Warehouses for storage of ammunition in the USSR. Top-secret storage of Soviet nuclear warheads in Poland. "Lost World" in the Moscow region: Lopatinsky phosphorite mine

If you drive along Highway "P35" from Simferopol to Sudak, approximately not reaching 10 km to the last, an inconspicuous,very worn out by timeasphalt path.She leads to no time classified military city - Krasnokamenka, located in the Kiziltash gorge,away from other points. Here, in Soviet time, in conditions of the strictest secrecy in underground workshops built in the depths of the mountain, atomic warheads were assembled, and then transported to launch sites throughout the central part of the USSR and some countries of the Warsaw Pact. For almost half a century this placeovergrown with numerous myths and legends, butafter the formation of Ukraine as a separate state, and then the adoption on its territory of "Without nuclear status", the city wasdeclassified, and all warheads were taken to Russia. At present, aand on the territory of the city there is an elite regiment special purpose"Tiger" of the Internal Troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine.The main part of the galleries has been converted into an ammunition depot and is under heavy guard.

As is known, the United States, having adopted the atomic program in 1941, realized the results of the work performed on it in August 1945 by destroying the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The world saw closely the threat of using a terrible nuclear force. Naturally, the leadership of the USSR posed a state problem for scientists - to create their own as soon as possible. atomic weapon and ensure that the country is protected from the use of such weapons by potential adversary. To solve this problem, the state provided scientists with everything necessary, creating not only research centers, but also industrial enterprises equipped with the most advanced machinery and technology. Just 4 years later, in August 1949, the first Soviet atomic bomb, AAt the end of 1950, the Council of Ministers of the USSR decided to create the so-called central nuclear weapons storage bases (CBH), which were supposed to assemble and store the produced ammunition.It was decided to build one of these central storage facilities in the Kiziltash valley, where mountain spurs hid it well from prying eyes.

Object 51
The scale of the work was amazing. By 1955, almost to the very foot of the mountain, a tunnel was pierced in its thickness, not inferior in width and height to the subway tunnel. Its length is more than two kilometers.

An assembly hall and several storage facilities for the products themselves and their assemblies were built under the top of the mountain. The height of the hall was about twenty meters, and the length was several tens of meters. The hall was equipped with a bridge electric crane, several lifting hoists and special assembly places for fixing the assembled products with the possibility of their rotation in a vertical plane. The entire underground complex of structures had power supply outside and autonomous power supply from emergency diesel generators inside.

All premises of the facility are connected by a developed transport network, which made it possible to move goods on special trolleys along a narrow gauge railway. The portals to the object are blocked by hermetic shutters weighing several tens of tons, which are rolled back into the niche with the help of an electric drive.

How do you like the door? :)

Due to its specificity, the object was nicknamed by the people “Theodossky metro”. The construction was supervised by the Leningrad metro construction division, and the tunneling work was carried out by specially selected prisoners with mining experience. Many of them, after serving their terms, were offered to remain as civilian workers to service the facility.
Assembled nuclear items were transported from here to launch sites in the central part of the USSR and some countries of the Warsaw Pact. Later, obsolete first-generation warheads began to be delivered to Krasnokamenka for disposal and processing.
Objects of this kind were actively erected until the very peak of the Cold War in the late 80s, but perestroika broke out, during which Ukraine became independent state, and also adopted a nuclear-free status and all nuclear arsenal was distributed to the CBH on the territory of Russia. The empty adits were handed over to the Ukrainian troops and converted to other needs, or completely abandoned. The base in Krasnokamenka is one of the first.

Now based on the territory of the former base special purpose regiment "Tiger" of the Internal Troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine. Elite division designed to protect public order.

The main adit under the mountain(object №51) , currently used for ammunition storage. However, in addition to it, there were 3 more storage facilities for finished products (No. 712 a, b and c), representing small galleries, horseshoe-shaped in plan, with two halls. The first was intended directly for the storage of warheads, and the second housed the air conditioning system of the first. After all nuclear weapons were removed from Ukraine, the first two storages were abandoned, and the third remade into the "burial ground" for luminous equipment and tools used when working with nuclear warheads.

Object 712 A. One of the portals.

The first vault is the worst preserved. Almost all the metal was seized by marauders, and the walls and vaults are covered with soot.

All that's left of the ventilation system.

Air conditioning room. On the left is a 10-meter collector leading to the storage room for products.

There was a turning point here.

Object 712 B.

This vault survived a little better, since it was apparently not abandoned immediately. The photo shows a brick wall near one of the portals. Most likely, it was erected after the storage was no longer used for its intended purpose. It is quite possible that the adit was used as a household warehouse, however, it did not last long either.

Paint has been preserved on some walls and hermetic gates.

The torn floor is also the work of looters to remove the rails.

All premises of the object were lined with metal insulating material, which was fastened on iron arcs.

Somehow we got really carried away with photography, the morning is already in full swing on the street :)

Watchtower.

The Kiziltash gorge is a piece of paradise. The people who lived here in Soviet times speak very positively about this place and the service itself, even despite high level responsibility. If you are interested in this topic, I advise you to read the memoirs of a resident of the city. The story is very emotional and educational.
After spending 2 days in the gorge, we continued to conquer the Crimea further. Krasnokamenka with civilization is connected by only one bus to Feodosia, passing several times a day.

Since we did not plan to go to Feodosia, we had to get out as soon as the bus pulled onto the highway.
It was the longest hitchhiking of the whole trip. After spending four whole hours under the hot sun, she finally deigned to stop the minibus in the direction of Sudak.

In Sudak, we had to climb to the very high point Genoese fortress, but we also had a surprise in the form of a trance music festival taking place near the city. More on that in the next review. There are many more to come interesting places!To be continued...

Hundreds of self-propelled guns, cannons, mortars, and other military equipment stand behind the 6,000-volt fence. There are also warehouses with small arms from different eras and states. They say that with machine guns, machine guns, rifles and grenade launchers, which are stored, repaired and maintained here, you can arm the army of a small country. Few people know that all this beauty is located within the boundaries of Gomel, a few minutes drive from the center.

The Gomel residents who live nearby are used to calling this place "The Third Regiment". They say the name came from civil war when the 3rd Cavalry Regiment of the Red Army was stationed here. The official name of military unit 63604 is an artillery armament base. But, as it turns out, the matter is far from being limited to howitzers and self-propelled guns. Everything is much more interesting.

The unit was born on July 12, 1941 as the 582nd field front-line warehouse. Since September 1945, it has been located in the Novobelitsky district of Gomel.

The tasks of the base are the repair, storage, maintenance and issuance of missiles to the troops artillery weapons. All small arms are also within the competence of the Gomel military.

On the wall near the unit commander Alexander Mikhailov there is a whole exposition of souvenir symbols military units different states. “Everything that is more than 100 millimeters in caliber is subject to accounting in accordance with international agreements,” Alexander Mikhailov explains. - And these signs are left by officers who come to us with inspections. Accordingly, our people go to check their parts.

In addition to officers and ensigns, civilian specialists work here. In Soviet times, conscripts also served. They inherited a barracks - it is now used to accommodate "partisans" when they come to military training camps. “Only rocket artillery is missing at our base,” says Lieutenant Colonel Gennady Goncharov, deputy commander of the military unit for ideological work, who accompanies us. - Everything else that is in service with the army, we have. And also what is removed from service.

By the way, this “what is filmed” is of particular interest. But more on that below. Administrative buildings, the guardhouse, the barracks are separated from the territory where, in fact, weapons are stored and serviced.

Inside the technical zone there are several more perimeters guarded by armed men, cameras, electricity.

A stern woman in camouflage at the checkpoint of the technical zone is armed with a rubber stick and a TT pistol.

No, we have not yet had to use a pistol and a baton, - he looks at us appraisingly. Everyone goes through the screening, regardless of position and rank.

The security here is civil. Controllers - with pistols, sentries are armed with Simonov's carbines. They say that only the military rely on automatic weapons. And behind the next turnstile, the most interesting begins. We move around the area where equipment is stored and serviced. The first gun barrel peeks out from behind the trees. Then a couple more. Then a few dozen ... And here is the first "Carnation" - a self-propelled gun mount 2S1. And out there. Soon a whole plantation is discovered ... (As it turns out later, there is more than one. And in general, the richest herbarium, the dream of a botanist.)

Senior Lieutenant Oleg Lyakhovets, Acting Department for the Storage of Rocket and Artillery Weapons, explained: some vehicles have recently come from parts and are waiting for repairs. Others have been serviced and mothballed. It takes about an hour to unseal the crew seats, reinstall the batteries, refuel the car and start the engine.

Where this technique served is not clear from the documents attached to it. Perhaps some self-propelled guns passed Afghanistan.

Landing "Nonas" perched on the sidelines.

Away - guns.

Peonies 2C7 are hiding among the trees - a legacy of the USSR. In Belarus, these weapons can only be seen in warehouses: they are not used by the troops.

More and more military equipment arrives for storage. There are no longer enough sites, and new ones are being cleared and equipped. In the meantime, guns, armored personnel carriers, cars are put on the ground.

Several landing armored personnel carriers have worked out their resource. Now only in scrap.

This is how the eyelets to which the parachute system should be attached look like:

Gases with awnings look quite peaceful. Can be mistaken for regular support vehicles. But under the tarp, something is bristling. These are "Cornflowers" - automatic 82-mm mortars.

Something bigger is hiding in the GAZ-66 nearby. This is a thickly greased 120mm 2B11 mortar.

It's hard to believe, but this forty-five went through the war. The barrel and lock are rendered unusable, but the gun is listed "on the balance sheet". The carriage is in good condition, the mechanisms work.

There are rich stocks of auxiliary equipment. Autonomous repair shops based on ZILs make it possible to repair rocket and artillery weapons in the field. They look, of course, not as impressive as armored personnel carriers, self-propelled guns and mortars, but without them, nowhere.

Arriving at the Gomel base, the equipment that has suffered in the fields is repaired, put in order and conserved - until the moment when it needs to be sent back to the troops. Captain Oleg Yagovdik, senior engineer for the repair of artillery weapons, says that the repair shop for rocket and artillery weapons is one of the main ones in the unit. Self-propelled and towed artillery are put in order here. Both the mechanical part and, in fact, the shooting one. Including radios, electronics missile systems armed with combat reconnaissance and sabotage vehicles

Now in the workshop there are several "Acacias" and "Carnations", as well as BRDMs with removed rocket launchers.

Here the optics "shoot" rocket launchers that are on the BRDMs.

By the way, we were not allowed into the small arms storage area: the regime is very strict. Samples for shooting were taken out of the gate. - In the area where it is stored small arms, there should be a so-called system of non-lethal electrical impact, - explains the deputy commander of the unit for ideological work.

That is, these inscriptions about 6 thousand volts are a reality, not a props? - What a props here. It won't kill a person, but it will knock you back... Local cats can read such signs.

in the background like times goes loading the last Soviet rare weapons of the Great Patriotic War. Three-rulers and PPSh, who managed to make war, serviced, repaired and lubricated in accordance with all the rules, will go to the museum of one of the parts mobile troops. Before that, the barrels and bolts were rendered unusable. Previously, batches of genuine military weapons from the Gomel base have already been transferred to Belarusfilm. We are shown one sample each of what is in storage (in fact, the assortment of personal and collective weapons in the warehouses is richer, we were not shown everything).

There is a German stormtrooper MP-44. True, his condition is not so hot, he has suffered.

Thompson submachine gun. This is not a weight and size model for you, as in other civilian museums. The real Tommy gun from the arsenal of the American police, marines and gangsters. Also serviced, repaired and listed in boring forms.

But in general, nothing unusual: such machines were supplied in small quantities to the Union under Lend-Lease. There are more interesting examples. This unsightly Romanian Orita submachine gun was captured for some reason in Japan. Condition - like new. It looks like a toy in the hands of a huge senior ensign.

Whether it's our PPSh - convincingly, stylishly, youthfully.

There used to be a lot of Shpagin submachine guns here. Now they're sending me to someone else's military unit remnants of luxury ... Actually, there are pre-revolutionary weapons. This Browning is the same age as the Browning with which Kaplan shot Lenin's grandfather. But the model is different.

Maybe you have Maxims too? - We are interested just for the sake of order. - Not anymore, - Lieutenant Colonel Goncharov answers. - Transferred to museums. I should have asked about the muskets… Since 1935, Polish officers, tankers, and cavalrymen have been armed with such VIS.35 pistols. Wikipedia says that the Germans also used these Polish pistols during the occupation.

That's what after the war there was no shortage - it's in such parabellums:

The owner of this may have been killed - but the gun is as good as new. Only the plastic cover is cracked. Rifles and carbines different countries, by and large, are variations on the theme of the three-ruler. However, one should be careful here: figuring out what is better and what is primary, weapon fans are able to unleash a third world war.

On Walter's captured rifle, you can see the mark of the Third Reich.

It feels like you are in a museum. But hardly any museum can boast of such a variety of real weapons, not models. And everything is stored here not for public display. Don't get lost in this variety of rifled weapons. Even a specialist will find something new.

Modern weapons arriving for repair or storage are serviced by civilian specialists. Including optics for sniper rifles and other weapons.

Some people believe that not so many things better and more beautiful than PKM have been created in the world.

Protecting it all the most important task. Technical means are developing, methods of guard duty are being improved, but the good old guard house with live people is a mandatory attribute of any decent part. In the guard town, all situations that may arise at the post are worked out.

A paramilitary security team is serving here. These are civilians who have been trained in the protection of military installations.

They say that weapons capable of automatic fire are reserved only for the military. Therefore, VOKhR got Simonov's self-loading carbines.

The security system in memory of sentry failures has not yet given. Several levels of protection are provided. Video cameras “shoot through” the perimeters of each protected area. At the disposal of sentries - towers, searchlights, loudspeakers, trenches, walkie-talkies, wired telephones. And, of course, carbines, which, according to folklore, “pierce the rail” (along, along with the armored train). With intimidating bayonets.

The conflict in Ukraine led to an active spread of weapons from the warehouses of military units, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Security Service of Ukraine and other structures. The armament of the self-defense forces in eastern Ukraine is being studied especially carefully in connection with accusations of arms supplies from Russia. However, no types of weapons unusual for Ukraine have been noticed so far in the arsenals of the militia.

Trophies from the field

This is the most common source of weapons for the militia. Armory rooms in army barracks, police departments, SBU, other law enforcement agencies, seized by self-defense forces in Lugansk, Donetsk, Slavyansk, Kramatorsk and other cities, contain a standard set of weapons that we can observe today.

The basis, of course, is Kalashnikov assault rifles. AK-74, sometimes AKM, occasionally landing modifications of both of these assault rifles with folding butts, as well as shortened AKS-74U - these "barrels" can be found in almost any gunsmith former USSR from Lithuania to Kyrgyzstan.

This also includes sniper rifles Dragunov (SVD) and the two most common machine guns - the modernized Kalashnikov machine gun (PKM) chambered for 7.62x54 and the RPK-74 light machine gun chambered for 5.45x39. Its predecessor RPK chambered in 7.62x39 is much less common. Except light machine guns, in army units you can find and heavy machine guns type DShK or NSV.

In the same armory, you can see Makarov pistols (PM) and (in the case of parts of the army or internal troops) anti-tank grenade launchers - RPG-7 or later disposable devices known to the inhabitants under common name"Fly". There you can also find hand grenades- Soviet-made RGD-5s are quite common in photographs.

Trophies arrived

The capture of six airborne combat vehicles from the 25th Airmobile Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine gave the militias their own armored vehicles, but most importantly, the ability to fight aircraft. All BMDs were regularly equipped with anti-tank missile systems ("Fagot" or "Competition"); in addition, each company (10 vehicles) relies on at least four man-portable air defense systems (MANPADS) with a stock of missiles, and a certain number of MANPADS could be in captured vehicles.

However, judging by the available information, helicopters in Slavyansk were shot down with the help of anti-tank guided missiles, grenade launchers and machine guns.

Today, almost 100% of the available military weapons militias received from these two sources, and judging by the available photographs, there is nothing more than what could be found in the surrounding military units and units of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the SBU, the opponents of the new Kiev authorities have nothing. However, the arsenal available to the rebels is not exhausted by these types of weapons.

Hunting and sports

In Ukraine, including in the east of the country, gun ownership is quite widespread. People buy smoothbore guns for hunting, sports and self-defense, hunters and athletes with experience own and rifled weapons. IN total According to various estimates, up to six million units of hunting and sporting weapons are in private possession in Ukraine, from ordinary smooth-bore guns to fairly rare and expensive rifles, including Ukrainian-made ones.

Of course, there are a certain number of guns bought for hunting or sporting purposes in the rebellious cities. At the same time, with the exception of fairly rare rifles, for combat against soldiers in bulletproof vests and helmets similar weapons suits very conditionally.

Potential Klondike

After the collapse of the USSR, Ukraine received a very rich military legacy: the army numbered about 700,000 people. Nuclear weapon, thousands of armored vehicles, more than a thousand aircraft, many millions of units small arms made Ukraine one of the most armed countries in the world. Ukraine abandoned its nuclear status at the end of 1994, when the Budapest Memorandum was signed, and most of the rest of the Soviet legacy - in the process of further reduction of the armed forces. Warehouses with weapons of reduced units, although largely sold out, are a real Klondike for those who will be able to use them. However, the probability of capturing such a warehouse in the east is not very high: the bulk of Ukrainian military units are based on Soviet infrastructure, located mainly at western borders countries. There are also the largest armories.

There are almost no such warehouses in the east of Ukraine, except for the arsenal that became known in March 2014 near Artemovsk, in the closed salt mine named after Volodarsky. The current state of this warehouse is not exactly known. It was reported that the Ukrainian army is trying to remove weapons from there, but given its transport capabilities, such an operation would take many months.

It is believed that this mine contains from one to three million small arms, including weapons from the Second World War: Mosin rifles, PPSh submachine guns, Maxim machine guns and others. It is not known whether it is from there or not, but one legendary "Maxim" appeared in Slavyansk back in April.

Strategic warehouses like Artyomovsk, stockpiling weapons manufactured from the 1970s and 1980s to the world wars, could supply them for a civil war for many years, bearing in mind that the spread of small arms is only part of the danger. In such warehouses, intended to equip newly deployed units in the event of a new big war, they store mostly not antiques from the times of the First and Second World Wars, but quite modern weapons produced during the years cold war. In addition to small arms proper, military depots can become sources of explosives, mines, guided weapons, including the MANPADS mentioned above, and other lethal items. At the same time, there is no guarantee that in the event of further degradation of the Ukrainian state and law enforcement agencies, this product - up to portable anti-aircraft missile systems - will not find buyers from other warring regions.

All gunpowder robots were issued with an urgent order to laugh at the statement of Russian lawyers in the Hague court that "the militia found weapons in the mines." Ah-ah-ah, I'm laughing all over.
The gunpowder bots, salivating at the sight of the “Roshen” contraption shown to them, rushed to perform it in unison. Plots on television, articles, cartoons, posts on Twitter and social networks - in general, a complete propaganda package.
I just didn’t understand one thing: what’s so funny, saucepans?
Really, no one told you, wretched ones, for example, about the underground armory of Soledar, located just in the salt mines?

Well, yes, the tank will never enter such a mine. She's small bgg

Millions of mothballed weapons are stored in these mines, starting with Maxim and PPSh machine guns (which, by the way, I also saw with the militias at the beginning of the conflict) and ending with AK-47s.
In addition to Soledar, there are similar underground warehouses, for example, in Artyomovsk, from where, in particular, the militia initially took out shots for Gradov.
And this list of underground warehouses is not exhausted.

Underground warehouse in Artyomovsk

There are also storage facilities of the State Reserve, created in Soviet times. My dad, who served in Soviet army, talked about many kilometers of underground storages, in which everything was loaded by trucks, from weapons, chocolate and stew to frozen cow carcasses.
They were created to overcome possible crises. And is it any wonder that when the crisis came, they were reactivated?
Are you still laughing "weapons in the mines, ahaha", Maidan fools?

In addition, weapons were taken from the warehouses of military units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine located on the territory of the DPR and LPR. The garrisons were disarmed, and the contents of the armories and garages went to the militias.
Plus huge army warehouses near Lugansk. In early May 2014, all the contents were taken out of there (now you can already tell), and then the empty warehouses, by agreement with the local officers, were blown up (to comply with formalities, such as they did not give weapons to the "separatists"). Ask the headquarters of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine what was stored in these warehouses, if you don’t believe me.

Plus a cartridge factory in Lugansk. The same one, which, according to the junto media, was repeatedly "sawed up and taken to Russia." Regularly continues to produce cartridges and shells.
Still funny, deceived fools?

The fourth source of replenishment of the militia with weapons and equipment is the "voentorg". But not mystical Russian, but real Ukrainian. The one that Bezler talked about. When it was possible to buy an armored personnel carrier for 5 thousand dollars from ensigns of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and a tank for 10 thousand (bulk discounts).
Then your idol idols, Avakov and Turchinov, launched a whole caps competition, which of them would sell through their structures more weapons and technology to the militia. I'm still not sure which one won. Keep jumping.

Well, the fifth source of technology is boilers. Portal "Lostarmor" recorded (with photo and video) 421 units of captured equipment that the militia got from the boilers. Laugh, fools, why aren't you laughing anymore?

As a result, only Colonel of the Information Operations Troops A. Rogers laughs - stupid gunpowder robots were again given a broken training manual.

May 1st, 2014 , 10:06 am

On Saturday, April 26, the landing of the Ukrainian army attacked the checkpoint of the Donetsk people's republic near the town of Soledar (Donetsk region). This was reported by RIA Novosti.

An important point for understanding the situation: the checkpoint covers the road from the Kharkiv-Rostov highway to the Volodarsky salt mine (10 km from Soledar, 40 km from Slavyansk). Since the times of the USSR, this mine has been turned into one of the largest military warehouses, where stocks of weapons from the First and Second World Wars are stored. The militias set up a roadblock to prevent National Guard militants from reaching the warehouses.

The battle near Soledar turned out to be short. Miners from the surrounding mines, armed with shovels, crowbars and pipes, began to flock to the checkpoint. Seeing the miners, the paratroopers preferred to plunge back into the helicopter and fly away, firing a few shots into the air as a warning.

Recall: after the wars in the first half of the twentieth century in the territory Soviet Union left a huge amount of weapons. At the same time, the legendary Kalashnikov assault rifle was adopted, and the need for the former arsenals disappeared. Some of the outdated small arms were melted down, others were given to developing countries, but a fair amount was mothballed just in case.

According to experts, from 1 to 3 million weapons are stored in the Soledar salt mine - Mosin's three-line guns, PPSh-41 and PPS-43 submachine guns, German MP-38/40 submachine guns, Thomson submachine guns 1928, Fedorov assault rifles, Mauser Kar98k, American Gapand M1, Mauser and Colt pistols, Degtyarev machine guns of the 1928 model, German MG-34, MG-42, and even the famous Maxim and Lewis machine guns. Plus, for each type of weapon there are a couple of million canned cartridges.

All "trunks" are in very good condition. technical condition- in grease, even now take it and shoot. Salt mines are unique in that they maintain a constant temperature regime and the level of humidity, because the conditions for storing weapons there are ideal.

Now the warehouses of Soledar are guarded by a small detachment of servicemen of the Ukrainian army. In turn, the Ukrainian garrison is blocked by self-defense forces of the Donetsk Republic.

What is behind the battle near Soledar, are military depots of strategic interest?

If a weapon spreads across the territory of the state, it is always dangerous, - Viktor Litovkin, head of the ITAR-TASS military information editorial board, notes. - They can be used both for blackmail and for sabotage.

Despite their age, the weapons in the warehouse in Soledar are quite functional. Unless, of course, it has been stored properly all these years. By the way, the Mosin rifle is the best for today sniper weapon. Do you know why? Modern sniper rifles are usually automatic, and this negatively affects the accuracy of shooting. But the “three-ruler” is reloaded manually - like rifles in modern biathlon (automatic weapons are not used there either). If you put a modern optical sight on a Mosin rifle, you get a great sniper weapon.

"SP": - PPSh-41 and PPS-43 assault rifles are also effective weapons?

This good weapon, but only by the standards of World War II. Compared to modern designs, these are very inaccurate automata.

"SP": - And the machine guns "Maxim" and "Lewis"?

Also a good weapon - for yesterday's wars.

"SP": - Warehouses in Soledar are primarily of interest to the National Guard or to the militia of the Donetsk Republic?

They are of interest to both. When you don't have a real one in your hands modern weapons, then an outdated weapon that can still hit the enemy is never superfluous.

In fact, Soledar's arsenals are good for Gulyai-Polye - in the broadest sense of the word. Against regular modern armies such a weapon is ineffective, but in order to make the population dependent, or to arm self-defense units, it is quite good.

"SP": - The mine is guarded by the Ukrainian garrison. Is it possible to protect such a warehouse with small forces?

It all depends on what protection and defense systems the warehouse is equipped with. Sometimes even small forces can effectively keep such objects under control - remember the story of 300 Spartans who blocked the gorge and held the 40,000th army of the Persian king Xerxes? A military warehouse is a complex engineering structure, and when designing it, of course, defense issues are well thought out ...

I am not sure of the significant value of the weapons in the warehouse in Soledar, - said Anatoly Khramchikhin, deputy director of the Institute for Political and Military Analysis. - I think the landing force was going to strengthen the Ukrainian garrison guarding the arsenal, so that the weapons from the warehouse would not fall into the hands of the self-defense fighters of the South-East.

The fact is that the Ukrainian army itself has more than enough modern weapons- gigantic arms depots remained in Ukraine from Soviet times. With this weapon - if desired - you can equip the National Guard. But the self-defense forces of the Donetsk People's Republic are interested in the arsenal in Soledar.

I must say that the warehouse in Soledar is the only arsenal of weapons from the times of the First and Second World Wars known to me in the territory of the CIS. Indeed, in a salt mine, the conditions for storing weapons are ideal. But still, it is very old, although it can still work ...

15 years ago in Russian army there was a total inspection of weapons in storage: they opened, in particular, all the boxes with machine guns, - says Anatoly Tsyganok, head of the Center for Military Forecasting of the Institute of Political and Military Analysis. - You will not believe: the machines of the Second World War were as good as new. In 1946-1947 they were mothballed - covered with grease. Their wooden stocks have rotted away, but the metal has remained untouched by time. I think the situation with weapons in Soledar is the same.

"SP": - It turns out that you can shoot from it without problems?

This weapon is reliable by the standards of World War II. If butt PPSh submachine gun, holding the weapon vertically, hit the table - the machine gun will most likely fire. It's such a design feature. But otherwise, the weapon is quite reliable.

Now Kyiv is seriously afraid that the arsenal in Soledar will be in the hands of the Donetsk People's Republic. Given the low combat readiness of the Ukrainian army, this could be fatal for Kyiv.

There is another significant point: practice shows that it is undesirable to use the army to perform police functions against its own population - such an army is demoralized, and subsequently fights badly. In my opinion, by throwing the army to the South-East, Kyiv made a strategic mistake. If it comes to taking the arsenal in Soledar by the South-East, the Ukrainian army, decomposed during the police operation, is unlikely to be able to resist the militias...

South-East of Ukraine: balance of power(By materials"Komsomolskaya Pravda")

Grouping of Ukrainian troops

Number: more than 15 thousand people;

Armament: 160 tanks, more than 230 infantry fighting vehicles and armored personnel carriers, more than 150 guns and mortars, aviation.

Self-defense units

Number: 2.5 thousand people;

Armament: about 200 units of automatic weapons (mostly captured in the regional departments of the police and security services), several dozen units of smoothbore hunting weapons, 6 BMDs (taken from Ukrainian paratroopers in Kramatorsk).