Image Source: Photo: armor.kiev.ua
At the beginning of March 1995, the Chechen capital was mostly liberated from militants. Only a few areas on the outskirts remained under their control, but even there it was planned to carry out sweeps by the forces of internal troops, which were to be given tanks.
However, from time to time machine gun bursts sound and explosions rumble.
Moving through the order of the broken city, every now and then we come across roadblocks. On one of them we see a combat landing vehicle with soldiers basking in the spring sun. It is surprising that the BMD-1 does not have the emblem of the airborne Forces, but of the internal troops.
The most senior of them, apparently an officer, forbids us to approach, even threatens... to open fire on us. We shout at each other from a distance. We'll find out where they came from. Before this incident, I did not know that the VEVESHNIKI, in addition to the PT-76 light tanks, also have BMD-1 and BTR-D airborne armored personnel carriers.
As they were later told, they were in service with one of the brigades of the North Caucasus District of the Interior Ministry. The fighters were involved almost from the first days of the operation in Chechnya.
Unfortunately, at that time their BMDS practically did not get into the lenses of photo and video cameras, and therefore little is known about the participation of "aluminum tanks" in the battles of the first campaign.
According to some reports, after 1996, most of such equipment has already worked out its life and was written off. Something got into repair plants, and may have been disposed of, while other copies became monuments.
Lev Romanov