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On May 31, 2001, a military helicopter was shot down off Ingushetia.
Deputies of the State Duma, Alexei Arbatov (Yabloko) and Evgeny
Zelyenov (Regions of Russia Group) on board the helicopter. They
were returning from a working trip to Chechnya.
The commander of the crew Lieutenant-Colonel Leonid Konstantinov
died from wounds. Deputies Arbatov and Zelyenov were injured by
the fragmentation of shells. On their return to Moscow in the
evening of May 31 they underwent operations for the removal of
splinters.
Arbatov told Novaya Gazeta about the accident:
- My colleague, member of the Defence Committee of the Duma.
Evgeny Zelyenov and I were on a working trip with Colonel Dmitri
Popov to study the situation in the mountain areas of Chechnya.
We had several meetings and discussions with the representatives
of the Federal Border Service and other departments. An important
task of this trip was to discuss the draft law “On the Status
of a Participant in Military Actions” that we have prepared. This
law aims to install order and clearly define the status, privileges,
payments and whole range of issues related to the participation
of the military in armed conflicts.
As developers of the draft we needed to discuss the main provisions
of the draft with direct participants in themilitary actions.
On May 31 we were returning from Itum-Kalye to Mineralniye Vodi
by a military helicopter to fly from there to Moscow on board
a civilian plane. We flew by Argun Gorgem then Urus-Martan and
crossed the border of Chechnya and Ingushetia. And approximatelyš
two or three kilometres from the border near Nestreovskaya settlement
we encountered machine-gun fire from two machine-guns. The commander
of the crew Lieutenant-Colonel Leonid Konstantinov suffered mortal
injuries immediately. The helicopter was seriously damaged too
– the controls were damaged, the petrol tanks were shot through
and petrol and hydraulic fluids were pouringinto the saloon.
We owe our lives to the professionalism and self-control of
the navigation officer Captain Valery Norov. He managed to extract
the helicopter about 40 km deeper into Ingushetia and land it
in a field. There was a real danger of a explosion and we immediately
evacuated the Commander from the helicopter and jumped out ourselves.
All this time another military helicopter was flying above us
– they observed us being shot werefollowing to provide help.
Within ten minutes two more helicopters arrived - one of them
took us on board. Doctors were on board this helicopter. Throughout
the journey to the airport in Guzel they did everything they could
to save the life of Colonel Konstantinov. He was taken to hospital
straight from the airport, but his injures turned out to be fatal.
After this incident that we think that our debt before the Colonel
is to ensure passage of our draft law to the adoption by the Duma.
We hope that the first reading will take place in June, although
we anticipate serious resistance from the executive authorities,
as the law brings all the payments and allowances into a system.
And wherever there is a system, it becomes difficult to “fish
in troubled waters”, to create havoc and formally announce the
end of the military operation and deprive the military of payments,
as is the case at present.
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