, located 17-18 km north of Damansky, came to the aid of Babansky’s group, commanded by Senior Lieutenant V. Bubenin. hurried to the rescue of neighbors. At about 11.30 the armored personnel carrier reached Damansky. The border guards got out of the car and almost immediately ran into a large group of Chinese. A fight ensued. During the battle, Senior Lieutenant Bubenin was wounded and shell-shocked, but did not lose control of the battle. Leaving several soldiers in place, led by junior sergeant V. Kanygin, he and four fighters plunged into an armored personnel carrier and moved around the island, going into the rear of the Chinese. The climax of the battle came at the moment when Bubenin managed to destroy the Chinese command post. After that, the border violators began to leave their positions, taking with them the dead and wounded. Thus ended the first battle on Damansky. In the battle on March 2, 1969, the Soviet side lost 31 people killed - this is exactly the figure that was given at a press conference at the USSR Foreign Ministry on March 7, 1969. As for Chinese losses, they are not known for certain, since the PLA General Staff has not yet made this information public. The Soviet border guards themselves estimated the total losses of the enemy at 100-150 soldiers and commanders.

After the battle on March 2, 1969, reinforced squads of Soviet border guards constantly went out to Damansky - numbering at least 10 people, with a sufficient amount of ammunition. Sappers carried out mining of the island in case of an attack by Chinese infantry. In the rear, at a distance of several kilometers from Damansky, the 135th motorized rifle division of the Far Eastern Military District was deployed - infantry, tanks, artillery, Grad multiple rocket launchers. The 199th Upper Uda Regiment of this division took a direct part in further events.

The Chinese also accumulated forces for the next offensive: in the area of \u200b\u200bthe island, the 24th Infantry Regiment of the People's Liberation Army of China, which included up to 5,000 soldiers and commanders, was preparing for battle! On March 15, noticing the revival on the Chinese side, a detachment of Soviet border guards consisting of 45 people on 4 armored personnel carriers entered the island. Another 80 border guards concentrated on the shore in readiness to support their comrades. Around 9:00 am on March 15, a loudspeaker installation started working on the Chinese side. A sonorous female voice in pure Russian called on the Soviet border guards to leave "Chinese territory", to abandon "revisionism", etc. A loudspeaker was also turned on on the Soviet coast.

The broadcast was in Chinese and quite in simple words: think again before it's too late, before you are the sons of those who liberated China from the Japanese invaders. After some time, silence fell on both sides, and closer to 10.00, Chinese artillery and mortars (from 60 to 90 barrels) began shelling the island. At the same time, 3 companies of Chinese infantry (each with 100-150 people) went on the attack. The battle on the island was of a focal nature: scattered groups of border guards continued to repel the attacks of the Chinese, who outnumbered the defenders by far. According to the recollections of eyewitnesses, the course of the battle resembled a pendulum: each side pressed the enemy when the reserves approached. At the same time, however, the ratio in manpower was always about 10:1 in favor of the Chinese. Around 15.00, an order was received to withdraw from the island. After that, the arriving Soviet reserves tried to carry out several counterattacks in order to expel the violators of the border, but they were unsuccessful: the Chinese thoroughly fortified on the island and met the attackers with dense fire.

Only by this moment was it decided to use artillery, since there was a real threat of the complete capture of Damansky by the Chinese. The order to strike the Chinese coast was given by the first deputy. commander of the Far Eastern Military District, Lieutenant General P.M. Plotnikov. At 17.00, a separate jet division of the BM-21 Grad installations under the command of M.T. Vashchenko launched a fire attack on the places of accumulation of the Chinese and their firing positions.

So for the first time, the then top-secret 40-barrel Grad was used, capable of releasing all the ammunition in 20 seconds. In 10 minutes of artillery raid, nothing remained of the Chinese division. A significant part of the Chinese soldiers in Damansky and adjacent territory was destroyed by a firestorm (according to Chinese data, more than 6 thousand). In the foreign press, the hype immediately went that the Russians used an unknown secret weapon, either lasers, or flamethrowers, or the devil knows what. (And the hunt for this, the devil knows what, began, which was crowned with success in the far south of Africa after 6 years. But that's another story ...)

At the same time, a cannon artillery regiment equipped with 122-mm howitzers opened fire on identified targets. Artillery hit for 10 minutes. The raid turned out to be extremely accurate: the shells destroyed the Chinese reserves, mortars, shell piles, etc. Radio interception data spoke of hundreds of dead PLA soldiers. At 17.10, motorized riflemen (2 companies and 3 tanks) and border guards in 4 armored personnel carriers went on the attack. After a stubborn battle, the Chinese began to withdraw from the island. Then they tried to recapture Damansky, but their three attacks ended in complete failure. After that, the Soviet soldiers retreated to their shore, and the Chinese made no more attempts to take possession of the island.

The Chinese fired harassing fire on the island for another half an hour, until they finally subsided. According to some estimates, they could have lost at least 700 people from the Grad strike. The provocateurs did not dare to continue. There is also evidence that 50 Chinese soldiers and officers were shot for cowardice.

The next day Colonel-General Nikolai Zakharov, the first deputy chairman of the chairman of the KGB of the USSR, arrived at Damansky. He personally crawled the entire island (length 1500-1800, width 500-600 m, area 0.74 sq. km), studied all the circumstances of the unprecedented battle. After that, Zakharov said to Bubenin: “Son, I went through the Civil War, the Great Patriotic War, the fight against the OUN in Ukraine. I saw everything. But I haven't seen this!"

And General Babansky said that the most remarkable episode in the hour and a half battle was associated with the actions of junior sergeant Vasily Kanygin and the cook of the outpost, Private Nikolai Puzyrev. They managed to destroy the largest number of Chinese soldiers (later calculated - almost a platoon). Moreover, when they ran out of ammunition, Puzyrev crawled up to the dead enemies and took away their ammunition (each attacker had six magazines for a machine gun, while the Soviet border guards had two each), which allowed this pair of heroes to continue the battle ...

The head of the outpost, Bubenin himself, at some point in the brutal skirmish, got on an armored personnel carrier equipped with KPVT and PKT turret machine guns, and, according to him, killed an entire infantry company of PLA soldiers who were moving to the island in order to reinforce the violators already fighting. From machine guns, the senior lieutenant suppressed firing points, and crushed the Chinese with wheels. When the armored personnel carrier was hit, he moved to another and continued to put enemy soldiers until an armor-piercing projectile hit this vehicle. As Bubenin recalled, after the first concussion at the beginning of the skirmish, “I fought the whole further battle on the subconscious, being in some other world.” The officer's army sheepskin coat was torn to shreds by enemy bullets on his back.

By the way, such fully armored BTR-60PBs were used in combat for the first time. The lessons of the conflict were taken into account in the course of its development. Already on March 15, PLA soldiers went into battle armed with a significant number of hand grenade launchers. For in order to prevent a new provocation, not two armored personnel carriers were pulled up to Damansky, but 11, four of which operated directly on the island, and 7 were in reserve.

This may indeed seem incredible, “clearly exaggerated,” but the facts are that after the end of the battle on the island, 248 corpses of soldiers and officers of the PLA were collected (and then handed over to the Chinese side).

The generals, both Bubenin and Babansky, are still being modest. In a conversation with me about three years ago, none of them claimed to have more Chinese losses than officially recognized, although it is clear that the Chinese managed to drag dozens of those killed to their territory. In addition, the border guards successfully suppressed enemy firing points found on the Chinese coast of the Ussuri. So the losses of the attackers could well be 350-400 people.

It is significant that the Chinese themselves have not yet declassified the numbers of losses on March 2, 1969, which look truly deadly against the background of the damage of the Soviet "green caps" - 31 people. It is only known that a memorial cemetery is located in Baoqing County, where the ashes of 68 Chinese servicemen who did not return from Damansky alive on March 2 and 15 are buried. Five of them were awarded the titles of heroes of the People's Republic of China. Obviously, there are other burials.

In just two battles (the second Chinese attack happened on March 15), 52 Soviet border guards were killed, including four officers, including the head of the Iman (now Dalnerechensky) border detachment, Colonel Democrat Leonov. He, along with Strelnikov, Bubenin and Babansky, was awarded the Gold Star of the Hero of the Soviet Union (posthumously). 94 people were wounded, including 9 officers (he was shell-shocked, and then Bubenin was also wounded). In addition, seven motorized riflemen, who participated in supporting the "green caps" in the second battle, laid down their lives.

According to the memoirs of General Babansky, the regular violations of the border by the Chinese without the use of weapons “became a regular situation for us. And when the battle began, we felt that we did not have enough cartridges, there were no reserves, and the supply of ammunition was not provided. Babansky also claims that the construction by the Chinese of the road to the border, which they explained as the development of the area for agricultural purposes, "we took at face value." The observed movement of Chinese troops, explained by the exercises, was also perceived in the same way. Although observation was carried out at night, “our observers did not see anything: we had only one night vision device, and even that allowed us to see something at a distance of no more than 50-70 meters.” Further more. On March 2, army exercises of all troops stationed in the area were held at the training grounds. A significant part of the border guard officers were also involved in them, only one officer remained at the outposts. One gets the impression that, unlike the Soviet military, Chinese intelligence did a good job. “Before the reinforcements reached us, they had to return to the place of permanent deployment to bring the equipment to combat readiness,” Babansky also said. - Therefore, the arrival of the reserve took longer than expected. We would have had enough estimated time, we already held out for an hour and a half. And when the army team reached their lines, deployed forces and means, almost everything on the island was already over.

America saved China from the nuclear wrath of the Soviet Union

In the late 1960s, America saved China from the nuclear wrath of the Soviet Union, according to a series of articles published in Beijing in the supplement to the CCP's official organ, Historical Reference magazine, according to Le Figaro. The conflict, which began in March 1969 with a series of clashes on the Soviet-Chinese border, led to the mobilization of troops, the newspaper writes. According to the publication, the USSR warned its allies in Eastern Europe about a planned nuclear attack. On August 20, the Soviet ambassador in Washington warned Kissinger and demanded that the United States remain neutral, but the White House intentionally leaked information about Soviet plans appeared in the Washington Post. In September and October, tensions came to a head and the Chinese population was ordered to dig shelters.

The article goes on to say that Nixon, who considered the USSR the main threat, did not need too weak China. In addition, he feared the consequences nuclear explosions for 250 thousand american soldiers in Asia. On October 15, Kissinger warned the Soviet ambassador that the United States would not stand aside in the event of an attack and would attack 130 Soviet cities in response. Five days later, Moscow canceled all plans for a nuclear strike, and negotiations began in Beijing: the crisis is over, the newspaper writes.

According to the Chinese publication, Washington's actions were partly a "revenge" for the events five years ago, when the USSR refused to join efforts to prevent the development of Chinese nuclear weapons, stating that China's nuclear program poses no threat. On October 16, 1964, Beijing successfully conducted its first nuclear test. The magazine tells of three more cases in which China was threatened nuclear attack, this time from the United States: during the Korean War, as well as during the conflict between mainland China and Taiwan in March 1955 and August 1958.

“Researcher Liu Chenshan, describing the Nixon episode, does not specify on what archival sources he is based. He admits that other experts disagree with his statements. The publication of his article in an official publication suggests that he had access to serious sources, and his article was repeatedly re-read, ”the publication concludes.

Political settlement of the conflict

On September 11, 1969, talks were held at the Beijing airport between the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR A.N. Kosygin and the Premier of the State Council of the PRC, Zhou Enlai. The meeting lasted three and a half hours. The main result of the discussion was an agreement to stop hostile actions on the Soviet-Chinese border and to stop troops at the lines they occupied at the time of the negotiations. It must be said that the wording "the parties remain where they have been until now" was proposed by Zhou Enlai, and Kosygin immediately agreed with it. And it was at this moment that Damansky Island became de facto Chinese. The fact is that after the end of the fighting, the ice began to melt, and therefore the exit of the border guards to Damansky was difficult. We decided to carry out fire cover of the island. From now on, any attempt by the Chinese to land on Damansky was thwarted by sniper and machine-gun fire.

On September 10, 1969, the border guards received an order to cease fire. Immediately after that, the Chinese came to the island and settled there. On the same day, a similar story took place on Kirkinsky Island, located 3 km north of Damansky. Thus, on the day of the Beijing talks on September 11, there were already Chinese on the Damansky and Kirkinsky Islands. The consent of A.N. Kosygin with the wording "the parties remain where they were until now" meant the actual surrender of the islands to China. Apparently, the order to cease fire on September 10 was given in order to create a favorable background for the start of negotiations. The Soviet leaders knew perfectly well that the Chinese would land on Damansky, and deliberately went for it. Obviously, the Kremlin decided that sooner or later, they would have to draw a new border along the fairways of the Amur and Ussuri. And if so, then there is nothing to hold on to the islands, which will still go to the Chinese. Shortly after the completion of the negotiations, A.N. Kosygin and Zhou Enlai exchanged letters. In them, they agreed to begin work on the preparation of a non-aggression pact.

While Mao Zedong was alive, negotiations on border issues did not produce results. He died in 1976. Four years later, the "gang of four" headed by the widow of the "pilot" was dispersed. Relations between our countries were normalized in the 1980s. In 1991 and 1994, the parties managed to determine the border along its entire length, with the exception of the islands near Khabarovsk. Damansky Island was officially transferred to China in 1991. In 2004, an agreement was reached regarding the islands near Khabarovsk and on the Argun River. To date, the passage of the Russian-Chinese border along its entire length has been established - this is about 4.3 thousand kilometers.

ETERNAL MEMORY TO THE FALLEN HEROES OF THE BORDER! GLORY TO THE VETERANS OF 1969!

The original article is on the website InfoGlaz.rf Link to the article from which this copy is made -

and Chinese People's Republic. The Daman conflict is another indicator of human irresponsibility and cynicism. Calm had not yet reigned in the world after the Second World War, and pockets of armed confrontation arose here and there. And before colliding face to face, the USSR and China actively participated in various confrontations that did not directly concern them.

background

After the Second Opium War ended, countries such as France, Russia and Great Britain were able to sign treaties with China on favorable terms. So, in 1860, Russia supported the Beijing Treaty, according to its terms, a border was drawn along the Chinese bank of the Amur, and Chinese peasants did not have the right to use it.

For a long time, the countries maintained friendly relations. The frontier population was sparse, so there were no conflicts about who owned the deserted river islands.

In 1919, the Paris Peace Conference was held, as a result, a provision on state borders appeared. It stated that the border should run in the middle of the main fairway of the river. As an exception, it could pass along the coast, but only in two cases:

This is how it happened historically.
As a result of the colonization of land by one of the parties.

At first, this decision did not provoke any disagreements and misunderstandings. Only after a while, the provision on state borders was taken seriously, and it became an additional reason for the emergence of the Daman conflict.

In the late 1950s, China began to seek to increase its international influence, therefore, without much delay, it entered into conflict with Taiwan (1958), adopted Active participation in the border war with India. Also, the PRC has not forgotten about the provision on state borders and decided to use it to revise the existing Sino-Soviet borders.

The ruling elite of the Soviet Union was not opposed, and in 1964 a consultation was held on border issues. True, it ended to no avail - everything remained the same as it was. During the Cultural Revolution in the PRC and after the Prague Spring, the Chinese government declared that the Soviet Union began to support "socialist imperialism", relations between the countries escalated even more. And at the center of this conflict was the island question.

What else could be the prerequisites for the Daman conflict?

After World War II, China became a powerful ally for the USSR. The Soviet Union provided assistance to China in the war with Japan and supported in the civil war against the forces of the Kuomintang. The Chinese communists began to be loyal to the USSR, and there was a short calm.

This fragile peace continued until 1950, when the cold war between Russia and the USA. Two large countries wanted to unite the Korean Peninsula, but their "noble" aspirations led to global bloodshed.

At that time, the peninsula split into communist and South Korea. Each of the parties was sure that it was their vision of the country's development that was true; on this basis, an armed confrontation arose. At first, communist Korea was in the lead in the war, but then to the aid of South Korea came America and the UN forces. China did not stand aside, the government understood that if South Korea, then the country will have a strong enemy who will certainly attack sooner or later. Therefore, the PRC is on the side of communist Korea.

During the conduct of hostilities, the front line shifted to the 38th parallel and remained there until the end of the war, until 1953. When the confrontation subsided, the PRC government rethought its position in the international arena. China decides to get out of the influence of the USSR and lead its own foreign policy, which would not depend on anyone.

This opportunity presented itself in 1956. At that time, the 20th Congress of the CPSU was held in Moscow, at which it was decided to abandon the personality cult of Stalin and radically change the foreign policy doctrine. The PRC was not enthusiastic about such innovations, the country began to call Khrushchev's policy revisionist, and the country chose a completely different foreign policy course.

This split became known as the war of ideas between China and the Soviet Union. If the opportunity arose, the PRC tried to show that it was opposed to the USSR, like some other countries of the world.

In 1968, a period of liberalization (Prague Spring) began in Czechoslovakia. The first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, Alexander Dubchenko, proposed reforms that significantly expanded the rights and freedoms of citizens and also assumed the decentralization of power in the country. The inhabitants of the state supported such changes, but for the USSR they were not acceptable, so the Soviet Union sent troops into the country. This action was condemned by the PRC, it became another, really real reason for the start of the Daman conflict.

Feelings of superiority or deliberate provocation

Historians argue that as a result of the aggravation of relations between countries in the USSR, a sense of superiority over the inhabitants of China began to be cultivated. Russian border guards chose the exact location of the border for deployment and frightened Chinese fishermen by driving boats near their boats at high speed.

Although according to other sources, it was the Chinese side that arranged the provocations. The peasants crossed the border and went about their business, not paying attention to the border guards, who had to catch them and send them back. The weapon was not used.

Perhaps these were the main causes of the Daman conflict.

Islands

O. Damansky at that time was part of the Pozharsky district of Primorsky Krai, on the Chinese side it was located not far from the main channel of the Ussuri River. The size of the island was small: the length from north to south was approximately 1700 meters, from west to east - 600-700. The total area is 0.74 km2. When floods come, the land is completely submerged. But despite this, there are several brick buildings on the island, and water meadows are a valuable natural resource.

Due to the increased number of provocations from China, the situation on the island became more and more tense. If in 1960 there were about 100 illegal border crossings, then in 1962 their number increased to 5 thousand. The conflict on Damansky Island was approaching.

Information began to appear about the attack of the Red Guards on the border guards. Such situations were not isolated, their number was already in the thousands.

On January 4, 1969, the first mass provocation was carried out on Kirkinsky Island, more than 500 Chinese residents took part in it.

To our time, the memoirs of a junior sergeant who served at the frontier post that year, Yuri Babansky, have survived:

In February, he was unexpectedly appointed to the post of commander of the outpost section, the head of which was Senior Lieutenant Ivan Strelnikov. I come to the outpost, and there, except for the cook, there is no one. “Everything,” he says, “is on the shore, they are fighting with the Chinese.” Of course, I have a machine gun on my shoulder - and to the Ussuri. And there is actually a fight. Chinese border guards crossed the Ussuri on the ice and invaded our territory. So Strelnikov raised the outpost "in the gun." Our guys were both taller and healthier. But the Chinese are not born with a bast - dexterous, evasive; they do not climb on the fist, they try in every possible way to dodge our blows. While everyone was thrashed, an hour and a half passed. But without a single shot. Only in the face. Even then I thought: "Merry Outpost".
These were the first prerequisites for the conflict on Damansky Island. According to the Chinese version, it was the Russians who acted as provocateurs. They beat Chinese citizens for no reason who were peacefully going about their business on their own territory. During the Kirkinsky Incident, the Soviet military used armored personnel carriers to force out civilians, and on February 7, 1969, they fired several automatic shots at the Chinese border guards.
True, no matter whose fault these clashes were, they could not lead to a serious armed conflict without the approval of the government.

Culprits

Now the most common opinion is that the military conflict on Damansky Island was a planned action by China. Even Chinese historians directly or indirectly write about this in their writings.
Li Danhui wrote that at the end of the 60s of the last century, the directives of the CPC Central Committee forbade the Chinese to respond to the "provocations" of Soviet soldiers, only on 01/25/1969 it was allowed to plan retaliatory military operations. Three companies of soldiers were brought in for this purpose. On February 19, the decision on retaliatory military operations was approved by the General Staff and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the PRC. There is also an opinion that Marshal Lin Biao warned the USSR government in advance about the upcoming action, which then turned into a conflict.

An American intelligence bulletin, which was released on July 13, 1969, said that China was conducting propaganda, the main ideas of which emphasized the need to unite citizens and urged them to prepare for war.
Sources also say that intelligence informed the forces of the Soviet Union about the armed provocation in a timely manner. In any case, the impending attack was somehow known. In addition, it was hard not to notice that the Chinese leadership wanted not so much to defeat the USSR as to clearly demonstrate to America that it was also an enemy of the Soviet Union, and therefore could be a reliable partner for the United States.

The beginning of the conflict. March 1969

The conflict with China on Damansky Island in 1969 began on the first night of March - from the 1st to the 2nd. A group of Chinese soldiers of 80 people crossed the Ussuri River and landed in the western part of the island. Until 10 am, no one noticed these unauthorized intruders, as a result, the Chinese military was able to improve the location and plan further actions.
At about 10:20 a.m., Chinese military personnel were spotted at a Soviet observation post.
A group of Russian border guards headed by Senior Lieutenant Strelnikov immediately went to the place of violation of the border. Arriving on the island, they were divided into two subgroups: one led by Strelnikov went to the Chinese military, the other, led by Sergeant Rabovich, moved along the coast, thereby cutting off the Chinese military group from moving inland.
The Chinese conflict on Damansky began in the morning, when Strelnikov's group approached the violators and protested against the unauthorized invasion. The Chinese soldiers suddenly opened fire. At the same time, they open fire on Rabovich's group. The Soviet border guards were taken by surprise and almost completely destroyed.
The conflict on March 2, 1969 on Damansky Island did not end there. The shots were heard by the head of the Kulebyakiny Sopki outpost, which was located next door, Senior Lieutenant Bubenin. He quickly decided to advance with 23 fighters to help. But as soon as they approached the island, Bubenin's group was forced to immediately take up a defensive position. Chinese military started offensive operation with the aim of completely taking possession of Damansky Island. Soviet soldiers courageously defended the territory, not giving the Chinese the opportunity to throw themselves into the river.
True, such a conflict on the Damansky Peninsula could not continue for a long time. Lieutenant Bubenin made a fateful decision, which on March 2 determined the outcome of the battle for the island. Sitting on an armored personnel carrier, Bubenin went to the rear of the Chinese troops, thereby trying to completely disorganize them. True, the armored personnel carrier was soon knocked out, but this did not stop Bubenin, he got to the transport of the murdered lieutenant Strelnikov and continued his movement. As a result of this raid, the command post was destroyed, the enemy suffered serious losses. At 13:00, the Chinese began to withdraw troops from the island.
Due to the military conflict between the USSR and China on Damansky Island on March 2, the Soviet army lost 31 people, 14 were wounded. According to Soviet data, the Chinese side was left without 39 soldiers.

Events from 2 to 14 March 1969

After the end of the first stage of the military conflict, the military command of the Imansky border detachment arrived on the Damansky Peninsula. They planned activities that could stop similar provocations in the future. It was decided to increase the border detachments. As additional increase The 135th motorized rifle division settled in the area of the island with the latest Grads in its arsenal. On the Chinese side, the 24th Infantry Regiment was put up against the Soviet army.
True, the countries did not limit themselves to military maneuvers: organizing a demonstration in the center of the capital is a sacred thing. So, on March 3, a demonstration took place near the Soviet embassy in Beijing, the participants of which demanded an end to aggressive actions. Also, the Chinese press began to publish completely implausible and propaganda materials. The publications said that the Soviet army invaded China and opened fire on the troops.
The Moscow newspaper Pravda also did not remain indifferent and expressed its point of view on the border conflict on Damansky Island. Here the events that took place were more reliably described. On March 7, the Chinese embassy in Moscow was picketed and pelted with ink vials, apparently the public learned about the implausible rumors that were circulating among the Chinese about the Soviet army.
Whatever it was, and such provocative actions on March 2-14 did not significantly affect the course of events, a new border conflict on Damansky Island was just around the corner.

Fight in the middle of March

On March 14, at about three o'clock in the afternoon, the Soviet army received an order to retreat, the Russian participants in the Daman conflict had to leave the island. Immediately after the retreat of the Soviet army, the territory of the island began to be occupied by the Chinese military.
The government of the USSR could not calmly look at the current situation, obviously, the border conflict on Damansky Island in 1969 was forced to move to the second stage. The Soviet army sent 8 armored personnel carriers to the island, as soon as the Chinese noticed them, they immediately moved to their shore. On the evening of March 14, the Soviet border guards were ordered to occupy the island, a group under the command of Lieutenant Colonel E. Yanshin immediately carried it out.
On March 15, fire was opened on Soviet troops in the morning. The Daman conflict of 1969 entered its second phase. According to intelligence data, about 60 enemy artillery barrels fired at the Soviet troops, after the shelling, three companies of Chinese fighters went on the offensive. However, the enemy did not succeed in capturing the island, the Daman conflict of 1969 was just beginning.

After the situation became critical, reinforcements advanced to the Yanshin group, a group led by Colonel D. Leonov. The newly arrived soldiers immediately entered into battle with the Chinese in the south of the island. In this conflict on Damansky Island (1969), Colonel Leonov dies, his group suffers serious losses, but still does not leave their positions and inflicts damage on the enemy.
Two hours after the start of the battle, the ammunition was used up, and the Soviet troops had to retreat from Damansky Island. The 1969 conflict did not end there: the Chinese felt their numerical advantage and began to occupy the vacated territory. But at the same time, the Soviet leadership gives the green light to the use of Grads to deliver a fire strike on enemy forces. At about 5 pm, Soviet troops opened fire. The Chinese suffered heavy losses, mortars were disabled, ammunition and reinforcements were completely destroyed.
Half an hour after the artillery attack, motorized riflemen began to attack the Chinese, followed by border guards under the command of lieutenant colonels Konstantinov and Smirnov. The Chinese troops had no choice but to hastily leave the island. The conflict with China on the Damansky Peninsula continued at seven o'clock in the evening - the Chinese decided to counterattack. True, their efforts were fruitless, and the position of the Chinese army in this war did not change significantly.
During the hostilities on March 14-15, the Soviet army lost 27 soldiers, 80 were wounded. As for the losses in the Daman conflict of the Chinese side, these data were strictly classified. Tentatively, it can be assumed that they lost about 200 people.

Confrontation Settlement

During the conflict with China on the Damansky Peninsula, Soviet troops lost 58 people, among the dead were four soldiers from officers, 94 people were injured, including 9 officers. What losses the Chinese side suffered is still unknown, this is classified information, and historians only assume that the number of dead Chinese soldiers ranges from 100 to 300 people. There is a memorial cemetery in Bioqing County, which contains the ashes of 68 Chinese soldiers who died in the Daman conflict in 1969. One of the Chinese defectors said that there were other burials, so the number of buried soldiers could exceed 300 people.
As for the side of the Soviet Union, five military men received the title of "Hero of the Soviet Union" for their heroism. Among them:

Colonel Democrat Vladimirovich Leonov - the title was awarded posthumously.

Senior Lieutenant Ivan Ivanovich Strelnikov - awarded posthumously.

Junior Sergeant Vladimir Viktorovich Orekhov - received the rank posthumously.

Senior Lieutenant Vitaly Dmitrievich Bubenin.

Junior Sergeant Yuri Vasilyevich Babansky.

Many border guards and military personnel received state awards. For conducting hostilities on Damansky Island, the participants were awarded.

Three orders of Lenin.

Ten Orders of the Red Banner.

Order of the Red Star (31 pieces).

Ten Orders of Glory, Third Class.

Medal "For Courage" (63 pcs.).

Medal "For Military Merit" (31 pcs.).

During the operation, the Soviet army left the T-62 tank on enemy soil, but due to constant shelling, it could not be returned. There was an attempt to destroy vehicle from a mortar, but this idea was not crowned with success - the tank ingloriously fell through the ice. True, a little later, the Chinese were able to pull it to their shore. It is currently a priceless exhibit in the Beijing Military Museum.

After hostilities ended, Soviet troops left the territory of Damansky Island. Soon the ice around the island began to melt, and it was difficult for Soviet soldiers to cross to its territory with their former agility. The Chinese took advantage of this situation and immediately took up positions on the lands of the border islands. To interfere with the plans of the enemy, Soviet soldiers fired at him with cannons, but this did not give a tangible result.
The Damansky conflict did not stop there. In August of the same year, another large Soviet-Chinese armed conflict took place. It went down in history as an incident near Lake Zhalanashkol. Relations between states have indeed reached a critical point. The possibility of starting a nuclear war was closer than ever between the USSR and the PRC.
Provocations and military clashes along the Soviet-Chinese border continued until September. As a result of the border conflict, the leadership was nevertheless able to realize that it was impossible to continue an aggressive policy towards the northern neighbor. The condition in which the Chinese army was, only once again confirmed this idea.
September 10, 1969 received an order to cease fire. Apparently, in this way they tried to create a favorable environment for political negotiations, which began the day after receiving the order at the Beijing airport.
As soon as the shooting stopped, the Chinese immediately took up stronger positions on the islands. This situation played an important role in the negotiations. On September 11, in Beijing, Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR A.N. Kosygin, who was returning from the funeral of Ho Chi Minh, and Premier of the State Council of the People's Republic of China Zhou Enlai met and agreed that it was time to stop hostilities and various hostile actions. They also agreed that the troops would remain in the positions they had previously taken. Roughly speaking, Damansky Island passed into the possession of China.

Negotiation

Naturally, this state of affairs did not please the government of the USSR, so on October 20, 1969, another negotiations took place between the Soviet Union and the PRC. During these negotiations, the countries agreed that it was necessary to revise the documents confirming the position of the Soviet-Chinese border.
After that, a whole series of negotiations were carried out, which were alternately held either in Moscow or in Beijing. And only in 1991, Damansky Island finally became the property of the PRC (although de facto this happened back in 1969).

Nowadays

In 2001, the archives of the KGB of the USSR declassified photographs of the discovered bodies of Soviet soldiers. The images clearly indicated the presence of the fact of abuse from the Chinese side. All materials were transferred to the Dalnerechensk Historical Museum.
In 2010, a series of articles was published in a French newspaper stating that the USSR was preparing a nuclear strike against the PRC in the fall of 1969. The materials referred to the People's Daily newspaper. A similar publication appeared in the print media in Hong Kong. According to these data, America refused to remain neutral in the event of a nuclear attack on China. The articles stated that on October 15, 1969, the United States threatened to attack 130 Soviet cities in the event of an attack on the PRC. True, the researchers do not specify from which sources such data were taken and themselves admit the fact that other experts do not agree with these statements.
The Daman conflict is considered a serious disagreement between two powerful states, which almost led to tragedy. But no one can say how true this is. Each country held to its own point of view, disseminated the information that was beneficial to it, and furiously concealed the truth. As a result, dozens of lost lives and ruined destinies.

War is always a tragedy. And we, those who are far from politics and the noble desire to shed blood for a lofty ideal, are completely incomprehensible why it is necessary to take up arms without fail. Mankind has long since left the caves, the cave paintings of bygone times have turned into quite understandable speech, and besides, you no longer need to hunt for survival. But the rituals of human sacrifice have been transformed and turned into completely legitimate armed confrontations.
The Daman conflict is another indicator of human irresponsibility and cynicism. It seems that the tragedy of the Second World War should have taught the rulers of all countries of the world one simple truth: "War is bad." Although this is bad only for those who do not return from the battlefield, for the rest, you can get some benefit from any confrontation - "here's a medal for you, and disappear completely." This principle was also applied during the Damansky conflict: the soldiers were sure that the enemy was provoking them, while government officials, meanwhile, resolved their issues. Some historians believe that the conflict was only an excuse to divert public attention from what is really going on in the world.

In the early spring of 1969, a conflict began on the Soviet-Chinese border. During the clashes, 58 Soviet soldiers and officers were killed. However, at the cost of their lives, they managed to stop a big war.

0.74 square km

The two most powerful socialist powers at that time, the USSR and the PRC, almost started a full-scale war over a piece of land called Damansky Island. Its area is only 0.74 square kilometers. In addition, during the flood on the Ussuri River, he was completely hidden under water.
There is a version that Damansky became an island only in 1915, when the current eroded part of the spit on the Chinese coast. Be that as it may, the island, which in Chinese was called Zhenbao, was located closer to the coast of the PRC. According to international position, adopted at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, the borders between states should pass in the middle of the main fairway of the river. This agreement provided for exceptions: if the border had historically developed along one of the banks, with the consent of the parties, it could be left unchanged. In order not to aggravate relations with a neighbor gaining international influence, the leadership of the USSR allowed the transfer of a number of islands on the Soviet-Chinese border. On this occasion, 5 years before the conflict on Damansky Island, negotiations took place, which, however, ended in nothing, both because of the political ambitions of the leader of the PRC, Mao Zedong, and because of the inconsistency of the USSR Secretary General Nikita Khrushchev.

Five thousand provocations

For the USSR, which, by and large, has not yet recovered either demographically or economically after a series of wars and revolutions in the first half of the 20th century and especially after World War II, an armed conflict, and even more so full-scale military operations with a nuclear power, in which, moreover, at that time, every fifth inhabitant of the planet lived, were unnecessary and extremely dangerous. Only this can explain the amazing patience with which the Soviet border guards endured constant provocations from the "Chinese comrades" in the border areas.
In 1962 alone, there were more than 5 thousand (!) Various violations of the border regime by Chinese citizens.

Native Chinese territories

Gradually, Mao Zedong convinced himself and the entire population of the Celestial Empire that the USSR illegally owns vast territories of 1.5 million square kilometers, which supposedly should belong to China. Such sentiments were actively inflated in the Western press - the capitalist world, during the period of the Soviet-Chinese friendship, was strongly frightened by the red-yellow threat, now rubbed its hands in anticipation of the clash of two socialist "monsters".
In such a situation, only a pretext was needed to unleash hostilities. And such an occasion was the disputed island on the Ussuri River.

"Put as many of them as possible..."

The fact that the conflict on Damansky was carefully planned is indirectly recognized even by Chinese historians themselves. For example, Li Danhui notes that in response to "Soviet provocations" it was decided to conduct a military operation with the forces of three companies. There is a version that the leadership of the USSR was aware in advance through Marshal Lin Biao of the upcoming action of the Chinese.
On the night of March 2, about 300 Chinese soldiers crossed the ice to the island. Due to the fact that it was snowing, they managed to go unnoticed until 10 am. When the Chinese were discovered, the Soviet border guards did not have an adequate idea of their numbers for several hours. According to a report received at the 2nd outpost "Nizhne-Mikhailovka" of the 57th Iman border detachment, the number of armed Chinese was 30 people. 32 Soviet border guards left for the scene. Near the island, they split into two groups. The first group, under the command of Senior Lieutenant Ivan Strelnikov, headed straight for the Chinese, who were standing on the ice southwest of the island. The second group, under the command of Sergeant Vladimir Rabovich, was supposed to cover Strelnikov's group from the southern coast of the island.

As soon as Strelnikov's detachment approached the Chinese, a hurricane of fire was opened on him. Rabovich's group was also ambushed. Almost all border guards were killed on the spot. Corporal Pavel Akulov was captured in an unconscious state. His body with signs of torture was later handed over to the Soviet side. The squad of junior sergeant Yuri Babansky entered the battle, which was somewhat delayed, advancing from the outpost, and therefore the Chinese could not destroy it using the surprise factor. It was this unit, together with the help of 24 border guards who came to the rescue from the neighboring Kulebyakiny Sopki outpost, in a fierce battle, showed the Chinese how high the morale of their opponents was. “Of course, it was still possible to withdraw, return to the outpost, wait for reinforcements from the detachment. But we were seized with such fierce anger at these bastards that in those moments we wanted only one thing - to put as many of them as possible. For the guys, for ourselves, for this span of land that no one needs, but still our land, ”recalled Yuri Babansky, who was later awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union for his heroism.
As a result of the battle, which lasted about 5 hours, 31 Soviet border guards were killed. The irretrievable losses of the Chinese, according to the Soviet side, amounted to 248 people.
The surviving Chinese were forced to withdraw. But in the border area, the 24th Chinese Infantry Regiment, numbering 5,000 people, was already preparing for combat operations. The Soviet side pulled up the 135th motorized rifle division to Damanskoye, which was given installations of the then secret Grad multiple launch rocket systems.

Preventive "Grad"

If the officers and soldiers of the Soviet army demonstrated determination and heroism, then the same cannot be said about the top leadership of the USSR. In the following days of the conflict, the border guards received very conflicting orders. For example, at 15-00 on March 14 they were ordered to leave Damansky. But after the island was immediately occupied by the Chinese, 8 of our armored personnel carriers advanced in battle order from the side of the Soviet frontier post. The Chinese retreated, and the Soviet border guards at 20-00 of the same day were ordered to return to Damansky.
On March 15, about 500 Chinese attacked the island again. They were supported by 30 to 60 artillery pieces and mortars. From our side, about 60 border guards on 4 armored personnel carriers entered the battle. At the decisive moment of the battle, they were supported by 4 T-62 tanks. However, after a few hours of battle, it became clear that the forces were too unequal. The Soviet border guards, having shot all the ammunition, were forced to retreat to their own shore.
The situation was critical - the Chinese could launch an attack already on the frontier post, and according to the instructions of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU, in no case could Soviet troops be brought into the conflict. That is, the border guards were left face to face with the many times superior units of the Chinese army. And then the commander of the troops of the Far Eastern Military District, Colonel-General Oleg Losik, at his own peril and risk, gives an order that greatly sobered up the militancy of the Chinese, and, perhaps, forced them to abandon full-scale armed aggression against the USSR. Multiple launch rocket systems "Grad" were introduced into the battle. Their fire practically swept away all the Chinese units concentrated in the Damansky area. Already 10 minutes after the shelling of the Grad, organized Chinese resistance was out of the question. Those who survived began to retreat from Damansky. True, two hours later, the approaching Chinese units unsuccessfully tried to attack the island again. However, the "Chinese comrades" learned the lesson they learned. After March 15, they no longer made serious attempts to seize Damansky.

Surrendered without a fight

In the battles for Damansky, 58 Soviet border guards were killed and, according to various sources, from 500 to 3,000 Chinese troops (this information is still kept secret by the Chinese side). However, as has often happened in Russian history, what they managed to keep by force of arms, the diplomats surrendered. Already in the autumn of 1969, negotiations were held, as a result of which it was decided that the Chinese and Soviet border guards would remain on the banks of the Ussuri without going to Damansky. In fact, this meant the transfer of the island to China. The island was legally transferred to China in 1991.