User:Dartman2009

The Battle of Zhani-Vedeno was a March 29 2000, engagement in southern Vedensky District of Chechnya. It resulted in deaths of at least 52 Russian troops, mostly members of OMON paramilitary police.

Battle
A Russian column of 49 men, according to the Russian account consisting of one armoured personnel carriers (APC) and two trucks and led by Major Valentin Simonov, was on its way to conduct a mopping-up operation in Dargo, near Vedeno. It was attacked after accidentally discovering a small group of Islamic fighters hiding in a half-destroyed sheepfold. The column commander was the first to be killed, shot by the fighters as he entered the door.

Once the fighting started, rebels who were hiding in nearby forests joined in and encircled the column. A rocket propelled grenade blew-up a truck carrying the unit's grenade launchers, leaving the Russian troops under heavy fire from the unseen enemy and armed with a small arms only. When the shooting ceased (after eight hours), most of the Russians were dead or dying, and eleven captured alive. Only six troops succeeded in escaping into the forest.

Three rescue convoys were stopped by rebels.

Majority of the dead were from Berezniki (16 SPF (OMON) men), members of police special forces, and 76th Airborne Division as well a eight members of military units of the MVD. The rebels claimed destruction of one BMP and three BTR armoured vehicles, and four military lorries.

Aftermath
The ambush, one of several in few weeks, was a serious embarrassment for the Kremlin. At first, press spokesmen claimed that one soldier had been killed, four wounded and the rest were missing. For at least two days afterwards Russia insisted that only three men had been killed. Later, despite the fact only six troops got away, the Kremlin spokesman for Chechnya, Sergei Yastrzhembsky, told reporters that "of the 49 troops who were in the column yesterday, 16 are alive and doing well. They are absolutely safe now." Earlier reports had put the death toll at 7, with about 30 missing. On the same day, Russia's Interior Minister Vladimir Rushailo that the situation in Chechnya "is being fully controlled" by the Russian forces.

The Russian Defence Minister, Igor Sergeyev, has blamed poor command and indiscipline for the ambush. General Gennady Troshev said a mistake was a reason. and 15 wounded 9 taken prisoner/executed Major Simonov's widow Nadya shocked the generals by refusing to receive the medal her husband had been awarded posthumously for his role in the battle, protesting the war in Chechnya.

The rebels executed the nine prisoners on the morning of April 4, 2000. The men were shot and killed, they said, because the Russians had refused to hand over a tank unit commander, Yuri Budanov, accused of raping and killing an 18-year-old Chechen woman. Meanwhile, three officers of the elite Alpha Group leading the search for missing troops were killed by a land mine blast.

OMON member Sergei Udachin used a small camera to take snapshots of his group, and had used about half of the film before he was killed alongside the commander in the initial shooting, his camera still running. A Chechen fighter picked up the camera, and documented the Chechen side of the conflict including killed and captured Russians. Eventually, the images became public. In 2002 CNN discovered a video footage and broadcasted foir the first time it in its program Deadlock: Russia's Forgotten War.