Russian Soldier: Dagestan

Dagestan, much like Afghanistan, has caves. It has mud huts, regular houses, caves, mountains, forests, and everything in between. It’s an odd place. But one time I got to bring something Dagestan didn’t have. Massive amounts of explosions.

We lost more and more soldiers and federal agents to searching caves and hideouts than ever before. Guys were either getting shot in them, stepping on tripwires and blowing up, or just having whole caves collapse on them Russia had enough and authorized troops on the ground to just seal caves up or knock down entire houses if it was suspected they were trapped. One day we were receiving fire from a village and a small mountain peak to the West.

While having my marksman set up my Observer informed me that not only did I have 2s19 (mobile artillery similar to a paladin) on standby, I also had MI-28 doing a routine patrol and an SU-25T with a five minute window in my area. A sister platoon called us up and told us that nearby was a cave with positive identification on gunfire coming from the inside towards a patrol base.

I simply turned to my observer and said “Bring it down, I want all of it now.”

Americans would never have artillery coming down while any type of air is up but Russia just assumes the risk. Within ten minutes I had artillery, rotary gunships, and fixed wing CAS all screaming down on targets within the same grid square. My Observer was jumping up and down like a kid who just saw his Christmas presents.

– Anonymous Former Russian Soldier. Beta Company, 218th Battalion, 45th Independent Guard Brigade. VDV. Dagestan 2012

This story, and hundreds more like it are now available in my book, “What War Did To Us” which is now available on Amazon!

This story was documented by Battles and Beers. Every soldier has a story, and every story deserves to be told.