Portrait of the military commissar of the Moscow region, General Semakin against the backdrop of the deaths of soldiers In January 1996, young recruits arrived in Khankala in the 205th motorized rifle brigade. Among the 18-19-year-old soldiers was a 25-year-old private...

Portrait of the military commissar of the Moscow region, General Semakin, against the backdrop of soldiers' deaths

IN

In January 1996, young recruits arrived in Khankala in the 205th motorized rifle brigade. Among the 18-19-year-old soldiers was 25-year-old conscript soldier Volodya Grishkin. Before the service, he twice "wrapped the term" for drugs and for robbery.

I, as a directorate officer of the 205th motorized rifle brigade, wanted to send a twice convicted soldier from Chechnya - I had such opportunities. But Volodya told me about himself. Lived with his grandmother, she died while he was serving his last term. It is not easy to get a job in Primorsky Krai, and even more so for a convicted person. “Comrade Major, give me the opportunity to serve in Chechnya, I will return home as a respected person, then they will take me to work everywhere. Do not send, do not break my life to the end.

In early March of the same year, a convoy of vehicles came under fire in Grozny itself. Private Grishkin was seriously wounded, but fired back, giving the rest the opportunity to retreat. He lost a lot of blood before being taken to Khankala. Before the operation, I held his hand and did not hear him groan in pain. Even his eyes didn't get wet.

Volodya Grishkin died on the operating table. And then for a long time we figured out to whom to send his remains ...

IN

The military commissar of the Moscow Region, Major General Semakin, served in Moscow for more than thirty years of his military service - from lieutenant to general. I never traveled to "hot spots".

From the criminal case of General Semakin, initiated under Part 3 of Article 285 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (abuse of official position):

“...Major General Semakin received an interest-free loan of 40 million non-denominated rubles for the construction of a country house. At the same time, in the credit file of Semakin A.S. there is a copy of a false certificate in his name stating that he is a participant in the liquidation of the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant (the specified certificate gave the right to receive an interest-free loan). Major General Semakin confirms the receipt of the loan, and regarding the existence of a fake certificate, he states that he did not know and did not set any tasks for its registration. His subordinates were allegedly involved in the paperwork for obtaining a loan. Since Semakin A.S. is not a liquidator of the consequences of the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, during the investigation of the case, he voluntarily (six years later! - V.I.) contributed 8910 rubles 73 kopecks as a five percent rate on the loan received ...

In the period from 1991 to 1996, Semakin A.S. in military unit No. 55338 received five officer identification cards, for two of which he received loans.

By the way, journalist Andrei Babitsky was convicted for the illegal use of forged documents. But the military commissar of the Moscow region is not a correspondent for Radio Liberty. General Semakin is the "owner" of 47 city and district military commissariats, so the same laws are read differently by prosecutors for him and for normal people.

WITH

Among the young soldiers who arrived in Chechnya in December 1995 was a very thin, lanky 18-year-old soldier, Arkady Klyashtorny.

Despite the fact that Arkasha outwardly looked frail, he had no will and courage. As part of an armored group, he did not miss a single raid to escort columns to the most dangerous and inaccessible mountainous places, and six months later he was already one of the most reliable fighters.

One day in July 1996, an armored group was assigned to me to carry out a combat mission in Grozny. Among the fighters was Arkady.

We drove up to the building of the local administration. I went on business, and when I returned, I saw that my fighters, including Arkady Klyashtorny, were selling automobile oil to some residents of Chechnya. Arkasha looked at me in fright and bewilderment, clutching the unfortunate hundred rubles in his hand. For the life of me, I have one feeling for these poor boys - pity, but I let myself get angry, scream and promise to report everything to the company commander upon my return.

Arkady lifts his trouser leg and shows me absolutely broken, holey shoes, rewound to somehow hold on, with ropes and electrical tape. We drive back in silence. In Khankala, the company commander meets an armored group. He asks me: “Well, how are my fighters?” I say: "Well done, reliable guys, if only they had newer camouflage and shoes."

And the company commander told me: “But where can I get a newer one? It is easier to break through the militants than our rear rats.

Then, when the company commander left, Arkady said: "Thank you, comrade major."

"Thanks for what, slob?" Told me I'd get you some boots at the storage shed.

- Yes, comrade major, the ensign would have told you that with pleasure, but they ended. And they will find me for money.

A week later, in early August, the 1st battalion of the 205th brigade fought its way to the Government House. During a breakthrough, a mortar mine hit Private Arkady Klyashtorny. There is almost nothing left of him.

I spent the whole of August with the reconnaissance battalion of the 205th brigade in another district of Grozny - in Starye Promyslakh. I don’t know what was sent to Arkasha’s mother in the coffin and whether the boy, the same age as my child, managed to buy new shoes from the ensigns ...

AND

from the materials of the criminal case of the military commissar of the Moscow region, Major General Semakin (the investigation was conducted from May to December 2000):

“It has been established that Major General Semakin A.S. during the investigation confirmed the family’s income:

his allowance in the amount of 5 thousand rubles a month;

wife, Semakina T.S., has not worked for 15 years, she is a housewife.

The wife confirmed the following family income: in 1993, the husband received a bank loan for 10 years in the amount of $20,000. The specified money was lent at interest, as a result they received $30,000; in 1995 they sold a new Volga car for $7.5 thousand; sold a garage on Kashirskoye Highway for $5,000; borrowed $7,000 from their daughter and son-in-law (Semakin's daughter at the time of the investigation was a cadet at a military university, and her son-in-law was an officer); borrowed $35,000 from family friends; In May 1999, Semakin's wife took out a loan from Vnesheconombank in the amount of $40,000.

Payment of bills for the repair of the apartment and the purchase of kitchen furniture was made by the General Director of CJSC "Corporation" Vector "Slednev A. A. According to the wife of Major General Semakin A. S., she herself transferred money to Slednev in the amount of $ 27.5 thousand for repairs apartments.

(However, Slednev himself, in an explanatory note, claims that he was forced to invest his money in repairing Semakin’s apartment so that the Vector corporation would receive the right to repair the Moscow Regional Military Commissariat. - V.I.)

According to the materials of the case, the mother-in-law of Major General Semakin A.S. has an apartment in the city of Moscow. Semakin's wife explains that she received this apartment as a gift, as a token of gratitude for the neighbor's mutual assistance from citizens who have left for permanent residence in the United States. No one is registered in this apartment, Semakin's mother-in-law is registered and lives in the city of Ryazan.

Ridiculous explanations about the origin of sums of money worth tens of thousands of dollars, the use of a forged document, illegally obtained five officer identification cards, and as a result ... the termination of the case against General Semakin by the Moscow Military Prosecutor's Office due to the lack of corpus delicti.

It is strange that the prosecutor's office did not even bother to send its decision on General Semakin to the commander of the Moscow Military District. Only after the request of Commander Colonel-General Igor Puzanov did the Moscow City Military Prosecutor present all the information presented here for the attention of the leadership of the Moscow Military District.

Both the commander of the MVO troops, Colonel-General Igor Evgenievich Puzanov, who, by the way, served in Afghanistan for 3.5 years as a regiment commander, and the chief of staff of the district, Colonel-General Nikolai Yegorovich Makarov, who served 13 years in the most difficult places in Transbaikalia, unanimously spoke to me about his fault that the military commissar Semakin continues to wear the general's shoulder straps and remain in office.

And what about Alexander Semenovich Semakin himself? It seemed that he had to come to the commander, repent and offer his services to the motherland in any of the most difficult places in Russia. Everyone would have done the same for whom it is an honor to wear officer shoulder straps.

Semakin urgently went on vacation. And in early March, immediately after the vacation, he went on the offensive.

On March 6 of this year, Major General Semakin was summoned to the military council of the district. On this day, in the morning, General Semakin sends the chairman of the draft medical commission, Colonel Berg, to the medical center to get him a certificate of illness. Colonel Berg, on the orders of General Semakin, got a fictitious certificate. Semakin did not report his illness to the command of the district, he did not appear at the military council.

From ten in the morning to seven in the evening, the military council of the Moscow Military District, which was supposed to hear General Semakin and go to the leadership of the Ministry of Defense and the President of Russia as the Supreme Commander with a proposal about his fate (it is within the competence of the President of Russia to appoint and remove from general positions), was looking for a military commissar of the Moscow region. Finally, with great difficulty, with the help of specially organized search groups, they found it.

General Semakin appeared for a conversation with the commander and for a military council with a dictaphone secretly turned on. At the military council, Semakin provoked the commander and other officers, calling them to be rude. Several times Semakin succeeded.

General Semakin sent the transcript of this conversation to the President of Russia and personally brought it to Novaya Gazeta with a request to protect him.

I had to do some investigative journalism.

And my conclusion is this: it is not General Semakin that needs to be protected, but our Armed Forces, 47 military commissariats of the Moscow Region and thousands of recruits from Moscow Region should be protected from him.

These days, the last units and units of the Moscow Military District are leaving Chechnya. More than 50 thousand soldiers, officers and generals of the district went through this war. Among them were officers of the military commissariats of the Moscow region. More than 600 military personnel of the district died during the second Chechen campaign, and together with the first - almost one and a half thousand people.

All this passed by General Semakin. In our conversation, he said that people like him are needed here, that is, in Moscow, and not the best were sent to Afghanistan and Chechnya.

I refuse General Semakin the right to my defense.

But he turned to the President. Maybe the president of Russia needs such generals?

reserve major, participant in the Afghan and Chechen tragedies