The most terrible exhibit for me at the Air Defense Museum is the diorama: “Moscow Air Defense”. Snow, black sky, spotlights, blood, balloons. Exploded shells. I unexpectedly catch myself thinking: just recently the war was very far away, the same ideologically verified stories about it blurred impressions and erased emotions. But how refreshing it is to understand: all this can happen specifically in your life, to you personally. It has already happened nearby, and it is shown on the news every day. How differently the official exhibits and the meager words of the veterans who, with their legs torn off, continued to fly the plane and went to ram the plane are immediately perceived differently... And the attempts of some politicians to revise our history are perceived differently...

THE AMERICANS WERE GOING TO CAPTURE CRIMEA

- Yuri Albertovich, we met a year and a half ago and discussed a trifle: a computer game in which players acted on the side of the Nazis in the Great Patriotic War. Accordingly, they could have won the Battle of Stalingrad... You said then: it’s not for nothing that films have recently been made in which the Americans take Berlin in May ’45, or equate SMERSH and SS, or blur and question the feat of Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya. All this has a clear goal: to declare Russia an aggressor on a par with Nazi Germany.

In 2013, your words sounded wild, but you turned out to be a prophet. It turns out that it was not we who liberated Auschwitz, we invaded Germany, and not Germany invaded us... And no one pulled back the political figures who said this.

We must admit: the revision of the results of the Great Patriotic War, about which historians warned us for so long, has occurred. What will happen to us now? What is going on?

The situation is very difficult. Russia has been declared a rogue state. And this did not happen today. If we analyze the statements of Western politicians over the past few decades, we get the impression that Hitler’s Ost master plan has been adopted and is being implemented in relation to our country... Do you know the contents of this document?

- In outline...

According to this plan, on the European territory of the former USSR and part of the countries of Eastern Europe, up to the Arkhangelsk-Nizhny Novgorod-Astrakhan line (line two “A”), 15 million people were supposed to remain as slaves. Thirty million were exterminated in death camps, and another fifty were deported to Western Siberia and South America.

On the site of Moscow there should have been a reservoir, and Leningrad was wiped off the face of the earth, like a number of other cities of the USSR. The original document was found in the German federal archives in the late 1980s, and was published in full only in December 2008, so the Soviet Union could not prove anything at the Nuremberg Tribunal...

And so, over time, Margaret Thatcher utters the phrase: “According to the world community, it is economically feasible for fifteen million people to live on the territory of Russia,” or: “fifteen million people are enough to service the pipe.” Similar words are attributed to Madeleine Albright and Zbigniew Brzezinski: fifteen million appear everywhere... Do you understand?

Now the Russian liberal opposition is preaching: if we had not quarreled with the West over Crimea, we would have lived in chocolate...

Yes, the West doesn’t need us. Brzezinski wrote: “Russia is generally a superfluous country”...

Now about Crimea: yes, a new open stage of Russophobia, marked by the current scandalous statements of Grzegorz Schetyna and Arseniy Yatsenyuk about the Great Patriotic War, began with the fact that Russia accepted Crimea into its composition. But could we have done anything differently?

- Could you?

No! After the Maidan and the coup d'etat in Ukraine organized by Washington, the Pentagon prepared and agreed with Kiev an agreement on the stationing of the US military fleet in Crimea for a period of one hundred years. American ships were to be based in Sevastopol, equipped with the Aegis missile defense system, which would neutralize our strategic forces right up to the Urals...

- Where does this data come from? I don't think they were ever published.

This information is from reliable sources. To understand what is happening now in Russia, it is important to understand: modern hybrid warfare has different forms. This is an information war, a financial war: the creation of an economic and political crisis in an enemy country, leading to a coup d'etat and the establishment of a regime loyal to the aggressor... The direct use of armed forces is not necessary.

- Wait... So a war has already been launched against Russia?

Yes! Everything is obvious: a conspiracy between the United States and Saudi Arabia about a fall in oil prices, at the same time a powerful attack on the ruble, in which, as we know, foreign financial funds also participated, plus an information war, including a revision of the results of World War II. Plus the economic blockade, which is intensifying regardless of Russia’s statements and actions in Donbass. Add another attempt to drag us into a new arms race, which Russia clearly cannot afford now... All together - a clear and coordinated blow. The goal is to cause discontent within the country.

It is important to understand: we cannot weaken our position. If we agree to turn a blind eye to what is happening in the Donbass, we will close the border to humanitarian aid and volunteers - they will say: give up Crimea... If we give up Crimea, they will say that our nuclear weapons have been worrying the West for a long time... And then - remember the words of Madeleine Albright: “It is too great a luxury that Russia alone owns Siberia.” All this is a struggle for the resources that our country owns.

THREE HUNDRED YEARS ON THE CAMPAIGN

- When did the war start? Together with the Maidan?

Much earlier. When Tsar Peter the First opened the “window to Europe” and Empress Catherine the Second went out to the Black Sea. Since the formation of the Russian Empire. As soon as we became a Great Power, having entered someone else's zone of influence, attempts began to return us to our original state. We are always on the go. Only the conflict either enters a hot phase or “freezes.” The hot phase occurred twice: the First World War and the Second World War.

- That is, it’s not hot today yet...

Now, perhaps, the threshold of a hot phase. A group of troops has been created near our borders. Aircraft based in the Baltic countries are capable of carrying nuclear missiles and nuclear bombs. They have a flight time to St. Petersburg of four minutes. Russian strategic bombers, by comparison, take ten hours to fly to the United States.

A typical example of recent months is the scandals with Russian military aircraft intercepted by NATO aircraft. The reason for flying over the Baltic and Atlantic is simple: pilots need to train to fly using instruments, otherwise, in conditions when the sky is blue and the sea is blue, disorientation occurs, the pilot thinks that he is flying upside down, fifteen percent of accidents over the sea occur in such a situation. Where should we train? Either over the Pacific Ocean or over the Baltic: the Far East is too far, the Black Sea is small, the Arctic Ocean is covered with ice. And, of course, they choose the Baltic... That is, there have always been flights. All international organizations have always been warned about them in the proper manner. But now for some reason the training began to irritate me...

The current worsening of relations began two years ago, under President Obama. We showed an independent position on Syria (before that, Libya and Yugoslavia did not interfere in such disputes. And then they said: yes, this regime is unfair, but those who are striving for power are even worse...

This did not please the United States, which had long written off Russia as a loser in the Cold War. Plus, Putin proposed a united Europe from Lisbon to Vladivostok, and Merkel no longer liked this... It’s no secret that Germany claims to be the number one state in Europe... And lastly, they demanded that we not help Iran. But we have serious economic interests there: we are building a nuclear power plant! Why should we lose billions of dollars?!

Please note: the Iranians do not want a Soviet-style power plant, invented forty years ago. We developed a project at the level of world standards, no worse than in France!

By the way, it’s the same story with weapons: what we sell on the international market, for example, the T90 tank, is essentially an innovative breakthrough every time. Do I need to explain how important this is for us? After all, in the 90s, Russia was taught: there is a division of labor between countries, for example, Russian cars will never be better than German ones, there is no need to try to design them. Russia's niche is gas, coal, oil, timber... And now, thanks to international contracts, a number of Russian industries have reached the level of the requirements of today and tomorrow. This is metallurgy, defense industry, space...

- Space?! But the Proton fell over and over again! All the liberals chuckled maliciously...

I'm telling you. In 1999, just before the war, Yugoslavia bought radio electronics for the army from NATO countries: radio stations, radars. All electronics are made on LSIs - Large Integrated Circuits - in which only thirty percent are working, and the rest are false, so that competitors cannot copy (only the developer knows which parts of the circuit are working). Then the war begins. A command comes from American satellites and AWACS long-range radar warning aircraft - these supposedly false sections of the circuit are activated and all the electronics fail...

Now imagine that we are just now starting to make encores in Zelenograd.

- And before?

And before, we also bought them in the West. And I think: perhaps we bought something that could have been turned off during the flight... It’s like with the international interbank system for transmitting information and making payments SWIFT: we were made to believe that we are part of the world economy forever, and we don’t have to invent and not produce...

- An acquaintance of mine went to Donetsk with a humanitarian convoy: his disabled iPhone turned on four times. Myself.

Surveillance is underway. Any turned on phone transmits signals about its location, just like any computer connected to the Internet may transfer your files to someone... It is important to understand here: the Cold War did not stop, never. Even when we had completely friendly relations with the West, right up to joint exercises with NATO, the military machine there worked without slowing down. We felt it on our skin in the museum...

- That is?

We have anti-aircraft missile systems and foreign tourists come. Do you know what interests them? Not history, not open technical characteristics like the number of missiles... Placement in position. The complex is not one machine. They ask at what distance the anti-aircraft installations are located from the missile guidance station and radar stations, SNR and radar (here the expert avoids additional questions, from which we can conclude that this data is also secret from Russian citizens. - Auto.)...

LITTLE TIME LEFT

- Let's talk about the review...

The main postulates of revanchism, or revision of the results of the Second World War, are as follows. First: the United States won the war. In the West, almost no one doubts this; it is confirmed at the level of films. Obama announced that his grandfather took Berlin, while in reality the Americans stopped at the Elbe.

The second postulate: Stalinism and fascism have no differences. Arguments: The USSR attacked Poland, the Baltic states, Finland, was the first to attack Hitler, threw its soldiers into a bloody meat grinder and crushed the enemy not with skill, but with a mountain of corpses. Everything is based on the books of the traitor Rezun-Suvorov and others like him. The liberation of the countries of Eastern Europe, according to the revanchists, is an occupation: that is, one occupation was replaced by another...

Conclusion: The Soviet Union was the aggressor. This means he must pay multi-billion dollar reparations! If he can’t pay, he must give up Siberia and its mineral resources... That’s it, the circle is closed. Everything is subordinated to one goal. Do you think by chance that Prince Charles compared Putin to Hitler last winter, recalling the Crimean situation? The direction is set...

- Amazing... In the 90s, we agreed that the establishment of Soviet power in the countries of Eastern Europe and the Baltic republics did not happen entirely voluntarily, because we wanted to be lenient towards our neighbors, we understood their historical grievances, we wanted to leave the bad things behind as quickly as possible. past. But we never thought that for our condescension they would want to send us around the world...

Yes, because we are accustomed to the idea that since we saved humanity from fascism, then everyone should be grateful to us! But in fact, it wasn’t just Hitler who attacked us: half of Europe came to rob us! We got hit with cabbage soup, harbored a grudge, now there is an opportunity to avenge the defeat in World War II, to kick the Russian bear...

By the way, ten years ago, a Swiss friend of mine bought real estate in Kaliningrad. I asked: “Why?” and he replied: “After some time we will be able to return Kaliningrad to Germany, I am making a profitable investment”... This means that the plans to dismember our country are a reality.

- Why doesn’t anyone refute the arguments of the revanchists?

Yes, volumes have been written about this! Well, for example, “they crushed the enemy with a mountain of meat” - this is not true. Everyone uses the figure that our losses in the war are twenty-six and a half million people. But! Only ten and a half million of them are soldiers, the rest are civilians exterminated in accordance with the Ost general plan during the occupation or deported to Germany.

The military losses of the Germans are six and a half million people, and if we add here the dead from all of Hitler’s satellite countries - Austria, Hungary, Romania, Finland and others - we get parity in military losses.

- What about the project of the USSR attack on Germany?

Such a plan was indeed proposed, but Stalin replied that “this is material for the prosecutor.”

After Hitler’s deputy in the party, Rudolf Hess, flew to England, the threat of concluding a separate peace between London and Berlin was very great, the Soviet agent in British intelligence, Kim Philby, reported this to the Kremlin. Therefore, Stalin knew that in the event of a preemptive strike by the Red Army, Hitler would immediately conclude a military alliance with the British against the USSR.

The annexation of the Baltic states in general was most similar to the Crimean spring, to last year’s annexation of Crimea to Russia, with voting and popular euphoria...

- When did attempts to revise the results of the Great Patriotic War begin?

Immediately after May 9, 1945. But while the USSR was alive, it suppressed such attempts with its ideological power. But after 1991, when Russia turned into a third world country that anyone could kick - even Georgia! - priority was lost. Now we have to explain the sequence of historical events and the difference between the political systems of the USSR and Germany even to our own citizens: society is seriously affected by anti-Russian propaganda...

And it would seem that everything is so simple! Nazism is an ideology in which lower races must work for a higher one: in fact, it is slavery. And communism is happiness for all humanity! Of course, the idea was distorted in the form of the Gulag, but remember that at that time India and all of Africa were colonies of Great Britain, France and other “civilized” European states. In fact, the colonies are the same as the Gulag...

- You say terrible things, and I also know terrible things: it turns out that in Japan they believe that we dropped a nuclear bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki...

Yes, that's what they teach in school. Since the collapse of the USSR.

- It looks like we will live to see the time when it will be announced that we perpetrated the Holocaust...

Such voices are heard. Fortunately, while Jews are alive who remember how it really was, they are our allies, Israel does not even join sanctions against Russia in Ukraine. Because the Jews see all these swastikas, they understand what is happening... But the ideas will circulate. In Ukraine, for example.

- What do we do? How to counter all this?

We will be able to change the attitude towards us only by radically restructuring the economy, that is, if we manage to rise. It is now impossible to prove the truth: the eyewitnesses are elderly veterans and tired of fighting.

For example, all the participants in the Great Patriotic War with whom I spoke say that the barrier detachments never fired machine guns at their own people, they simply caught deserters fleeing from the front line. The myth appeared in the 90s as part of the denigration of everything Soviet. But they don’t hear the old people, and they waved their hand...

It will be difficult for us to rise: the same experts who successfully carried out the operation to collapse the USSR work for the United States. The oil price of fifty dollars per barrel is not the limit: during the collapse of the Soviet Union, oil was sold below cost... A separate and difficult conversation is the pegging of our economy to the dollar, the absolute monopoly of the liberal school with its primacy of the market.

Why should the market be a dogma? In a crisis situation, the role of the state should increase - in 2008, the US government even nationalized a number of companies, that is, it took a completely non-market measure! In the European Union, the economy is simply planned. There they set base prices, quotas for production volumes...

We now need an economy similar to the mobilization economy, which allows us to concentrate resources on breakthrough areas, as during the Second World War. Thanks to her, the USSR defeated fascism.

But there is no progress in this direction. There is a serious impoverishment of the people caused by the devaluation of the ruble. So far, people are in a cheerful mood: let us become poorer, as long as we do it ourselves, without external control, but we’ll see if it continues by the summer...

- What's the catch?

Apparently, the problem is with the elite. Zbigniew Brzezinski once said: “The elite that keeps their money in American dollars in American banks is not Russian, but American.”

Meanwhile, there is not much time left. The United States is targeting non-nuclear high-precision missiles at the locations of our nuclear weapons, and Russian missiles that survive and are able to take off will be intercepted by the American missile defense system. This is their military strategy. Laser weapons are being put into service. The American reusable orbital aircraft Boeing X-37 is undergoing successful testing. It is capable of flying in space, quickly changing orbit, maneuvering and carrying nuclear weapons: no one knows at what moment it will emerge above Moscow... By the way, the basis of the project was given to the Americans in the 90s by Russia, as part of improving relations with the United States. The Soviet analogue of this ship was called “Spiral”, its author was the designer of “Buran” Gleb Lozino-Lozinsky. The Soviet plane stands as an exhibit in the Air Force Museum in Monino, and the American one flies...

The norms of international trade law no longer apply to us: I’m talking about the situation with the Mistrals, which are not given to us, although the ships are our property, and the stern and bow were simply made by us.

The other day, US President Obama said that war with Russia is undesirable. That is, he allows a war with our country...

The situation is really similar to what it was before World War II...

QUESTION FROM THE EDGE

​Who shot down the Boeing over Donetsk?​

While talking, Knutov and I wander around the museum of air defense troops. We approach one of the exhibits.

This is the same air-to-air missile that, according to one version, shot down the Malaysian Boeing... Personally, I think that I shot down the Buk, and finished off the Su-25 already in the fall, why: the ceiling of the SU -25 - seven thousand meters, and the Boeing was moving at nine to ten thousand. But there are undoubtedly traces of an aircraft cannon on the fragments of the plane...

My version: they were preparing to shoot down the plane of the Russian President, but they made a mistake because the paths of the Malaysian Boeing and the presidential Il-96 crossed. In 1983, the USSR air defense shot down a South Korean plane in the same way, confusing it with a spy plane, and in 1988 the United States shot down an Iranian passenger airbus with 290 passengers, sixty-six of whom were children... The Americans, by the way, never apologized for this disaster.

I believe that there was a plan: to shoot down Putin’s plane over the territory of the DPR, so that it would fall on Russian territory, but they were mistaken, about two tens of kilometers were not enough... To do this, the Buks were taken out from the Ukrainian base and placed along the highway. .. Then photographs of these Buks were published on the Internet as evidence of Russian interference. And there you can clearly see the ST-68 radar station, which has always been produced only in Zaporozhye, and which has long been removed from service with the Russian army, but is still used in Ukraine...

P.S. Extremely interesting interview

US President Trump on the elimination of intermediate- and shorter-range missiles. At the same time, the USA. The Russian Foreign Ministry, and Secretary of the Russian Security Council Nikolai Patrushev noted during a meeting with US Presidential Assistant for National Security Bolton. Military expert, director of the Air Defense Forces Museum Yuri Knutov believes that US politicians, declaring their intentions to withdraw from the INF Treaty, are trying to solve several of their own problems.

“Trump announced his intention to withdraw from the INF Treaty before the congressional elections. That is, the goal of the Republicans is to increase their ratings, so on the one hand, this is a domestic political statement. On the other hand, there are also military-political goals. The United States assessed the threats in case Russia uses new types of weapons, which Vladimir Putin announced during his speech before the Federal Assembly - these are the Sarmat, Avangard and others missiles. This is a set of tools that could cause irreparable damage to the United States. Therefore, Washington decided this: if there is a war, it should not take place on US territory, but, for example, in Europe. At this time, the United States will observe and help European countries from overseas, and thus protect itself.

Of course, the decision to withdraw from the Treaty puts the world on the brink of war, and first of all, this will affect Europe. Why did Great Britain intend to withdraw from the INF Treaty, and Germany reacted? Because Europe is falling under. But in general, the United States has long since begun to slowly withdraw from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. Washington has established two bases in Poland and Romania that house ground-based versions of the Aegis missile defense system. Although, according to the INF Treaty, it is prohibited to have ground-based medium- and shorter-range cruise missiles. At one time, we destroyed 1,846 missiles, and the United States destroyed 846, despite the fact that we also destroyed the Oka complex, which was not covered by the Treaty. The Americans’ goals today are: either to impose the 1987 version, when we destroy twice as many of our missiles as the United States, and they gain a unilateral advantage, or to tear up the Treaty and put pressure on Russia from a position of strength.

Of course, the situations in 1987 and now are incomparable. Today we have air defense systems: S-300, S-400 and S-500. Moreover, the S-300, despite the fact that it is already a “passed stage” in such weapons, is capable of fighting both cruise missiles and medium-range missiles. And there’s nothing to say about the S-400 and S-500. We have Peresvet laser weapons, electronic warfare systems, and micropulse weapon systems are also being developed.

But the problem is different. If a cruise missile has a flight time of 20 minutes, then a medium-range ballistic missile has a flight time of five minutes. In these five minutes we must have time to react. Now there are too many of these missiles, where is the guarantee that an unintentional launch will not occur? If this missile is not shot down in time, and its fall leads to colossal casualties, a retaliatory strike will follow without clarifying the “relationship.” The flight duration of the strategic missile is 30 minutes. During this time, you can have time to figure out what it is, where it comes from, ask the same Americans to send a self-destruct signal to the missile - the same moment “works” with us. But what can you do in five minutes? Nothing. This is the horror of the situation that the United States is now creating. And they do this, as I already said, purposefully.

How can we resist this? For example, we have the Sarmat missile: it is currently in development and testing, and will soon be put into service. This missile is so unique that it is capable of penetrating any American missile defense system, even through the South Pole. The Americans along South America not only have no missile defense, but also no air defense. That is, Sarmat can hit any target in the United States with impunity.

Let's say we created 20 Sarmat missiles, and the Americans spent enormous amounts of money on deploying medium-range ballistic missiles. But if the Americans know that we have 20 Sarmatians that can inflict an unacceptable blow on US territory, then they will never dare to use their missiles in Europe. We must follow this path: without increasing the Russian military budget, we must create weapons that the Americans cannot contain. It is in this case that the United States will not escalate its actions. Moreover, after some time they will be forced to negotiate with Russia. But the problem is that Trump is pursuing a “politics of power”: he is against equal treaties, he is only interested in those options that are beneficial to the United States.

I am also outraged that the United States is linking the decision to withdraw from the INF Treaty with the position of China. How does China relate to Russian-American relations? This is the same if Russia demands the destruction of Israeli ballistic missiles for the sake of negotiations with the United States. The Americans, in my opinion, deliberately took this position and put forward unacceptable conditions in advance in order to make Russia guilty of breaking the Treaty. At the same time, the Americans are thinking about revising the Treaty on the Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms (START-3) - this is an even more “terrible” thing. If the United States withdraws from it, the threat of a world nuclear war will increase many times over.”

More than half a century has passed since the ignominious end of the flight of an American spy plane near Sverdlovsk (now Yekaterinburg) on ​​May 1, 1960 U -2 with pilot Francis Gary Powers, did not bring final clarity to this story. Moreover, this situation is typical for the USA and Russia (former USSR), which directly participated in it. However, the reasons for the ongoing “battle of opinions” are very different from each other. Based on documents recently declassified in the United States, military historian and director of the Museum of Air Defense Forces Yuri Knutov believes that the ongoing disputes are based on the events of our time. Below, readers are offered the conclusions and opinion of the author, based on facts that are confirmed by historical documents.

Lockheed U-2 spy planes (program spy plane- spy plane) from 1956 to May 1, 1960, made 24 reconnaissance flights over the territory of the USSR and photographed 15% of Soviet territory. Francis Powers on the U-2 had the longest flight time and invaded the airspace of other countries 27 times, including 6 times the USSR. The route of the spy plane (the Flight program) ran over the Tyuratam missile range (Baikonur), Chelyabinsk, south of Sverdlovsk (Kyshtym, Mayak plant), northwest of Kirov, through Plesetsk and Severodvinsk, northwest of Kandalaksha, on north to Murmansk with a landing in Bodø (Norway). The U-2C flight took place at an altitude of 20 km, bypassing the known positions of the S-75 anti-aircraft missile battalion (ZRDN). The aircraft was equipped with equipment for recording radio and radar radiation, a retractable camera, and a complex for jamming the radar sights of Soviet fighters and air-to-air missiles. The design and special coating reduced the radar signature of the spy plane.

Powers received a plane that often broke down, the flight of which, due to bad weather over the northern regions of the USSR, was repeatedly postponed from April 28 to May 1, 1960. During the flight south of Chelyabinsk, the autopilot failed, the aircraft lost stability and Powers continued to carry out the mission manually using a radio compass . According to the official version, a U-2 spy plane in the area of ​​Sverdlovsk (Ekaterinburg) entered the destruction zone of the 2nd anti-aircraft missile brigade (57 anti-aircraft missile brigade - zrbr) under the command of Major Voronov and was shot down.

After a year and a half of imprisonment, Powers was released in exchange for Soviet intelligence officer Rudolf Abel and testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee in March 1962. Using two wooden models of the U-2, one of which had removable wings and tail, he demonstrated the destruction of the aircraft after a missile detonation. Powers was acquitted, but most Americans considered the pilot a traitor for not blowing up the U-2 and committing suicide by poison.
In 1998, the CIA declassified a number of documents about the spy's flight, and in 2006, Russia handed over to the United States copies of documents about the Powers trial. Langley realized that Powers hid from the KGB the communication system with his base, the names of leaders and other important information, and revealed details that were unclassified from the point of view of US intelligence.

The excitement around Powers' flight arose in 2012 in connection with the Pentagon's plans to abandon the use of the U-2 in favor of the RQ-4 Global Hock (mod. Block 30) unmanned strategic reconnaissance aircraft from Northrop Grumman. This threatened Lockheed Martin Corporation with multimillion-dollar losses, and compelling arguments were needed to keep the U-2 in service for another 10-20 years. But by that time, one such aircraft was shot down on 10/27/1962 over Cuba by Soviet rocket scientists, and over China, according to the United States, from 1959 to 1972, out of 15 U-2s, 11 aircraft were lost for various reasons. Therefore, materials with a revived version that the U-2 was not shot down near Sverdlovsk, but fell due to a technical malfunction, turned out to be very useful. As a conclusion, the U-2S in its newest modification is a wonderful aircraft and can be used for another two decades for flights over countries with weak air defense. Lockheed Martin’s idea was a success and 32 U-2S high-altitude strategic reconnaissance aircraft remained in service until 2024 due to the “high cost of maintenance” RQ-4 Global Hock.

At the same time as in the United States, interest in the Powers incident arose again in Russia. However, if it was important for Americans to know “guilty or not,” our researchers asked the question “who exactly shot down Powers’ plane?”
In the newspaper “Military-Industrial Courier” (VPK, No. 1 dated January 8, 2013) in articles by B.K. Samoilov (“So who shot down Francis Powers?”) and P. Starun (“Eyewitness Notes”), the authors try to convince readers that the U-2 was hit by a missile from the 5th air defense division (37 air defense brigade) of Lieutenant Colonel I.I. Novikova. But besides B.K. Samoilov and P. Starun, other eyewitnesses who personally saw the destruction of U-2 are still alive. And the servicemen of the 2nd zrdn (57 zrbr) Major Voronov are offended in their old age to read articles about how they undeservedly wear their awards. I also did not find an answer in these articles to the main question - how was the S-75 Desna air defense system of Lieutenant Colonel Novikov able to destroy an American spy plane?

At the end of 2010, in the electronic and print media (VPK No. 4 of February 1, 2012) B.K. Samoilov published articles with diagrams. They depict how a 13D missile from the Novikov division shoots down a U-2 at a range of about 60 km. As a specialist, I want to explain to readers that the far limit of the S-75 Desna air defense system’s destruction zone when firing at a target at an altitude of 20 km is 29 km (horizontal range - 21 km). According to Samoilov, it turns out that the V-750 missile (also known as 11D and with minor changes 13D) did not self-destruct at 60 seconds after launch, without fuel and air it flew another 40 km and destroyed a spy plane near the positions of the 2nd air defense system ( 57 zrbr) Major Voronov in the area of ​​st. Kosulino. I affirm that a 13D missile cannot shoot down a target at a distance of about 60 km!

According to another version, based on the publication of S.B. Selina “The intruder has been destroyed. But how and by whom?” (VPK No. 11 for 03/21/2012, No. 13 for 04/04/2012), the U-2 plane was shot down by an air defense missile of Lieutenant Colonel Novikov. For a correct understanding of the events, it should be noted that the distance between the Voronov and Novikov divisions on the map is 67.5 km. At the same time, the places where the U-2 debris fell and Powers landed are located 60-80 km from the Novikov missile station and near the Voronov missile station.

According to opponents of the official version of the destruction of the U-2, after the Novikov division was hit by a missile at a range of 26-28 km (horizontal 16.5-19.6 km), the plane fell apart. At the same time, its fragments strangely flew for more than 40 km (the tail unit was about 60 km) and settled in the form of a destroyed aircraft in the area of ​​the station. For some reason, Kosulino does not go from west to east, but from north to south (the diagram of the fall of debris is shown in the article by B.K. Samoilov “The Mystery of May Day 1960”, Military Industrial Complex No. 4 dated February 1, 2012). The remains of the 13D rocket body of the Novikov division also successfully covered about 50 km and crashed near the Voronov division. But at the same time, opponents are silent that Powers himself landed by parachute not in the affected area of ​​Novikov’s division, where he was allegedly shot down, but not far from the positions of Voronov’s 2nd air defense system. A legitimate question arises, did Powers really fly like an engine for about 40 km and suddenly open his parachute to land on a collective farm field not far from the station. Kosulino?

The main argument in favor of his versions of B.K. Samoilov, S.B. Selin and P. Starun consider the issuance of the K-3 team. The training manual “ZRV Missile Technology” of 1963 states that “The Bumblebee radar fuse is designed to detonate a missile warhead at a target when the missile flies relative to the target up to 60 meters, meeting angles from 60º to 180º and relative speeds of 600-1500 m /sec". In this case, “the full activation of the radio fuse is carried out by the long-range arming command K3 (300-400 m before the target), supplied from the ground via a missile radio control line, when executed, the third stage of protection is removed.” If a missile flies past the target at a “distance exceeding the maximum range of the radio fuse (60 m), the missile self-destructs in the air using clock mechanisms...” after 60 s + 3 s after start. After the missile self-destructs, its fragments create light on the SNR indicators and an inexperienced combat crew may mistake them for a destroyed target. There were many similar cases in the initial period of the Vietnam War.

In the second half of 2012, a third version of the destruction of the U-2 aircraft by Novikov’s division appeared, based on the NSA report. The declassified message from the traitor Penkovsky said that none of the Soviet missiles could reach the spy plane. His tail and wings could have been damaged by the blast wave during the self-destruction of one of the missiles, and Powers could have suffered a concussion from the sharp jolt. Perhaps this story was invented by the CIA to justify the failure of Operation Grand Slam and the “inadequate” actions of the pilot. The same message notes that if the U-2 had flown 1-1.5 km to the right, the missile would not have hit the plane at all, which is true.

In 1998, CIA Center for Intelligence Studies historians Gregory W. Pedlow and Donald E. Welzenbach published The CIA and the U-2 Program, 1954-1974, a previously published book "for administrative use". Langley initially believed the plane went down due to pilot error or a malfunction, causing the tail to be damaged when the rocket exploded. Upon returning to the United States, Powers underwent many hours of examinations by doctors, conversations with colleagues, interrogations by CIA agents and a voluntary polygraph test. Based on this information and photographs of parts of the downed aircraft taken at an exhibition in Moscow, U-2 aircraft designer Kelly Johnson found Powers' testimony credible. He expressed the idea that the U-2 crashed due to a wake from a Soviet MiG-19 (actually a Su-9) flying close to it. A similar incident occurred over Germany in September 1956, when two Canadian fighters destroyed a fragile U-2 in this manner.

The NSA did not agree with the CIA. Listening to the conversations of Soviet military controllers, it concluded that the U-2 in the Sverdlovsk area first descended, then sharply turned back and then fell southwest of the city. This and other information, together with S.B.’s diagram. Selina were used by opponents of the official version of the destruction of U-2. In their opinion, after the explosion of a rocket from Novikov’s division, the plane flew more than 40 km while descending, collapsed from overloads and fell not far from Voronov’s division.

Such a claim seems plausible, but unconvincing, since it raises a legitimate question about the U-2 wreckage. Anyone in the Central Museum of the Armed Forces in Moscow can see individual parts of the spy plane, similar to a tea strainer, which, for reasons of secrecy, were not shown at the capital's exhibition in May 1960. The first S-75 air defense missiles used a fragmentation warhead. directional action weighing 190 kg with a scattering angle of 90-95% of its fragments within 10-11 degrees. This explains the absence of holes on most of the fuselage and wings of the downed reconnaissance aircraft. The destruction of the U-2 immediately after the detonation of the warhead of the missile defense system is also indicated by CIA documents declassified in 2002 about the interrogation of Powers on 02/13/1962.

According to the pilot, everything worked well during the flight, except for the autopilot being turned off. According to him, the explosion was behind and to the right of the cabin. After trying to level the car, Powers realized there was no tail control and the tail had been torn off. The fall of the plane with strong rotation indicated the absence of wings, folded and torn off under the pressure of the air flow. Powers was hanging upside down from the straps and could not eject. At an altitude of 10,000 m, he opened the cockpit canopy, but due to overloads he was unable to turn on the aircraft's detonation mechanism. At 5000 m, Powers cut off the oxygen hose, separated from the plane and began descending using an automatically opened parachute.

According to the pilot, there was no long leveling and subsequent flight of the aircraft, and at an altitude of 20 km the U-2 broke apart and immediately began to fall down. While parachuting down, Powers saw a large fragment of the plane floating in the air like a leaf of a tree. According to the development company Lockheed Skunk Works (a secret subsidiary of Lockheed), early U-2 models had poor stability and at an altitude of 20 km, when the speed decreased by 19 km/h relative to the cruising speed, the aircraft began to stall. The detonation of the anti-aircraft missile warhead near the tail caused the U-2 to be damaged by shrapnel and a blast wave. The plane went into a flat spin and turned 180 degrees. and was destroyed when it fell.

Of great interest is the article on the 50th anniversary of Powers’ flight in the English newspaper “The Times” dated May 1, 2010. The world’s leading specialist on the history of the NSA and US national security expert Matthew Aid said that American electronic intelligence, reporting the US government and the CIA about the fate of Powers' plane were mistaken. Therefore, much of what the U-2 pilot said during interrogations at Langley was considered disinformation, which the KGB instilled in Powers under hypnosis or with the help of psychotropic drugs. In reality, according to Matthew Eid, the NSA did not understand the situation and mistook the MiG-19 fighter of Senior Lieutenant Safronov, which fell in the Degtyarsk area, southwest of Sverdlovsk, for a U-2, shot down by S-75 missiles. Washington actually admitted the guilt of the NSA and “for exceptional loyalty” on June 15, 2012, posthumously awarded F.G. Powers received the third most important medal in the United States - the Silver Star, which was awarded to the grandson and granddaughter of the American pilot.

After the opponents’ publications, I returned to the official version of events, published in the article “Solution to the mystery of May Day 1960” (“VPK” No. 17 of 05/02/2012 and No. 18 of 05/09/2012). B.K. Samoilov, who served in the 5th zrdn (37 zrbr) as a lieutenant technician, in the article “The Mystery of May Day 1960” (VPK No. 4 of 01.02. and No. 5 of 02.8.2012) reported that the P-12 radar was not tested new identification equipment NRZ-10 (“friend or foe”). He also notes that the target designation data that came from the headquarters of the 37th air defense brigade to the commander of the 5th air defense brigade, Novikov, differed from the data from the divisional P-12 radar. Novikov doubted the work of the NRZ and several times clarified the coordinates of U-2, which had already begun to move away from the division. The commander of the 37th brigade confirmed the decision to fire at the target.

At the same time, the Soviet Su-9 interceptor captain I.A. was also in the air. Mentyukov, raised on the personal instructions of Colonel General E.Ya. Savitsky for ramming a spy plane. The diagram with the RTV wiring shows that the U-2 and Su-9 routes intersected. Taking into account the absence in 5 zrdn (37 zrbr) of working equipment for identifying “friend or foe” targets we can confidently say that, based on the target designation of their P-12 radar, Lieutenant Colonel Novikov’s combat crew mistakenly accompanied Captain Mentyukov’s Su-9 aircraft .

This is also confirmed by the story of I.A. himself. Mentyukova. According to him, ill-thought-out commands from the ground and a nervous situation led to a loss of aircraft speed, the Su-9 stalling to an altitude of 15 km, actions to exit the air defense zone of fire and a repeated approach to the ram. The pilot also talks about flashes in front (from the torch of a launched rocket) and to the right (from the explosion of a self-destructed missile defense system) along the plane's heading. When turning over the affected area of ​​Novikov's 5th air defense missile system, the Su-9 was “lost” by our radars (the red dotted line shows the possible route of the Su-9 on the RTV wiring diagram). Then Mentyukov received an order to land at Koltsovo airfield due to lack of fuel.

But the most detailed information about the shelling of the Su-9 was given by Lieutenant Colonel V.N. Samsonov in his memoirs “Who Shot Down Powers,” published in 2004. On that day, Samsonov was at the command post of the 4th Separate Air Defense Army. According to him, the corps commander, Colonel Savinov, did not know about his planes in the air and was convinced of the defeat of the U-2 by Novikov’s division. After plotting on a large-scale map the locations of missile divisions, the fall of missile remnants and the flight paths of his fighters, Savinov admitted the mistake. According to the memoirs of V.N. Samsonov, Mentyukov’s plane left the firing zone in time, and the missile self-destructed. Another reason for the shelling of the Su-9 could be the incorrect installation of identification codes on the aircraft. As a result, it was displayed on Soviet radar screens as an enemy aircraft.

Based on the found serial numbers of the missile fragments, it was documented that the U-2 aircraft was shot down by the 11D missile of the SA-75 Dvina air defense system, which was in service with the 2nd air defense missile system (57 air defense missile brigade) of Major Voronov. And Lieutenant Colonel Novikov’s 5 air defense missile system (37 air defense brigade), armed with the S-75 “Desna” air defense system with a 13D missile, fired at his Su-9 aircraft. This is also related to the negative attitude of the state commission towards the 37th air defense brigade, in which the 4th air defense brigade (Kyshtym station) was unable to fire at the U-2 due to a malfunction of the SNR, and the 6th air defense brigade (the village of Shchelkun) did not complete the combat mission due to a blown fuse on stations.

There are many known cases of “friendly” shelling of aircraft by missiles. Thus, Major A. Shugaev’s division, instead of a U-2, shot down a MiG-19 fighter, which did not respond to the “friend or foe” request. In the Arab-Israeli War (October 1973), the Egyptians shot down 32 of their planes and 26 helicopters, and the Syrian air defense shot down 12 of their planes and 13 allied (Iraqi) planes. There have been cases of NATO troops destroying their aircraft in Yugoslavia and Iraq.

What is the reason for the ban on truthful coverage of the events surrounding the defeat of the U-2 spy plane? It is well known that N.S. Khrushchev was obsessed with missiles and would not have liked the fact that when one spy plane was destroyed, two of its own fighters were fired upon, one of which was shot down. If Khrushchev had known the truth, many commanders would have received serious penalties, right up to the main command of the country's Air Defense Forces.

At the end of the report of Marshal S.S. Biryuzov to the Minister of Defense Marshal R.Ya. Malinovsky was told: “As I reported to you, the enemy was destroyed by missile battalions of the 57th anti-aircraft missile brigade.” Thus, on May 2, 1960, Moscow received reports about the defeat of the spy plane by the divisions of Major Voronov and Captain Sheludko, as well as about the shelling of a U-2 by the division of Lieutenant Colonel Novikov outside the far border of the affected area. Later, the firing of 5 zrdn 37 zrbr on the Su-9 was not discussed in order to prevent discrediting the country’s Air Defense Forces.

My article may cause a negative reaction among exterminationistsU-2 division of Lieutenant Colonel Novikov. Therefore, I am ready for further discussion, subject to honesty in publications and technically competent answers to a number of fundamental questions. I am sure that if these two conditions are met, opponents will have to admit that U-2 was shot down by Major Voronov's division.