Insurgency in the North Caucasian Federal District - War Stories From the Front Lines: # 2 Firefight at a Crash Site Near Novopavlovsk

Starshina Innokenti Engovatov, a quartermaster with the 135th Motorized Rifle Regiment (Russian 58th Army), explains how his team engaged a group of insurgents near a helicopter crash site.

We spent a whole morning in the vicinity of Pyatigorskiy (25 km south of Mineralnye Vody) purchasing repair parts from civilian shops. These parts were for some of our off-road vehicles back at the airbase. We were a team of 5 men and, at the request of our battalion commander, we were issued full combat equipment. At that time we were not briefed about insurgent activity in the area, but judging from the intense activity and preparations at Mineralnye Vody it was evident that hostilities were imminent.

Around noon, we could hear distant sounds of heavy weapons southeast of our position. Some 20 minutes later we spotted a flight of two Ka-50 attack helicopters flying at medium altitude. One of the helicopters seemed to be having trouble flying. Eventually, both aircraft sank in the distance, hidden by patches of woods and hills. It was when only one of the aircraft emerged from the distant terrain and became visible again that we suspected something has gone wrong.

We contacted our Battalion HQ to report a possible helicopter downing but nobody back there had any information about sorties being airborne that morning. 

We decided to investigate and drove towards the suspected crash site. I estimated a distance of around 10 km. We rapidly got lost and had to rely on civilian's assistance to get back on our way. In one of our stops, we were approached by a civilian who directed us even more precisely. The two helicopters flying low in the country side were certainly not a usual sight for the civilians and rumors were spreading like wild fire through the area.

Two hours later, we finally reached our destination. Unfortunately, a team of insurgents already made it to the landing/crash site. We geared up and approached the site very carefully.

An attack helicopter, seemingly undamaged, was surrounded by an insurgent team.

The range to the insurgent team was above 600 meters. We were outnumbered and closing in for an assault would have put us at a significant disadvantage. I decided to engage the insurgents with our RPK, which has an almost insignificant increased effective range and better sustained rate of fire. I hoped to spook the insurgents out of the vicinity of the helicopter. 

The view from the iron sights of our RPK.  The insurgents are in the far background. We spent two full cartridges of ammunition and we downed no less than four insurgents. The firefight was not too long (around 4 minutes) and the insurgents fired back occasionally. I guess that for the most part, they just couldn't see and target us properly. 

After killing most of the insurgents around the helicopter, we closed in through the open field in a linear formation.  Although it would have been more tactically sound to approach using some concealment at our right flank,  we saw just 3 insurgents running away towards the hills ... We had the numerical advantage and I wanted fully shared fields of fire for my entire team!

We were overly cautious. Whenever in doubt about where those insurgent runaways were, we shot ... This is me firing a grenade towards our right flank.

The attack helicopter had significant battle damage, but it looked recoverable.

Half an hour after the firefight, combat troops joined us and secured the site.