Border conflict on Damansky Island. The military conflict between the USSR and China in the area of ​​about. damansky

Damansky- a small Chinese island with an area of ​​0.74 km² on the Ussuri River, on the border with Russia, 230 km south of Khabarovsk and 35 km west of Luchegorsk.

The island is known as the site of a border conflict that unfolded in March 1969 between the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China.

Forgotten "incident" on Damansky Island

Official historians prefer not to remember this war, at best modestly calling it an “incident” or “events” in Damansky. It was a real aggression against our country - the first and only after the Great Patriotic War. Neither the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, nor the Prime Minister and ministers honored the annual memory of those who defended the sacred frontiers. As if by an invisible command, not a single TV channel managed to remember this drama. Although in this case we have nothing to be ashamed of, rather the opposite.

The origins of the territorial conflict between China and the USSR go back to 1860, when the parties signed the Beijing Treaty, which specified the border between the empires. According to Article 1, “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. Subsequently, this demarcation came into conflict with the international rule of law, according to which the border does not run along the coast, but along the center of the river.

The growth of the population and the strengthening of the military and political power of China allowed him to remind the northern neighbor of the unfair border. But secret negotiations started in 1964 came to nothing. In the disputed territories, provocations were periodically organized, it came to skirmishes and human casualties. Fights culminated in Damansky Island in 1969.

The fighting lasted from 2 to 15 March. On the Chinese side, the striking force was the 24th Infantry Regiment (5,000 people) and about 50 artillery and mortar barrels. From the Soviet side, units of the 57th "Imansky" border detachment (1st and 2nd outposts) and units of the 135th motorized rifle regiment experienced the brunt of the blow. For the first time, Grad multiple launch rocket launchers were used.

On the morning of March 2, Chinese special forces fired at point-blank range at the border guards from an ambush, laying down almost the entire outpost. The Chinese did not take prisoners: subsequently, the medical board found that 19 wounded border guards were brutally finished off by Chinese soldiers after the battle - they were shot at point-blank range, mutilated with knives, gouged out their eyes, cut off their ears.

Corporal Pavel Akulov went missing. When the Chinese returned his body a month and a half later, the doctors found that the soldier had died from severe torture. Another outpost came to the aid of the attacked border guards, the Chinese were driven out. On March 15, the Chinese tried to take revenge, throwing almost 5,000 soldiers at Damansky. It was then that for the first time the BM-21 Grad multiple rocket launchers were used, the impact of which decided the outcome of the battle. And the skirmishes of reconnaissance groups continued for a long time.

China hides the numbers of its losses to this day, but, according to very rough estimates of the Soviet military, the enemy only lost from 500 to 700 people killed. According to other sources, there were up to three thousand killed, but this did not prevent Beijing from declaring that it was the Chinese troops who won a brilliant victory at Damansky, repelling the "aggression of the Soviet revisionists." Soviet losses amounted to 56 killed, about 70 wounded.

Fighting and losses sobered both sides. On September 11, Prime Minister Alexei Kosygin, returning from the funeral of Vietnamese dictator Ho Chi Minh, met at the Beijing airport with his Chinese counterpart Zhou Enlai. The parties agreed on a ceasefire and renunciation of the use of force. But the conflict remained unresolved. Both the USSR and the PRC concentrated powerful groups near the border. The Chinese built a powerful system of underground structures (project 131), the Russians used nuclear charges for mining. Yes, the second Damansky was no more. But the clashes between the border guards continued (it came to hand-to-hand fights).

Only on May 16, 1991, the USSR and the PRC signed an agreement on the demarcation of the border, according to which the Damansky and Kirkinsky islands were ceded to China (which entered into force on March 16 of the following year). On October 15, 2008, according to an agreement between the leaders of Russia and China, concluded in 2004, Tarabarov Island and half of Bolshoy Ussuriysky in the Khabarovsk Territory were also transferred to China.

O. Damansky became the site of an armed confrontation between the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China. 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:

1. This is how it happened historically.
2. 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), and took an active part in the border war with India. Also, the PRC did not forget about the provision on state borders and decided to use it to revise the existing Soviet-Chinese 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 broke out between Russia and the United States. 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 won, then the country would have a strong adversary who would 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 pursue 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. The Chinese military launched an offensive operation with the goal of completely capturing 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 an additional increase in combat capability, 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 officer soldiers, 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 the vehicle with a mortar, but this idea was unsuccessful - 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 of any confrontation, you can get some benefit - "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.

The Damansky conflict of 1969 is an armed clash between the troops of the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China. The geographical location gave the name to the event - the battle took place in the area of ​​​​Damansky Island (sometimes it is mistakenly called the Damansky Peninsula) on the Ussuri River, which flows 230 kilometers south of Khabarovsk. It is believed that the Daman events are the largest Soviet-Chinese conflict in modern history.

Background and causes of the conflict

After the end of the Second Opium War (1856-1860), Russia signed an extremely beneficial treaty with China, which went down in history as the Beijing Treaty. According to official documents, the Russian border now ended on the Chinese bank of the Amur River, which meant that only the Russian side could fully use the water resources. No one thought about the belonging of the deserted Amur Islands due to the small population in that territory.

In the middle of the 20th century, China was no longer satisfied with this situation. The first attempt to move the border ended in failure. In the late 1960s, the leadership of the PRC began to assert that the USSR was following the path of socialist imperialism, which meant that aggravation of relations could not be avoided. According to some historians, a sense of superiority over the Chinese was cultivated in the Soviet Union. The servicemen, as never before, began to zealously monitor the observance of the Soviet-Chinese border.

The situation in the area of ​​Damansky Island began to heat up in the early 1960s. The Chinese military and civilians constantly violated the border regime, penetrated into foreign territory, but the Soviet border guards expelled them without the use of weapons. The number of provocations grew every year. In the middle of the decade, attacks on Soviet border patrols by Chinese Red Guards became more frequent.

In the late 60s, the fights between the parties ceased to resemble fights, first firearms were used, and then military equipment. On February 7, 1969, for the first time, Soviet border guards fired several single shots from machine guns in the direction of the Chinese military.

The course of the armed conflict

On the night of March 1-2, 1969, more than 70 Chinese soldiers, armed with Kalashnikovs and SKS carbines, took up a position on the high coast of Damansky Island. This group was noticed only at 10:20 in the morning. At 10:40, a border detachment of 32 people, led by Senior Lieutenant Ivan Strelnikov, arrived on the island. They demanded to leave the territory of the USSR, but the Chinese opened fire. Most of the Soviet detachment, including the commander, died.

Reinforcements arrived on Damansky Island in the person of Senior Lieutenant Vitaly Bubenin and 23 soldiers. The shooting continued for about half an hour. On the armored personnel carrier of Bubenin, the heavy machine gun failed, the Chinese fired from mortars. They brought ammunition to the Soviet soldiers and helped to evacuate the wounded residents of the village of Nizhnemikhailovka.

After the death of the commander, junior sergeant Yuri Babansky took over the operation. His squad was dispersed on the island, the soldiers took the fight. After 25 minutes, only 5 fighters survived, but they continued to fight. At about 13:00, the Chinese military began to retreat.

On the Chinese side, 39 people died, on the Soviet side - 31 (and another 14 were injured). At 13:20, reinforcements from the Far Eastern and Pacific border districts began to flock to the island. The Chinese were preparing a regiment of 5,000 soldiers for the offensive.

On March 3, a demonstration took place near the Soviet embassy in Beijing. On March 4, the Chinese newspapers reported that only the Soviet side was to blame for the incident on Damansky Island. On the same day, Pravda published completely opposite data. On March 7, a picket was held near the Chinese embassy in Moscow. The demonstrators threw dozens of vials of ink into the walls of the building.

On the morning of March 14, a group of Chinese military men moving towards Damansky Island was fired upon by Soviet border guards. The Chinese retreated. At 15:00, a unit of Soviet army fighters left the island. It was immediately occupied by Chinese soldiers. Several times that day the island changed hands.

On the morning of March 15, a serious battle ensued. The Soviet soldiers did not have enough weapons, and what they had was constantly out of order. The numerical superiority was also on the side of the Chinese. At 17:00, the commander of the army of the Far Eastern District, Lieutenant General O.A. Losik violated the order of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU and was forced to enter into battle the secret Grad multiple launch rocket systems. This decided the outcome of the battle.

The Chinese side on this section of the border no longer dared to engage in serious provocations and hostilities.

Consequences of the conflict

During the Damansky conflict of 1969, 58 people died and died from wounds from the Soviet side, 94 more people were injured. The Chinese lost from 100 to 300 people (this is still classified information).

On September 11, in Beijing, Premier of the State Council of the PRC Zhou Enlai and Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR A. Kosygin signed a truce, which in fact meant that Damansky Island now belongs to China. On October 20, an agreement was reached on revising the Soviet-Chinese border. Finally, Damansky Island became the official territory of the PRC only in 1991.

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 of fine 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 the provocateurs paid dearly for the lives of the fallen 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, to 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

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. Having regained consciousness in the hospital, he spoke about the last moments of the life of his 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

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

Vladimir Grechukhin, a photographer for the regional newspaper Border Guard on the 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

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. Kvitko: “The medical commission, which, in addition to me, included military doctors, senior lieutenants of the medical service B. Fotavenko and N. Kostyuchenko, carefully examined all the border guards who died on Damansky Island and 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

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 effect.

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 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 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.

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

• 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

• 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

TASS message

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

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 power, 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, went through the 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? We defeated the Kwantung Army of the Japanese imperialists in order 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

Memorial "Glory to the Fallen Heroes"

On the other side of the border

“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"

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.

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Soviet-Chinese border conflict on Damansky Island- armed clashes between the USSR and the PRC and March 15, 1969 in the area of ​​\u200b\u200bDamansky Island (Chinese 珍宝, Zhenbao- "Precious") on the Ussuri River, 230 km south of Khabarovsk and 35 km west of the regional center Luchegorsk ( 46°29′08″ s. sh. 133°50′40″ E d. HGIOL).

The largest Soviet-Chinese armed conflict in the modern history of Russia and China.

Background and causes of the conflict[ | ]

Map with places of conflicts in 1969

As a result of worsening relations with China, the Soviet border guards began to zealously follow the exact location of the border. According to the Chinese side, Soviet border boats terrified Chinese fishermen by passing near their boats at high speed and threatening to drown them.

Since the early 1960s, the situation around the island has been heating up. According to the statements of the Soviet side, groups of civilians and military personnel began to systematically violate the border regime and enter Soviet territory, from where they were expelled each time by border guards without the use of weapons. At first, at the direction of the Chinese authorities, peasants entered the territory of the USSR and defiantly engaged in economic activities there: mowing and grazing, declaring that they were on Chinese territory. The number of such provocations increased dramatically: in 1960 there were 100 of them, in 1962 - more than 5,000. Then the Red Guards began to attack border patrols. The number of such events was in the thousands, each of them involved up to several hundred people. On January 4, 1969, a Chinese provocation was carried out on the island () with the participation of 500 people [ ] .

According to the Chinese version of events, the Soviet border guards themselves “arranged” provocations and beat up Chinese citizens who were engaged in economic activities where they always did it. During the Kirkinsky incident, Soviet border guards used armored personnel carriers to force out civilians, and on February 7, 1969, they fired several single automatic shots in the direction of the Chinese border detachment.

It has been repeatedly noted that none of these clashes, no matter whose fault it occurred, could result in a serious armed conflict without the approval of the authorities. The assertion that the events around Damansky Island on March 2 and 15 were the result of an action carefully planned by the Chinese side is now the most widely spread; including directly or indirectly recognized by many Chinese historians. For example, he writes that in 1968-1969, the directives of the CPC Central Committee limited the response to "Soviet provocations", only on January 25, 1969, it was allowed to plan "retaliatory military operations" near Damansky Island with the forces of three companies. On February 19, the General Staff and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the PRC agreed to this. There is a version according to which the leadership of the USSR was aware in advance through Marshal Lin Biao of the upcoming action of the Chinese, which resulted in a conflict.

In a U.S. State Department Intelligence Bulletin dated July 13, 1969: “Chinese propaganda emphasized the need for internal unity and urged the population to prepare for war. It can be assumed that the incidents were set up solely to strengthen domestic politics.

Chronology of events[ | ]

Events March 1-2 and the next week[ | ]

The command of the surviving border guards was taken over by junior sergeant Yuri Babansky, whose squad managed to covertly disperse near the island due to a delay in moving out from the outpost and, together with the crew of the armored personnel carrier, took on a firefight.

Babansky recalled: “After 20 minutes of the battle, 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.

Around 13:00, the Chinese began their retreat.

In the battle on March 2, 31 Soviet border guards were killed, 14 were injured. The losses of the Chinese side (according to the commission of the KGB of the USSR chaired by Colonel-General N. S. Zakharov) amounted to 39 people killed.

At about 13:20, a helicopter arrived at Damansky with the command of the Imansky border detachment and its chief, Colonel Democrat Leonov, and reinforcements from neighboring outposts, the reserves of the Pacific and Far Eastern border districts were involved. Reinforced detachments of border guards went to Damansky, and in the rear the Soviet army was deployed with artillery and installations of the BM-21 Grad multiple launch rocket system. On the Chinese side, he was preparing for military operations numbering 5 thousand people.

Settlement and aftermath[ | ]

In total, during the clashes, Soviet troops lost 58 people killed and died from wounds (including four officers), 94 people were wounded (including nine officers). Information about the irretrievable losses of the Chinese side is still closed, they amount, according to various estimates, from 100 to 300 people. A memorial cemetery is located in Baoqing County, where the ashes of 68 Chinese soldiers who died on March 2 and 15, 1969 are located. Information from a Chinese defector suggests that other burials exist.

For their heroism, five servicemen received the title of Hero of the Soviet Union: Colonel Democrat Leonov Ivan Strelnikov (posthumously), junior sergeant Vladimir Orekhov (posthumously), senior lieutenant Vitaly Bubenin, junior sergeant Yuri Babansky. Many border guards and military personnel of the Soviet Army were awarded state awards: three - Orders of Lenin, ten - Orders of the Red Banner, 31 - Orders of the Red Star, ten - Orders of Glory III degree, 63 - medals "For Courage", 31 - medals "For Military Merit" .

On September 11, in Beijing, the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR Alexei Kosygin, who was returning from the funeral of Ho Chi Minh, and the Premier of the State Council of the People's Republic of China, Zhou Enlai, agreed to stop hostile actions and that the troops remain in their positions without leaving Damansky.

On October 20, 1969, new negotiations were held between the heads of government of the USSR and the PRC, and an agreement was reached on the need to revise the Soviet-Chinese border. Further, a series of negotiations were held in Beijing and Moscow, and in 1991 Damansky Island went to the PRC.

In 2001, photographs of the discovered bodies of Soviet soldiers from the archives of the KGB of the USSR were declassified, indicating the facts of abuse by the Chinese side, the materials were transferred to the museum of the city of Dalnerechensk.

In 2010, the French newspaper Le Figaro published a series of articles citing an appendix to the People's Daily, claiming that the USSR was preparing a nuclear attack on the PRC in August-October 1969. A similar article was published in the Hong Kong newspaper South China Morning Post. According to these articles, the United States refused to remain neutral in the event of a nuclear attack on the PRC and on October 15 threatened to attack 130 Soviet cities. “Five days later, Moscow canceled all plans for a nuclear strike, and negotiations began in Beijing: the crisis is over,” the newspaper writes. The scholar Liu Chenshan, who describes this episode with Nixon, does not specify on what archival sources he is based. He acknowledges that other experts disagree with his claims.

Mass grave of the Heroes of Damansky in Dalnerechensk[ | ]

Mass Grave (square on Geroev Damansky St. and Lenin St.)



Art. lieutenant Buinevich



Head of the frontier post Grigoriev



Colonel Leonov