10 thousand volts for the private Grigoriyev: how a conscript soldier died and who was responsible for it

As it turned out from the materials of the case and the testimony of the participants, the soldier was simply doomed to die - so many gross violations of safety regulations were performed in a simple task...

Julia Suntsova

Three days before the death of the soldier Alexey Grigoriyev, it was raining in Ust-Pere. The earth was saturated with moisture.

“There was no rain on the street at that time”, - Lieutenant Colonel Mazurov, deputy commander of military unit No. 03415, will say at the trial.

On July 11, at a morning meeting, he will assign officers the task of laying concrete slabs in the checkpoint area using a crane.

Privates Alexey Grigoriyev and Ivan Bersenev (the name was changed at the request of the interlocutor) on this day were to work in a different area outside the military unit. At 9 am, the company commander, Perepelkin, sent them to a diesel-electric crane at the helipad, but the order was canceled there, and they went back to the company, where they had to be redirected to another facility.

At around 10 am they passed through the checkpoint of the neighboring military unit No. 03415, where they were called by Igor Drantiv - “civilian personnel”, as he will appear in the investigation materials in the future.

Igor Drantiv is actually a retired military major, for many years he served in the same military unit. Upon reaching the age limit for service, he remained to work in his native walls, he was appointed head of the production department. Major Drantiv, although he retired, but, according to witnesses, often went to work in his old military uniform and cap and was perceived by conscripts as a boss who should be obeyed.

Drantiv asked Grigoriyev and Bersenev to help privates Kogyan and Tikhomirov, who were already pulling concrete slabs. The crane was operated by Private Istomin.

- The major understood perfectly well that we were not supposed to do this work, other people were assigned to it. I told him that we need to return to the company and report to the commander that the mission was canceled. But the major said, now, they say, you can quickly help and do what you want. As far as I remember, then some bosses were expected, and we were told that we needed to finish the track as soon as possible. We may be indignant, but orders in the army are not discussed”, - says Ivan Bersenev. At that moment he did not know, and even today, communicating with the special correspondent of Novye Izvestia, he does not suspect that the "orders" of Major Drantiv meant nothing. The court's decision will say that they were only advisory in nature for those to whom they were given, since civilians have no right to command the military at army facilities.

Bersenev and Grigoriyev, nevertheless, got involved in the work and none of the commanders, foremen objected.

- It was raining heavily. I told the major - power lines, will we not raise the crane ?! Or we must at least move it, because we have a cable in our hands. The major replied that he would move to a point where it was best seen and would guide them. He showed: above, below. The slab was laid. Between it and the other stove there was a distance of a matchbox. He did not like it - he had to redo it, and again we raise, lower, and then everything happened.

Soldiers passing by were not given overalls, not even gloves. In the place where the improvised brigade of slingers worked in this way, puddles had already been trodden by this hour.

"Tikhomirov and Kogyan were wearing construction helmets, vests and gloves. We worked what we wore - the usual summer uniform, ankle boots on our legs. Since it was raining, there were raincoats, but in the army they are such that they do not save from the rain. By lunchtime, we were already soaked to the skin. Gloves were in the army only if we bought them ourselves. There were no gloves that day”, - says Bersenev.

At 11.25 o'clock. electrocuted. The crane operator Istomin jumped out of the cab - he was hooked through the control levers. Privates Tikhimirov, Kogyan, Bersenev and Grigoriyev held onto the metal cables with their hands, leveling the hooked plate. The first three were thrown aside. Grigoriyev, after the outbreak, squatted down and slowly fell onto his back.

"When the boom of a truck crane was in the immediate vicinity of the power line, an electric arc formed between the boom of the crane and the power line, and the voltage from which the load picker, Private Grigoriyev, received an electric shock through a metal cable in his hands".

“<> The current from the power line to the body of Private Grigoriyev passed through an electric arc between the 10kV overhead line wire - crane boom - cargo rope - circular clip - sling cable - Private Grigoriyev - earth. As a result of direct contact with the current-carrying conductor [...] Grigoriyev was struck by technical electricity, which led to his death", - from the verdict of the Svobodnensky Garrison Military Court of February 26, 2018.

The doctor on duty of the military unit Pechenkin with the nurse Zhelyabina arrived at the scene in about 7 minutes. In court they testified that by that moment Private Grigoriyev, who was lying on a concrete slab, had no chance.

“I was unconscious, the pupils of my eyes were dilated, they did not react to light, breathing was not detected visually and by listening. The pulse on the main arteries was also not detected, there was no blood pressure”, - they said in court .

However, at least two eyewitnesses - Senior Warrant Officer Yusupov and Private Bersenev say that Alexey Grigoriyev was still being loaded into an ambulance.

- Shocked, it seemed that kept me in the air for at least two minutes. Then he fell, the beret flew off and his head smashed on a concrete slab. He also lost consciousness for a short time, woke up, tried to get up, but fell again - he did not feel his right leg. When I got up, I saw Grigoriyev lying opposite. Ensign Yusupov alone assisted him, revived him. The major stood aside in a stupor and did nothing. At first I did not understand what had happened, then I saw a broken wire. The leadership began to gather, the company commander came. They, too, did not go to Alexey, they just watched. I was ordered to retreat to the checkpoint, which is about 30-50 meters from the place where we laid the slabs. It seems to me that I saw then that Alexey was stirring, getting up and even vomiting.

An ambulance called from the city of Svobodny did not arrive. Attempts by the head of the medical service of the Pechenkin military unit to reanimate the victim did not give effect. Minutes went into the account. The military commanders ordered to drive the UAZ in order to take out the dying private Grigoriyev from their territory. The soldier was loaded onto the car on his back. The resuscitation measures stopped there. The military doctors did not climb into the back together with Alexey. His last moments of life, he shook on the gravel alone. Before the meeting with the reanimobile, the UAZ got stuck in a rut spread by the rain. In court, army officers will prove that they sent an ambulance to meet an ambulance that left, but they missed each other on the way.

The doctor of the emergency medical department of the Svobodnenskaya hospital Tsitsenko at 11 hours 47 minutes stated the biological death of Grigoriyev. The forensic medical examination will subsequently establish: "there is a direct cause-and-effect relationship between Grigoriyev's electric shock and his death".

"He was loaded into a UAZ and taken away. I was also taken to the hospital, but in a different car. On the way, I saw that the UAZ was stuck with it, because it was raining heavily. We overtook them, drove ahead", - says Bersenev.

Ivan spent two weeks in the city hospital, where he learned that his colleague was no longer there. The leg healed in a week, and he asked to be sent to the company, but he was not discharged. Crumpled and his testimony and in the verdict to the point of bureaucratic: "similar in content to the testimony" of other witnesses.

The high-voltage switch was at the checkpoint, thirty meters from the work, where the private was killed. The overhead power line could be de-energized during the work (and was required for safety reasons). But on July 11, no one bothered with such an application.

The power grids on the territory of the military unit in the village of Ust-Pera are under the jurisdiction of the civil resource supplying organization Oboronenergo JSC. Usually the de-energization of the sections was coordinated by the head of the IES service of the military unit and the foremen of the production sections of Oboronenergo over the phone. The information was reported to the dispatcher, he issued a permit for work in the security zone of the power transmission line, with which the representative of the organization went to the place to turn off the electricity.

“Witness AS Abramov, head of the apartment maintenance service of military unit 03415, testified in court that he was responsible for organizing interaction with Oboronenergo on energy supply to the Ust-Pera military camp, on the territory of which the military parts <…>. To carry out crane work at a distance closer than 30 meters from the power line, it is necessary to disconnect the power supply in the work area. To do this, an official of the military unit to whom these works are planned must submit an appropriate application on command. The issue of coordinating crane work in the area of the checkpoint of military unit 03415 was not raised on July 11, 2017, an application for disconnecting the power line in the above-mentioned work area was not submitted, the corresponding order from the commander of military unit 03415 to approve power outages in that area was not received " from the verdict of the Svobodnensky garrison military court, then on February 26, 2018.

The commander of military unit No. 03415 Klimovich said at the trial that the application for power cut-off at Oboronenergo JSC was not submitted, since “work with increased danger was not planned on July 11, 2017” (!).

The deputy commander of military unit No. 98566, senior engineer Salamatov, who is responsible for production control and safety measures on the territory of the military unit, also cites a similar killer argument. “Work with increased danger was not planned”, - he echoes, explaining the refusal to issue a permit to senior warrant officer Yusupov.

In addition, the top leadership of the two military units would later assert in a voice that the place of laying the plates was determined by Yusupov without permission. Yes, they say, they ordered to lay the slabs, but they did not indicate exactly where, they did not drive it under the high-voltage, and where to build a concrete road - the ensign himself decided, he could have laid it in another place (!).

“I couldn’t have it anywhere else”, - say privates Bersenev and the father of the deceased, interviewed by us. –The intersection of an old gravel road, which has been used for many years, was concreted. Lighting was stretched along it. Putting in another place had no meaning or expediency at all. In addition, this particular area was clearly marked in the Drantiva diagrams.

Many circumstantial evidence contradicts this stipulation.

Laying a concrete road near the checkpoint was an important task for the entire command. A few hours before the tragedy, the officers raised this topic already at a service meeting every morning. The acting commander of military unit 03415, Lieutenant Colonel Mazurov, assigned the acting commander of military unit No. 98566, Major Yefimov, the task of laying concrete slabs in the checkpoint area. Yefimov brought the task to the deputy commander of military unit 98566 for armaments - the chief of the technical unit, Major Salikov. The latter ordered the senior warrant officer Yusupov by telephone to be the senior in the production of these works, follows from the text of the sentence.

Preparations for laying concrete slabs took several months. The first order to dismantle and transport them from the Orlovka airfield to the military unit appeared on April 28, 2017. The unit commander Klimovich on April 25 coordinated this transportation with the head of the railway troops of the Eastern Military District. On April 29, 2017, the unit commander, Klimovich, issued another order No. 279 "On organizing the implementation of tasks for the arrangement of road pavements, roads and sites.

Civilian personnel - Major Drantiv, at the direction of the deputy commander of the military unit, Lieutenant Colonel Mazurov, several weeks before the tragedy, was engaged in leveling the roadbed for subsequent laying in this place of airfield slabs. Drantin himself does not deny this fact - in court he testified that he prepared the site according to the approved scheme.

The next fatal circumstance was a crane malfunction. A month ago, on June 15, this crane installation was working at another site on the installation of the cargo and also near the power line. The safety device was triggered and the crane was stuck. The work stopped... The "technician" Yusupov was called. At the request of Major Salikov, he "repaired" the crane - he inserted two engraving washers between under the cover of the electromagnet. The crane was unlocked for movement, but the security system was destroyed.

Due to the sensor disabled in this way, the limiters lost their operability, stopped working in the event of emergency situations, including when a critical approach to power lines. On July 11, when the electric arc occurred, the boom of the crane was 1 meter from the overhead line.

"When operating a working safety device for the crane installation, the safety device would have blocked crane operations in advance, preventing the boom of the automobile crane from being put under the power line wires, " write experts in the technical forensic examination.

On the morning of July 11, a crane from the vehicle fleet according to the issued waybill of the release of a traffic safety technician - the head of the control and technical point of the military unit Zelenyuk. At 8.40 o'clock, he checked private Istomin's documents for the departure of equipment from the vehicle fleet, as well as the technical condition of the car. But checking the condition of the crane itself, "was not part of his duty", only the car, he stressed at the trial. An extra inspector, who could have found broken safety devices, would not have interfered at all, and maybe even saved the life of Private Grigoriyev.

So it turns out that the bosses are darkness, and those responsible are zero without a stick.

On February 26, 2018, 45-year-old senior warrant officer Andrey Yusupov, who served in the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation since 1994, was sentenced by the Svobodnensky garrison military court to three years in a penal colony. An additional punishment is deprivation for two years of the right to hold positions with organizational and administrative functions in the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, other troops and military formations of the Russian Federation.

As mitigating circumstances, the court recognized the immediate provision of medical assistance by Yusupov to Private Grigoriyev, exceptionally positive characteristics from military service, as well as numerous awards from the command and awards, namely: the medal "For excellence in military service" 2 and 3 degrees and the medal "Participant in the fight against element on the Amur", badge "The best specialist in the profession".

Numbered in the military unit in the position of "technician of the technical unit", the auto mechanic Yusupov took all the blame on himself, and did not give up the elders. What made him agree to be extreme?

His term was supposed to expire the other day, but the convicted senior warrant officer came out in October 2019. He served only a third of the term, was released on parole - "for exemplary behavior", - he explains. The authorities in the zone even offered to get a job after his release as a repairman, but Yusupov refused.

NOVYE IZVESTIA: Why did you sign a confession and take it upon yourself?

Yusupov:

- I was simply presented with a fact: either five years of general regime with a payment of 1.5 million and you leave for the zone right now, or you don’t hand over anyone, and we make a light sentence with a suspended sentence. When during the investigative actions I tried to point out that here you are writing incorrectly, the investigator told me: "Sit down and be silent, you will sign what I say". Nobody listened to me. And how many lost and forged documents were there. On the day of my death, I sat with the officers and listened as they ran around and shouted: "He is not in any order, he is not in any order, we urgently revise the order!" His is me in the sense. The judge at the beginning was on my side and was also stunned by the material turned inside out. But at the last moment they replayed everything, the promised verdict was canceled. A crowd was brought to the announcement. After the verdict, the judge said loudly: “Look, this is an example of blatant negligence, irresponsibility. We must make every possible effort not to fall to such a level”, - something like that. So I realized that they had decided to hold an ostentatious military trial on me.

- You say you were promised some kind of verdict before it was pronounced? How did you know about this?

- The lawyer talked to the judge and told me.

- Didn't you know that any admission of guilt, especially adding someone else's to yourself, leads to a worse scenario for the accused? Did you have an assigned attorney?

- First public, then private. I signed all gratitude with the appointed one. I agreed to a deal with the investigation. It turns out they were deceived. I served my time and still owe 2.5 million. The Ministry of Defense paid this amount to the family of the deceased, and now, by way of recourse, is collecting it from me. I have now lost the second instance on this amount, only the appeal remains.

- What happened to Grigoriyev after the blow?

- He's a donkey. I pulled him aside, began to do artificial respiration. He either regained consciousness or lost it. It turned pink, then turned pale. Vomited. About 7 minutes later a physician came from the unit, a young doctor with a paramedic. They measured their blood pressure and injected adrenaline... into the buttock.

- According to their conclusions, the private was unconscious, did not react with his pupils to the light, death came almost immediately.

- Yeah, and at the same time they shouted to him: "Breathe, breathe!" He had both breath and pulse when they left. I gave it to the doctors alive. They threw him on a stretcher and into a UAZ, no one sat down with him. They threw them on their backs, but they had to on their side, because when driving unconscious, the tongue sinks, the person suffocates, and besides, we drove through bumps. Maybe that's why then the whole larynx with the tongue was cut out on the corpse?

After the death of Grigoriyev, many documents were forged in the military unit. The interviewed interlocutors of Novye Izvestia admit this.

In retrospect, a permit was issued for work in the security zone of the power transmission line. The deputy commander of the military unit, senior engineer Salamatov, did this out of fear of being brought to justice, which he himself honestly confessed to the court.

“The privates sat in Mazurov’s office and wrote explanations, but he tore them up and forced them to rewrite them,” Yusupov says.

According to him, Salamatov and Yefimov forced him to forge targeted instructions from the brigade members.

For the dead already Grigoriyev, his comrade Bersenev signed.

“After we died, we were forced to sign a safety notebook. They took me to sign for Alexey. I deliberately did it as crookedly as possible. And then both the FSB and the investigators immediately said that the signature was not Grigoriyev, the commanders were forced to forge", - says Bersenev.

He also said that the privates did not undergo serious training for slingers, with which they were forced to work on the day of the tragedy:

"We went to competitions in Yaroslavl and Khabarovsk, and there we needed a slinger crust. There was some kind of paper that the training was completed, but whether it was valid or not - I don't know, most likely not. Like toilet paper: they wrote something, we never saw a crust".

Very soon after being discharged from the hospital, Ivan Bersenev was again sent to work in the rain under power lines.

- We were dragging the piles. It was pouring rain. And again the foremen with their own: "Yes, let's finish quickly and go." I saw a power line, swore obscenities, ran to the side, refused to work there. And other guys walked with metal ropes on their shoulders. Well, a few minutes later the discharge passed again. I banged so well. By a happy coincidence, the senior sergeant had just lined up everyone to leave the site. Then they told me in the company: "We understand everything, but it is not supposed to communicate with the elders like that"...

For four years, the father of a deceased conscript, Vladimir Grigoriyev, has been writing letters to various authorities. He asks to bring officers of the military unit to justice. More than once he addressed this question to the President of Russia, the Ministry of Defense, the Office of Gostekhnadzor, the Chief Military Prosecutor of Russia, the Prosecutor of the Amur Region, the Prosecutor General's Office, the head of the Investigative Committee of Russia, the Council of Mothers, etc. He wrote on television - in the programs "Man and the Law", "Time Will Show", "Military Secret". It seems unfair to the parents that only one person, who carried out other people's orders, was responsible for the death of their son in the army. All appeals from departments go down to the region and are buried there.

"The ensign was just following orders. Why did the officers remain on the sidelines? They must organize the life of servicemen in such a way that the army does not become mortally dangerous for them. As a result of the combined illiteracy and irresponsibility of the officers, our son Alexey died. Without punishment for all those involved in his death, it turns out that the conscripts for our army are just rubbish, a consumable...", - says Vladimir Grigoriyev.

Material evidence - a faulty crane "KS-3577" serial number 2731 after the trial, it was decided to return it to the military unit...