Related losses

The story of civilian pilots who died with Prigozhin, and the military killed by his fighters

Tambov region. The cemetery on the outskirts of the village of Melguna. The grave hill is strewn with flowers: red, blue, purple cloves, roses. Among them are two toy aircraft. One-for some reason, the American fighter F-35, the second-cardboard, civilian with the signature "Lech, fly!". The pilot Alexei Levshin was buried here. On August 23, he transported from Moscow to St. Petersburg the founder of the private military company Wagner Evgeny Prigozhin, its commander Dmitry Utkin and five more members of the PMC.

The Embraer Legacy 600 aircraft flew out of Sheremetyevo from Airport at 17:59 and by 18:10 gained a height of 8.5 km. He flew horizontally for several minutes, but then he began to soar, then decline, and at 18:19 - rapidly falling, losing the wing and tail and leaving a black trace behind him. The latest dispatch services received from him at 18:20:14, when he was at an altitude of 6 kilometers.

Charmed and fragmented fragments with the bodies of ten people fell one and a half kilometers from the village of Kuzhenkino in the Tver region. In addition to the mercenaries and their leadership, three crew members died: the aircraft commander Alexei Levshin, the second pilot Rustam Karimov and the stewardess Christina Raspepova.

The investigation does not yet call the causes of the disaster, but if Prigozhin really had many ill -wishers, then the crew members in this story are random victims, ordinary people who simply had this flight.

In dry military language - "accompanying losses."

The military pilots who appeared in the path of the rebels from Wagner were the same “accompanying losses” two months before the crash of Embraer. The authorities officially announced the destruction of the Ka-52 helicopter and the IL-22 aircraft by the mercenaries of the Russian Ministry of Defense. In the Ivanovo and Tambov regions, eight members of their crews were buried. The murder of the military was not the declared goal of Prigozhin fighters. Nevertheless, they were killed. Walking around.

The correspondent of Novaya Gazeta went to the Voronezh and Tambov regions to talk with eyewitnesses to the deaths of military pilots and relatives of civilian pilots transporting Prigozhin. What changed their death - not on the forefront, among the peaceful villages - in the minds of those who saw it, and in their relationship to what was happening?

Why did our children die?

In a mourning photo, Alexei focuses on something in his hands. A strong short -haired man, 51 years old. At the funeral, two dozen wreaths were brought to his grave, and it so happened that Wagner's PMC laid a wreath on top. Now this wreath is not. I stand next to others: “From friends”, “From the Airport of Vnukovo-3 Airport”, “From the Member of the ZA Masking Networks of the ZA”.

How Alexei himself reacted to what was happening in Ukraine is difficult to say. He did not advertise this, and what Prigozhin drove was not an indicator. The pilot S7 Airlines Karen Novitsky wrote after the tragedy on social networks:

“Civil pilots do not belong to the military structure, we have no ranks, we are just cabs (taxi drivers). We were told where to fly, we are flying there. Who was told to be lucky, we are taking it. ”

Novopokrovka - the native village of Levshina - is located two kilometers from the Melgun, where he was buried. The village is small, one and a half thousand people, but prosperous: this is visible to both neat houses, and on the brand new building of the kindergarten, and on the working oil -rawar. They are talking about Alexei here, and this is understandable: the pilot, a representative of a noble profession, was broken into people.

-At the same time, he was completely simple, he could joke and help with something. We treated him as a large person, but he did not put himself above others, although he earned a lot, ”says the seller in a local store. “He lived in Voronezh, but often visited here,” his mother visited.

The mother of Alexei Levshina Lyudmila Petrovna lives in the center of the village, in a modest house for two apartments. She wears mourning and tries to accept the loss of her son.

- It still seems that now the gate will open and Lesha will enter. And we don’t have more Lesha, the last time I saw him on August 6, ”she says, looking out the window.

On the nightstand next to a photo in a black frame is a lamp with a burning candle. Lyudmila Petrovna watches that the fire does not fade during the day. She says that Alexei is a hereditary pilot, and that her uncle and brother worked in aviation.

-After the 10th grade, he entered the Tambov Technical University, but he studied and quit a year. He went to the army, in landing troops, and when he returned, he entered the Sasovo flight school of civil aviation. I dreamed about this profession. Then he studied at the Aviation Institute in Leningrad, and when he finished - he left with his family in Voronezh, it was 1999. There he entered the pilot with the flight, ”she says.

“Flight” is the first private airline in Russia. Alexey flew in it first on the An-2, then moved to the L-410, and then to the Swedish Saab.

- And in 2014, the “flight” fell apart, and they were left without a salary. For two years, Lesha either taxed, then traded bread, and then gathered and went again to the sky: he worked in Moscow, flew around, except that he was not in Australia. And now - the last flight ...

On August 22, Alexei Levshin was called from Voronezh to work. Before that, his plane was in repair for almost a month.

- He called me: "I have today at 15:40 a flight from Moscow to St. Petersburg." And in the evening I watch the news, and there they say: “In the Tver region, I crashed ...” - and they call it an on -board number. I shouted: "Alyosha crashed." And I had a sister and brother here. They: “Yes, it’s not true, why are you ...” I say: “Everything is true.” They started to call, he does not answer. Then, when they called Voronezh, the grandson also said: “Yes, grandmother, this is dad’s plane, and I can’t get through anywhere.” Then they got through to the airline in which he worked, and they only answered us:

“We cannot tell you details. But sorry that you did not protect your dad. ” And all. The investigator also does not say anything yet: the only thing that caused a daughter-in-law and grandson to take a DNA test.

Despite the fact that in some media media, Alexei Levshin is called the Prigogine pilot, relatives claim that this is not so.

- He not only drove Prigozhin, not only him at all. He came, said: he drove Igor Krutoy, and drove the singer Zara, and with fishermen, and with hunters, and Altai, and Kamchatka - he flew everywhere. How he got into his [Prigozhina] flight - well, it happened. They write on the Internet that they will embroider. That he carries Prigozhin, we learned after the coup. He never talked about him, about artists - yes, but about him - no. And when the coup was, he suddenly says: "And we also carry Prigogine." I say: "How?" He: “Yes, like this ...” I ask: “And what, what kind of person is he?” “Mom, he is a normal person: he always greets, somewhere jokes. There was no aggression from him. ” The stars, he says, to them, to pilots, as the cabs were treated, and this one is normal.

Lyudmila Petrovna does not affect the topic ***, only asks a rhetorical question: “Why did our children die? Lesha's son and daughter remained. Daughters 27 years old. His son is 17, he studies back in the 11th grade, he really needs paternal support ... "

"How did you think so?"

The death of Alexei - the most prominent native of Novopokrovka - seriously alarmed the village. And even forced some to reconsider their attitude to what was happening. The investigation officially did not voiced any versions of what happened with Embraer, but for some reason people do not even allow thoughts about the technical malfunction of the liner or the pilot error.

- When Prigozhin went to Moscow, it was clear that he did not live long. But still they thought how it would be: a crazy bullet in Africa, the car will be able to. And here is a whole plane, on which also strangers ...

- says one of the locals, familiar with Levshin. -From last summer, it seemed that everything was somehow disabled, and now you look at the guys ( crew members Embraer. - I. J. ) and think: “What are you in your head?”

A friend of Alexei categorically rejects the likelihood that pilots could lead to disaster. And he does not even think that Ukrainians are behind her.

- Alexei had more than three thousand hours. He was a superpowered pilot. Flight swim: Moscow-St. Petersburg, an hour and a half by force. He could not fall asleep-it is unlikely that this is possible in a business aviation. I could not click the wrong button, and even if he had pressed by accident, he would probably fix it. And if you imagine that there was some kind of pilot’s mistake, where did the black trace come from when falling? - the villager argues. - Ukrainians? Can you imagine, for example, a Ukrainian self-propelled anti-aircraft missile system in the Tver region?

I notice that it could be saboteurs.

“Then it turns out that in our country we don’t control anything at all,” the man says angry.

People in Novopokrovka do not believe that Alexei could make a mistake. The most printed was the capacious definition of an elderly woman who hurried to the car: "destroyed."

Together with Alexei Levshin, the second pilot Rustam Karimov (he was 29 years old) and the flight attendant Kristina Raspova (39 years old) were killed. As one of Rustam’s acquaintances told Novaya Gazeta, he worked at the MNT Aero airline for only three months, before that he flew with S7, from where he was reduced after the start of the special operation.

“Alexei Levshin at Rustam was an instructor and ran the first flight with him,” he says. - But, it seems to me, Rustam did not think that Prigogine was lucky. Because this, of course, is the most famous person in the country in recent years. No, he did not support ***, it seems to me that he was generally far from all this: he had a wife, there were plans to have children - he thought about it, it was in the first place for him.

Novopokrovka belongs to the Mordovian district of the Tambov region. The head of the district Sergei Mann, having heard the question of whether it is planned to somehow perpetuate the memory of Alexei Levshin, states that he is in a hurry.

- I can’t solve it. Here we will gather deputies, ask them. All these are budget expenses, and it is now difficult with the budget. Of course, this is our fellow countryman, we are proud of such fellow countrymen - a pilot. But I can’t talk about perpetuating.

They don’t talk about perpetuating the memory of the dead either in Perm, where Rustam Karimov was buried, nor in the city of Rudny, Kostanay region of Kazakhstan, where they said goodbye to Christina Raspova. However, for Kazakhstan, this disaster is really something distant. And for Russia, perhaps the reason is that everything happens to her, and I want to forget about the “accompanying losses”, and not to perpetuate them.

Military problems with perpetuating memory have no memory. The village of Comintern is 157 kilometers from Novopokrovka. On his outskirts, the memorial is being erected today by two pilots who died during the rebellion of Wagner, - Alexei Vorozhtsov and Denis Oleinikov.

On June 24, Oleinikov and Vorozhtsov flew out by Ka-52 helicopter towards the rebel column, which entered the Talovsky district of the Voronezh region. Locals say that under the Comintern there were several hundred Wagners with heavy equipment. The official version does not say anything about the circumstances of the death of the pilots, except that Prigozhin's words “the fool Pave Rabbit shot down everything”*, but the Comintern, as one assure that the helicopter was the first to shoot the mercenaries, but did not hit. However, there is no evidence of this, and the locals simultaneously say that one of the pilots did not want to shoot at the Wagners, saying that "he was there, behind the ribbon." Apparently, Vorozhtsov was “behind the ribbon”, whose biography says that he “repeatedly participated in the settlement of armed conflicts” (Oleinikov was released from the school only last year). But where the information about the unwillingness to shoot is unknown. Nevertheless, the rebellion of “Wagner” is the most significant event in the entire history of the Comintern, and it is not surprising that it has quickly ripened by legends.

One thing is reliably known: the helicopter of Vorozhtsov and Oleinikov was hit and fell in the field on the outskirts of the village, next to the local farm.

Surprisingly, the farm workers, pitying the dead pilots, simultaneously say that they perfectly understand the reasons for the rebellion of Wagner.

- The fact that the boys died is very sorry. But the Wagnerians were forced to, ”says one of the leading employees, assuring that the helicopter shot first ( followed by the retelling of the version, which was put forward by Prigozhin, starting the rebellion. - I. Zh. ). And when they came to us - they will confirm everything to you - they behaved very politely: they did not offend anyone, at the gas station they stood in line as expected, they gave money to the guys - they asked them to go to the store for ice cream and water. Very honestly behaved.

“I'll say that,” the gray -haired man of about sixty picks up in camouflage. - If the elites children are collected and sent there, the next day *** will end.

- Why? I clarify .

-Yes, because Russia then will truly [fight]. Now it’s somehow incomprehensible: it seems to be [fighting] with Ukraine, and at the same time we trade with it, we drive the gas through its territory. And at this time, the Wagners have many dead - look, Prigozhin showed all this. And our pilots, young guys, die from their own. This will all end when the children of the elites go there, they will not let them die, for the sake of them they will clean up. But, of course, this will not happen - they will not let their children there.

In the corridor of the farm three meters from the corrals with cows, a whole consultation of workers gathers.

“About pilot boys, I think that you need to ask from their authorities,” the milkmaid includes in the conversation. - Who gave them the order to shoot? They are not to blame for anything: the order is an order, but who gave it to it? Why did the defense minister leave Rostov? There would be a conversation in Rostov - we would not have a memorial to the dead pilots now.

I met such an attitude towards Wagner in a hot man, where until recently was the PMC base.

Simple narratives of Prigogine seem to people in the outback closer and more understandable than many ways of officials. And the special operation here, of course, is supported, criticizing only for insufficient intensity.

The only man, who took me to the Comintern, turned out to be the only man who had been knocked out of this general line. Yes, and he was not taxistly concise.

- Such a porridge was brewed that you can no longer understand who is the enemy to whom. When the mobilization began, I attached my son on the railway - a system -forming enterprise, they did not take away from there. His wife shouted: "He will earn a penny there!" I say: “Be quiet. They will take it off - you will swim. ” And when this riot rose at first, and then Prigozhin was killed, I completely stopped understanding where the country was going. Who is fighting with whom? All with everyone. It’s better to just smoke away.

"It became incomprehensible"

Nikita in the appearance of about 40 years and the last year he hired in Vagnere: he was both in Bakhmut and on the march of justice. From the Comintern to the working village of Talovaya, where there is a railway station, I planned to get on foot-only about eight kilometers, but in the end I got with Nikita, who caught me on the exit from the Comintern on his new, but Porsche Cayenne.

The conversation did not turn out to be a small distance: the distance was small, but Nikita drove it as if he had gained immortality in Wagnere, moving along the highway in a checkerboard pattern and evading cars traveling towards them in a matter of meters from them.

“I myself am going to pilots from this memorial, I am not local - Stavropol,” he says. - I just wanted to move in the places of former glory. I saw you there as you took pictures. Do you write the article?

“Yes,” I say. - Is it true that the helicopter on Wagners was the first to shoot?

- I cannot give an interview, but I have not heard this. I was not here, in another column. But if you want my opinion, then I feel sorry for these guys [pilots], died for nothing. Yes, and we are not for [horseradish] went to Moscow. What is it: to rebel, then grind from Lukashenko, retreat.

All this is some kind of divorce. We were divorced, Prigozhin was divorced, these guys were divorced in a helicopter. And how it all began well: the goals were clear, the brotherhood was. Now, only NIMER was incomprehensible.

He asks me to get out of the car as soon as we enter the Talovaya. He says, no further along the way. I go out and mentally agree: it is not clear for a long time who is the enemy and who is dying for what. Now he does not die on the front line - now inside the country, walking around, they become "accompanying loss."

* Nothing is known about the initiation of a criminal case at the moment.