General Vatutin. Vatutin Nikolai Fedorovich - Hero of the Soviet Union

From the end of June 1941, N. F. Vatutin headed the headquarters of the North-Western Front, participated in a number of operations, among which defensive ones predominated - the situation on this front was not the best. In 1942, Nikolai Fedorovich served for several months in the General Staff, where he was recalled by Stalin. Then he was appointed to command the Voronezh Front.
The formations of the Voronezh Front, commanded by Vatutin, carried out a series of offensive operations, as a result of which the Germans were no longer able to transport the troops needed by the Wehrmacht at Stalingrad and in the Caucasus in this area of ​​​​combat operations. The battles for Voronezh turned out to be difficult; by August 1942, our troops only occupied the Osetrovsky and Chizhovsky bridgeheads.
In October of the same year, General Vatutin was appointed commander of the new Southwestern Front. This front was to take part in the famous Operation Uranus - troops of two fronts (the Southwestern Front was assisted by the Stalingrad Front) managed to encircle over 20 Nazi divisions. Subsequently, Manstein’s attempts to unblock the Paulus group were stopped, and the fascist German troops were defeated in January 1943 near Stalingrad.
In March 1943, N.F. Vatutin again took command of the Voronezh Front. Nikolai Fedorovich developed a plan for the first stage of the famous Battle of Kursk - a strategic defensive operation. In October of the same year, Vatutin had a new and last appointment in his life - commander of the 1st Ukrainian Front (as the Voronezh Front was renamed).
Vatutin participates in the Battle of the Dnieper, Kyiv offensive and defensive operations, and in several other offensive actions of the Red Army. The last of these for the army general was the Rivne-Lutsk operation.

N.F. Vatutin died in the prime of life and at the height of his military career. He did not live to see Victory Day and did not have time to leave behind his memoirs. His name remained in the shadow of the famous marshals who liberated Europe from fascism. On account of N.F. Vatutin remained the great battles of the radical turning point. His filigree work on the battlefields was well known to the enemy: the best Wehrmacht strategist, Field Marshal E. Manstein, called the Soviet general the Grandmaster.

Military roads of General Vatutin

The biography of Nikolai Fedorovich Vatutin, Hero of the Soviet Union, has much in common with the life milestones of other Soviet commanders. Peasant roots, participation in the Civil War, hard study, career leap after repressions in the Red Army in the 30s. During the Great Patriotic War N.F. Vatutin passed the exam for the title of commander with excellent marks. His contribution to the defeat of fascist troops on Soviet territory can hardly be overestimated.

Childhood: the first victory of the future general

Army General Nikolai Fedorovich Vatutin (1901 - 1944) was from the tiny village of Chepukhino, 18 km from the city of Valuika. Now this is the village of Vatutino, Valuysky district in the south of the Belgorod region. At that time, his parents - Fyodor Grigorievich and Vera Efimovna - could not even imagine that their son was destined for a military career. A large peasant family (9 children) worked until exhaustion in the field, every worker counted. From childhood, Nikolai was accustomed to rural work, but other roads awaited him.

After graduating from the parish school in his native village, Vatutin dreamed of studying further. The teacher supported him: “There has never been such a bright head as Kolya in Chepukhino,” he convinced his parents. But the family did not want to lose the employee and did not give consent. Then the boy went on a hunger strike: without food or drink, he lay in the hayloft for three days until his parents gave up. At the age of 12, he won his first victory and went to study first in Valuiki, and then at the Urazovsky Commercial School, where he received a scholarship as a particularly gifted student.

Beginning of a military career

In 1920, Nikolai Vatutin was drafted into the ranks of the Red Army; the 19-year-old Red Army soldier had to fight the Makhnovists and Belsky’s gangs in Ukraine. Here he felt a calling to military affairs and entered and graduated from the Poltava Infantry School. I had to learn without letting go of the weapon. The cadets received the certificate of red commanders in 1922 - from the hands of M. Frunze on the field of the famous Battle of Poltava. It didn’t take long for N.F. Vatutin to serve as a field commander. His further career advancement was connected with his studies at higher military institutions, since the Red Army was in dire need of educated staff officers.

Table: studies and career growth of N.F. Vatutin in the 20-30s.

In the 1930s, formations of advanced military equipment began to play a major role in strategy. The fascist theory of blitzkrieg was based on breaking through the enemy’s defenses with powerful attacks from tanks and aircraft, the rapid capture of strategic objects, and the psychological suppression of the enemy. The adventurism of the fascist doctrine, which did not pay special attention to the flanks and rear, had to be proven to Soviet military leaders during the Patriotic War. Interesting in this regard is the duel between E. Manstein and General N.F. Vatutin, which lasted throughout 4 years of war.

Battles and victories of 1941-1942

N.F. Vatutin was a master of counterattacks. He knew how to find the weak point of an overbearing enemy, group forces for a strike unnoticed by him and unexpectedly crush the enemy. “The best strategist of the Eastern Front” E. Manstein became acquainted with Vatutin’s handwriting already in the first weeks of the war.

Soltsy

June 30, 1941 Lieutenant General N.F. Vatutin was appointed chief of staff of the Northwestern Front. The front line of defense was broken through by the tank fists of the GA “North”, the Germans took Pskov and quickly rolled towards Leningrad. The tankmen of E. Manstein's 56th Motorized Corps rushed forward, exposing their right flank by 70 km and their left flank by 40. This was noticed at Vatutin's headquarters, and maps with the exact location of all fascist tank divisions fell into the hands of our scouts. A counterattack was developed, which the troops of the Northwestern Front delivered on July 14, 1941 near the city of Soltsy. Manstein's corps fell into pincers, but his main forces managed to escape from the encirclement. The Germans were driven back 40 km. This was the first encirclement of the Germans in the war; the SS men of the “Totenkopf” division arrived at the front headquarters for interrogation in their shorts - so they rode in tanks, hurrying to Leningrad. In 8.5 months, Chief of Staff of the Northwestern Front N.F. Vatutin developed and performed about 20 operations. With his participation, the front line was stabilized, our troops maintained a strong defense until the offensive operations of 1943-1944.

Kalinin

By October 15, 1941 A critical situation developed in the area of ​​the Western Front, where the Germans took Kalinin and threatened to break through to Moscow from the north-west. At the disposal of N.F. Vatutin, an operational group (20 thousand people, 20 tanks, 20 aircraft) arrived to help I.S. Konev, who headed the Kalinin Front. And help was provided immediately - October 18-21. Vatutin struck the enemy communications lines stretching along the Leningradskoye Highway in three directions at once. The Germans were taken by surprise, suffered heavy losses in the Torzhok area, and the threat of a breakthrough to Moscow was eliminated. These days, the fate of the future Chief Marshal of the Armored Forces P.A. Rotmistrov hung in the balance: he retreated under the pressure of the Germans rushing to Torzhok. Konev demanded that he be put before a military tribunal. Vatutin, having assessed the operational situation, gives the commander of the 8th TB a new combat mission, ending it with the words: “It’s time to put an end to cowardice!”

Voronezh

In July 1942, the Germans broke into Voronezh; on July 7, Headquarters formed the Voronezh Front, commanded by N.F. Vatutin volunteered. The strategic position of Voronezh was determined by the fact that through it German divisions went south to Stalingrad to participate in the Battle of the Volga. During the period from July 14 to October 22, 1942, the commander of the Voronezh Front managed to solve a number of important problems:

• Secured the line of defense along the river. Don: the Germans were entrenched on the right bank, Soviet troops on the left.
• With a series of constant counterattacks he pinned down 14 enemy divisions, preventing them from participating in the assault on Stalingrad.
• Captured and held the Chizhevsky bridgehead on the right bank. Unnoticed by the Germans, an underwater crossing across the Don was built, troops and equipment were transferred. The enemy was driven out of Chizhovka by a sudden attack, and the liberation of the city began from here in January 1943.

Victorious Operations

G.V. called Vatutin the “general of the offensive.” Zhukov - after the military leader’s successful actions in the Battle of Stalingrad.

"Uranus"

The plan for encircling the Germans at Stalingrad was code-named “Uranus”. The troops of the Don and Southwestern Fronts were to be captured in pincers by Paulus's 6th Army. Command of the Southwestern Front, Lieutenant General N.F. Vatutin accepted on October 25, 1942. There was less than a month left before the start of the operation, but he managed to prepare and think through it down to the smallest detail.

• Time of deployment of troops. The battle on November 19 began with a breakthrough of the enemy’s defenses: powerful artillery shelling and infantry attacks were supposed to destroy all obstacles in the way of the rapid movement of tanks. Only then did the Commander give them the signal “Forward!”
• Offensive impulse. The tankers were led into battle by formation commanders: Lieutenant General I.L. Chistyakov, Major General P.L. Romanenko. The tanks did not stop moving at night - scouts, column leaders and local shepherds, who knew the area like the back of their hand, showed the way.
• Operational management. The commander kept in touch with each tank formation, promptly sent rifle divisions for reinforcement and set new tasks. Colonel Valik’s brigade of motorcyclists was thrown into the breakthrough, causing panic behind enemy lines: the Germans started talking about the “elusive Stalinist division”, the attacks of which could not be predicted.

100 hours after the start of the operation, on November 23, 1942, the troops of N.F. Vatutina and K.K. Rokossovsky met at the station. Kalach and closed the encirclement ring. By the end of the Battle of Stalingrad N.F. Vatutin became an army general (02/12/1943) and received the highest award - the military leadership award of the Red Army - the Order of Suvorov, 1st degree for No. 4.

"Leap"

As commander of the Southwestern Front, Vatutin twice had to clash with E. Manstein.

• 16.12. – 12/30/1942 - during Operation Little Saturn, Vatutin forced the German field marshal to withdraw the troops of the Don Civil Defense Army 200-240 km to the west and abandon plans to release the army of Paulus encircled at Stalingrad.
• 29.01 - 18.02 - carrying out Operation Leap to liberate Donbass, N.F. Vatutin made a number of mistakes, which E. Manstein took advantage of. Soviet troops, in an offensive impulse, liberated Voroshilovgrad, broke away from the rear, exhausted reserves, but Vatutin continued to give orders for the offensive, believing that the Germans were running towards the Dnieper without looking back.
• 02.18 – 03.03 1943 - Manstein, having grouped his forces, went on a counter-offensive, defeated the advanced forces of the Red Army (6th Army of F.M. Kharitonov; group of tank corps of M.M. Popov), captured previously liberated Kharkov and Belgorod. Untimely transition to defense due to the fault of N.F. Vatutina resulted in great losses for our army in people and equipment.

Soviet tanks on the street of the liberated city of Izyum (Kharkov region) during the Voroshilovgrad operation - commander General N.F. Vatutin.

Kursk Bulge: defense

To the commander of the Voronezh Front N.F. Vatutin had to hold the line on the Kursk Bulge against the powerful tank group of E. Manstein. The Soviet commander brilliantly won this fight.

From the beginning of the battle, he was able to guess the direction of the enemy’s main attack - the Oboyanskoye Highway. The commander concentrated the main defense forces here, including the main tank formations of the front. It was a risky move, but it paid off. From July 5 to 8, Manstein tried to break through to Oboyan, but was never able to crush Vatutin’s defenses. Any maneuver by the Nazis was met with counterattacks from our troops.

Having exhausted the possibilities of breaking through to Oboyan, Manstein decided to turn to Prokhorovka. Vatutin warned the enemy here too: 5th Tank Army P.A. Rotmistrova from the Headquarters reserve was immediately sent to this area - and found herself in the right place at the right time. The oncoming tank battle on July 12 put an end to all German offensive impulses; they went on the defensive.

"Commander Rumyantsev"

During the offensive operation “Rumyantsev” (5.08. – 23.08. 1943), the troops of the Voronezh Front operated over a wide area from Belgorod to Sumy, more than once being subjected to counterattacks from the tank fists of E. Manstein.

On August 11-17, the Germans launched a series of attacks on the 1st Tank Army in the Bogodukhov area. Tanks M.E. Katukova broke through to Kharkov, cut the Kharkov-Poltava railway and continued moving south. The bloody battles in Bogodukhov against the SS divisions diverted the forces of the 5th TA and 6th Guards from the Kharkov operation. army, which caused discontent at Headquarters.

On August 17-20, units of the 27th Army near Akhtyrka were surrounded. Vatutin mistakenly considered the enemy group in this area to be securely surrounded, but Manstein managed to capture in a tank pincer not only the 27th Army, which had gone far to the south, but also parts of the 1st and 5th Tank Armies, which were thrown to its aid. At the cost of huge losses, the front line was restored. Stalin sharply accused N.F. Vatutin in the “indiscriminate offensive” and in the “repetition of old mistakes.” Manstein had a different opinion: during Operation Rumyantsev, Vatutin was given the nickname “Grandmaster” at his headquarters. The bloody battles that befell the Voronezh Front crushed the main forces of the South Civil Defense Forces, without them the success of Operation Rumyantsev would have been impossible.

Capture of Kyiv

The general’s further path was marked by a series of major victories:

• September 22 - 26, 1943 - crossing of the Dnieper by troops of the Voronezh Front under the command of General Vatutin. Manstein's reconnaissance was unable to detect crossing means in the convoys of Soviet troops. The tanks were transported along the bottom of the river, along milestones placed along the ford. The mechanics drove the vehicles blindly, the movement was controlled by the commanders from the open hatches of the vehicles. Having burst onto the right bank, the tanks captured 2 bridgeheads: Bukrinsky (south of Kyiv) and Lyutezhsky (in the north).
• November 3 - 6 - capture of Kyiv by troops of the 1st Ukrainian Front, which was formed from Voronezh on October 21, 1943. The front commander managed to, unnoticed by Manstein, relocate large forces from the Bukrin bridgehead to Lyutezh. A sudden attack from the north took the Nazis by surprise: tanks burst into Kyiv from thick fog, turning on searchlights and sirens.

Having liberated the capital of Ukraine, Vatutin continued his rapid attack on Zhitomir, Fastov, and Bila Tserkva, not noticing that the enemy was gathering large forces - 11 tank and motorized divisions. From November 16 to 25, Manstein retook Zhitomir with a counterattack from elite tank corps and was approaching Kyiv. It was possible to stop his onslaught at the cost of new casualties on the part of Soviet soldiers.

Stalin's disfavor over the hasty offensive became obvious, and Manstein turned out to be an "evil genius" for the general. The commander received his last award in August 1943 for his participation in the Battle of Kursk - the Order of Kutuzov, 1st degree. Successful operations 43-44. were not awarded any titles or orders. Only in 1965 N.F. Vatutin received the title of Hero of the Soviet Union for his skillful leadership of troops during the war.

Order of Kutuzov, 1st degree

Death of a General

The general’s death on April 15, 1944 still remains a mystery, including for his grandson Alexander Vatutin, a professional historian.

Wound

Commander of the 1st Ukrainian Front N.F. Vatutin was wounded on February 29, 1944. near the village of Milyatin on the way from Rovno (headquarters of the 13th Army) to Slavuta (headquarters of the 60th Army). Who shot the commander? – Today there are several versions.

• Vatutin was wounded by the Germans during military operations in Western Ukraine - this was believed in Soviet times.
• The general was fired upon by UPA fighters in the amount of 200-300 people - this is stated in a memo declassified after 1965 by Member of the Front Military Council K.V. Krainyukov. He claims to have been in the car next to the commander during the attack.
• The wounding of the general, who became disgraced in the eyes of Stalin, is on the conscience of the NKVD and military colleagues, who deliberately pushed him into an ambush - modern researchers are inclined to this opinion. Documents and facts that give a clear answer to the question have not yet been found.

Treatment

The general received a through wound in the thigh, affecting the bone. No one, including himself, could have imagined that the wound would become fatal. Treatment of N.F. Vatutina raises many questions:

• Where did his medical history with all the records of procedures go? What medications were used for treatment
• Why was the general not sent to Moscow on the recommendation of doctors, but left in Kyiv?
• Why N.S. Did Khrushchev need to place the wounded man in his mansion? Why wasn't he treated in the hospital?
• Did Vatutin actually refuse to have his leg amputated when doctors finally diagnosed gangrene?

Funeral

General Vatutin died on April 15 late at night from increasing heart failure and pulmonary edema. His mother, Vera Efimovna, who lost her last son in him, was flown to the funeral on April 17. The general's family wanted him to be buried in Moscow. The Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of Ukraine, Khrushchev, insisted on his own: the commander's grave is located in the Mariinsky Park in Kyiv.

In 1948, on Khrushchev’s initiative, a monument was erected on it with a memorial inscription in Ukrainian: “To General Vatutin - from the Ukrainian people.” Today, this monument irritates Ukrainian deputies who dream of rewriting history anew. The commander frozen in granite seems to be saying: “I can’t be moved anywhere like Victory Day.”

Sixty years ago, army general and commander of the 1st Ukrainian Front Nikolai Vatutin was mortally wounded. It was not the Germans who wounded him, but soldiers of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA). The very fact of his injury by nationalist partisans was hidden by the leadership of the USSR for 19 years, and only in 1963 this was reported in one of the volumes of the “History of the Great Patriotic War.” Now, based on documents, it is possible to reconstruct the circumstances of this, oddly enough, ordinary UPA operation.

By the way, during the entire war only one front commander was killed by the Germans - Chernyakhovsky in 1945 near Koenigsberg. Kirponos shot himself near Kiev in 1941, and Pavlov was shot by Stalin for the failure of 1941.

The mouthpieces of Soviet agitprop thoroughly lied in their description of Vatutin’s death. Moreover, the discrepancies in the Soviet “official” versions are so absurd that one can wonder why all this was done.

For example, Comrade Zhukov, in his “Memoirs and Reflections”, published in 1969, spoke about what he himself did not see: “N.F. Vatutin went around the troops of the 60th Army. Guards rode ahead. N.F. Vatutin was in the second car with his adjutant and a shooter, and behind him at some distance were two cars of N.S. Khrushchev... They came under fire... from Bandera’s men. N.F. Vatutin, jumping out of the car, began to cover the retreat with fire. other cars. During the shootout, Nikolai Fedorovich was wounded in the thigh."

In the 2nd edition of Zhukov’s memoirs, this event is described differently: “N.F. Vatutin drove around the troops of the 60th Army. Guards rode ahead. N.F. Vatutin was in the second car along with member of the Military Council K.V. Krainyukov and adjutant. Having entered one of the villages, the cars came under fire from a bandit-sabotage group of Banderaites. N.F. Vatutin jumped out of the car and entered into a shootout with the officers, during which he was wounded in the thigh.” There is the following note: “In the first part of the circulation of this edition, this episode was not presented accurately enough. (Ed.).”

Researcher Nikolai Grishin drew attention to this note: “Thus, in the 1st part of the 487th edition of N.F. Vatutin and Khrushchev, officers and guards accompanying him traveled in four cars; in the 2nd part of the same publication, two of Khrushchev’s cars disappeared, that is, the front commander no longer covered the escape of a member of the Military Council of the same front.”

Indeed, he did not cover it - because Khrushchev was not around there. Why it was necessary to first write about something that did not happen, and then almost instantly correct it, is not at all clear. Perhaps the mistake was corrected at the insistent requests of the “pensioner of all-Union significance” himself, Nikita Khrushchev.

In Zhukov’s memoirs, both times Vatutin’s courageous behavior is described - he himself entered into a shootout with the rebels, and the first time - covering the escape of Khrushchev, who, we repeat, was not actually there.

Best of the day

In further editions of his memoirs, Zhukov, or, more precisely, those who wrote his memoirs for him, also cited the size of the ambush: “At 19:40, Nikolai Fedorovich and those accompanying him, having approached the northern outskirts of the village of Milyatin, saw a crowd of people of about 250-300 people and at the same time heard shots coming from this crowd. At the direction of N.F. Vatutin, the cars stopped to find out what happened. Suddenly rifle fire was opened on the cars from the windows of the houses... These were N.F. . Vatutin and the persons guarding him jumped out of the cars, and Nikolai Fedorovich was wounded in the leg. Quickly turning one of the cars, three fighters picked up N.F. Vatutin, put him in the car and, taking the documents with them, headed towards Rivne. K.V. Krainyukov left with them.”

Vatutin’s heroic behavior takes on the features of some kind of madness: for some reason, Vatutin and his companions - a maximum of 15 people, seeing 300 shooting rebels, jumped out of their cars. Probably to make it easier for the rebels to shoot at the Red commanders.

Krainyukov, who was traveling with Vatutin, clarifies in his memoirs: “...Suddenly, shooting was heard nearby. The car with the guards began to quickly back away. The commander’s lieutenant, Colonel Semikov, excitedly shouted:

There's a Bandera ambush there!..

All ready for battle! - Vatutin commanded after getting out of the car and was the first to lie down in the soldier’s chain.

The commander's car burst into flames like a torch... Then another car burst into flames. During the shootout, Army General N.F. Vatutin was seriously wounded... We put him in the only surviving car."

Krainyukov and Zhukov clearly consider their readers to be idiots - there are already three cars, not four (although there were actually four of them), and Vatutin becomes something like a kamikaze - instead of turning around and quickly getting away from Bandera’s men, Nikolai Fedorovich why -gets out of the car and, lying on the ground, is wounded in the thigh. And only under the influence of such an argument does he agree to retreat.

In fact, everything was completely different.

On March 6, 1944, the head of Smersh of the 1st Ukrainian Front, Major General Osetrov, sent a memo to Khrushchev with the results of the investigation of this incident:

“...February 29, 1944, at approximately 19.00, in the village of Milatyn, Ostrog region, a bandit group of 100-120 people fired at the car of the commander of the First Ukrainian Front, Army General Comrade Vatutin, and the cars accompanying him, as a result of which Army General T was seriously wounded in the leg Vatutin.

On February 29, 1944, having finished work at the headquarters of the 13th Army, at 16.30 comrade. Vatutin went to the area where the headquarters of the 60th Army was located in the city of Slavuta...

Despite the late hour and the presence of armed gangs along the Goshcha-Milyatyn-Slavuta route, which the Military Council of the 13th Army knew from reports from the SMERSH department of the same army, Lieutenant General Pukhov and Major General Kozlov, to accompany the front commander, so-called. Vatutin was not sent additional security and was not offered armored vehicles.

Colonel Semikov knew that part of the guard of the Military Council of the front was sent along a different route, and also did not propose to the Military Council of the 13th Army to strengthen the existing guard.

In addition, the Military Council of the 13th Army did not inform the SMERSH counterintelligence department about the movement of the front commander from the city of Rovno to the city of Slavuta.

As a result of carelessness in the protection of the front commander, Comrade. Vatutin, his and the following cars, not suspecting the presence of an armed gang, drove into the village of Milyatyn, where comrade was shelled and wounded. Vatutina.

It should be noted that the Military Council of the Front was also systematically informed about the presence of active bandit groups in the sector of the 13th Army, and members of the Military Council of the Front were personally warned about taking precautions when traveling to units of the 13th Army.

According to the testimony of the assistant [assistant] head of the operations department of the front headquarters, Major Beloshitsky, who accompanied the Military Council, it was established that during the forced stop of the Military Council vehicles 3 kilometers from the village of Milyatyn, Major Beloshitsky heard machine-gun fire ahead, but no one knew about it reported, but only warned the commander’s personal guard of readiness.

According to his testimony, when the cars entered the outskirts of the village of Mylyatyn, Beloshitsky noticed a large group of people at a distance of 800-900 meters, but continued driving without reporting this to the commander and thus getting closer to the gang at a distance of 150-200 meters.

It should be noted that the personal guards and drivers accompanying the commander behaved with dignity and courage, with the exception of Monoselidze, the driver of a member of the Military Council, Comrade Krainyukov, who showed cowardice during the shelling, stole a car, and did not take part in repelling the attack.

Monoselidze has been detained and an investigation is underway against him...”

As we see, there was no talk of any heroic participation of Vatutin in the battle with Bandera’s men - if Vatutin himself had led the battle, this would inevitably have ended up in Osetrova’s report.

And the number of rebels is reduced from 250-300 to 100-120 - the standard hundred (company) of the UPA.

A SMERSHA task force of 60 people was immediately dispatched to the village of Milyatyn to search for these hundreds. Not only the rebels fled from it, but also the vast majority of the residents of Milyatyn. Soon the security officers captured 20-year-old Grigory Undir, who told how the hundred in which he served organized an attack on Vatutin:

“...February 29, 1944 by the Green gang of 80-90 people. An attack was carried out on a group of vehicles carrying the commander of the 1st Ukrainian Front, Army General Comrade. Vatutin.

This attack was committed under the following circumstances: On the morning of February 29 this year. g. bandit group of 80-90 people. led by "Green" left the village. Dubentsy was ambushed in the Milyatino-Siyantsy area, where, according to intelligence received from the intelligence sent by the Greens, a convoy of 12 carts was moving.

When the convoy caught up with the bandit group in ambush, fire was opened on it and a shootout ensued with the Red Army soldiers guarding the convoy.

During the battle, the Red Army soldiers managed to escape in 6 carts in the direction of the village. The cages, and the remaining 6 carts, 4 of them with ammunition, were captured by bandits. During the battle, 1 Red Army soldier was killed.

At a time when the bandits were still pursuing the fleeing carts, from the village. Milyatin saw a truck that had been fired upon, and the servicemen on board abandoned the vehicle and fled.

After some time, already before evening, on the road from the village. Tessov saw 4 cars, 3 of which were passenger cars.

The “Greens” organized an ambush in the Milyatinsky farmsteads area, and when the vehicles began to approach the bandits in ambush, heavy fire was opened on them.

After that, three cars turned around and went back, and the car that followed first was disabled and remained in place...”

That's the whole operation: the rebels decided to plunder the convoy with the Red Army soldiers, they plundered it successfully, saw the approaching cars, and decided to shoot at them. We shot. And unexpectedly, the front commander was mortally wounded, who, like a reasonable person, did not accept the battle, but quickly left.

And it turns out that there were not 250-300 Banderaites, or even 100-120, but only 80-90 people.

But this whole story is probably not entirely true either.

According to some reports, the mentioned Undir thoroughly lied to SMERSH investigators.

As the former commander of the UPA “Tyutyunnik” group Fyodor Vorobets (“Vereshchak”) later claimed, the attack on Vatutin took place in the area of ​​action of hundreds of “Derkachs”, and it was done by groups of the OUN Security Service (SB OUN) in the villages of Mikhalkovtsy and Siyantsy, Ostrovsky district, Rivne region. (SB OUN is something like Bandera’s “SMERSH”.) According to various sources, from 17 to 27 fighters took part in the operation (that is, 10 times less than what is written in Zhukov’s memoirs). In the wrecked car, the rebels found operational documents and a bullet-ridden general's overcoat. For a long time, Chumak, one of the ordinary participants in the operation, sported it.

By the way, Vorobets himself, having become a victim of werewolves from a special group of the Ministry of Internal Affairs dressed as rebels, was captured on January 15, 1946. Initially, he was sentenced to death, but they relented and gave him “only” 25 years of hard labor. The mercy of the security officers turned out to be specific - Vorobets died supposedly in 1959 as a result of medical experiments by the KGB in the Ozerlag prison hospital (Irkutsk region).

Another version of Vatutin’s murder was told in the 1990s by UPA veteran Evgeniy Basyuk (“Chernomorets”), whom fate brought to the Rostov region of Russia. According to Chernomorets, the clash with Vatutin’s guards was carried out by the criminal department of the UPA field gendarmerie, numbering about 30 people under the command of Primak (Troyan). When the vehicles of the commander of the 1st Ukrainian Front and his retinue appeared, the “rebel police” were busy unloading the carts of the convoy that had previously been captured from the Red Army. And they opened fire on the cars spontaneously, without any ambush.

Now, by and large, it doesn’t matter whose version of Vatutin’s injury – Undir, Vorobets or Basyuk – corresponds to reality.

In any case, the death of the front commander was not the result of some extraordinary military skill of the rebels, or their monstrous cunning, but a consequence of accident and ordinary negligence of SMERSH employees and Nikolai Vatutin’s security.

As always
Salamander 06.04.2017 03:44:49

Tired of the lies and myths of the commies. As always, the sloppiness and laziness of the generals. Some UPA gangs? But in reality the upists should not have dared to shoot or even bark in the red direction. Beria has beautiful reports of successes, but in reality... I think it was at odds with life. ...unprotected ordinary people were bleeding. And they had no fear because of laxity.

The Kyiv City Council voted to rename General Vatutin Avenue. From now on it will be Roman Shukhevych Avenue. Instead of the commander of the 1st Ukrainian Front, who liberated Kyiv from the Nazis, today's Kyiv salutes the commander of the so-called rebel army.

In 1945, it was hardly possible to imagine that the time would come when the people of Kiev would want to reconsider the results of the Great Patriotic War, turn the twentieth century on its head, and the winners would become “persona non grata” for them, and war criminals would become heroes. Not everyone in Ukraine agrees with the ideology of “distorting mirrors.” However, today the ball is ruled by those for whom Nikolai Fedorovich Vatutin is not a hero, the Red Army is not a liberator, and our common Soviet past is just an object of hatred...

How was Vatutin different from other Red Army generals of his generation? In terms of roots, in terms of initial biography, everything is standard. He is from the middle peasants, from the rural majority. The future front commander was born into a large peasant family in the village of Chepukhino (now Vatutino!), Belgorod Region. The main battles of the Civil War took place without him. Vatutin was drafted into the Red Army in the spring of 1920, at the age of eighteen. He served in Lugansk and Kharkov, and took part in hostilities against the Makhnovists. He joined the party and continued his education at the Poltava Infantry School. He liked the army way of life, he decided to become a professional military man, a commander, and by 1937 he graduated, as expected, from two academies. He distinguished himself in 1939, when the operation to occupy Western Ukraine was being developed. Modern Ukraine owes its western borders to that operation. In the dossier on the general, the following wording appeared: “During the period of liberation of the Ukrainian half-brothers of Western Ukraine from the yoke of the Polish lords, as the chief of staff of the district, he showed the ability, endurance and ability to lead a major operation.”

In February 1941, General Vatutin was appointed first deputy chief of the General Staff Georgy Zhukov. Further - as in the song:

Where are these mustacheless guys?

With whom in forty-one

Somewhere near Staraya Russa

We were freezing on the ice.

With whom in the heat and in the cold

We walked stubbornly forward.

Our military youth -

Northwestern Front.

He became the chief of staff of the Northwestern Front, which held back the Nazi advance in Pskov and Novgorod. These were the months of the most bitter lessons of the war. Vatutin developed a reputation as a competent and efficient staff general. But in July 1942, he was unexpectedly appointed commander of the Voronezh and then the Southwestern Front - and he did not disappoint. The Southwestern Front played an important role in the Stalingrad operation. Alexander Vasilevsky saw in Vatutin a commander capable of commanding the front.

Vatutin's leadership talent was especially clearly demonstrated during the development of the Kursk strategic defensive operation. He developed a multi-level plan for deliberate defense - to bleed the enemy on pre-prepared defensive lines and at the same time prepare the conditions for a subsequent counter-offensive on Kharkov. This large-scale and risky task was solved. As a result, the exhausted enemy was unable to withstand the counterattack of the Soviet armies. From that time on, the strategic initiative in the war finally passed into the hands of the Red Army. And Vatutin is undoubtedly involved in this glorious turning point.

It so happened that the troops under the command of Vatutin on different fronts several times defeated the German armies led by Field Marshal Erich Manstein. In a tense confrontation, Army Group South was unable to contain the advance of the 1st Ukrainian Front of the Red Army. Early in the morning of November 6, 1943, General Vatutin entered liberated Kyiv. The city lay in ruins, but Vatutin had no doubt: “We will rebuild it!” The enemy was no longer in control of Kyiv. But after that autumn, Vatutin’s troops had to suffer defeats and retreat. Although the three offensive operations of Zhitomir-Berdichev, Rivne-Lutsk and the brilliant Korsun-Shevchenkovskaya (it was then that Manstein managed to arrange “Cannes”!) created Vatutin’s reputation as a “general of victory”. His role in the liberation of Soviet Ukraine is difficult to overestimate.

And he received a mortal wound on “Kasyanov Day”, February 29, 1944, a leap year... The Smershevites overlooked the stray attack of the sabotage hundred of the UPA. At the entrance to the village of Milyatin, Ostrog district, Rivne region, the general’s car was fired upon, and Vatutin was seriously wounded in the leg. For the enemies it was an unexpected stroke of luck, a happy coincidence of circumstances. This happens in war.
The best surgeons, led by the famous Nikolai Burdenko, fought for Vatutin’s life. He kept repeating: “I’ll be bored in a hospital bed for three weeks, and then I’ll come to the front. I’m on crutches, but I’ll get there!” Penicillin did not help (contrary to the memories of Nikita Khrushchev, it was still used), and the amputation of the leg did not help either.

On April 15, 1944, Army General Vatutin died in a Kiev hospital. He was buried in the Ukrainian capital, in Mariinsky Park. Both Kyiv and Moscow paid their last respects to the commander with 24 artillery salvoes. Already in January 1948, a majestic monument by sculptor Yevgeny Vuchetich stood over the general’s grave. On the pedestal there is an inscription in Ukrainian. The people loved and revered Vatutin, because he honestly shared the fate of a soldier with millions of fallen soldiers. In addition, two of his brothers, Afanasy and Fedor, died at the front. Such an ordinary, heroic and sad fate of a peasant family. But all of them not only died, but died for Victory.

Even in his youth, he earned the respectful nickname Psychologist. And after the capture of Kyiv, both enemies and comrades called him Grandmaster. There is no other way to describe a thoughtful, analytically inclined general. This inquisitive genius became a real army thinker. Khrushchev in his memoirs recalled this feature of Vatutin: “Almost a teetotaler!” And also - he does not indulge himself, does not know fatigue and mood swings.

Vasilevsky recalled his student this way: “General Vatutin deservedly earned himself general recognition and popular love. His name - the name of an outstanding master of leading troops, an ardent patriot of the Fatherland, a communist, a favorite of soldiers - is forever associated with our victories at Stalingrad and Kursk, during the crossing of the Dnieper and the liberation of Kyiv, in Right Bank Ukraine."

Vatutin's legacy is the property of military academies and history textbooks. And preserving the memory of the hero is a matter of honor for descendants.

Nikolai Vakutin was born on December 16, 1901 in the village of Chepukhino, Voronezh region. The birthplace of the future general was the village of Chepukhino, Valuysky district, Voronezh province. Today the village bears the name of its famous native and is called Vatutino, and is part of the Belgorod region. Nikolai Fedorovich’s family belonged to the middle peasant farms, since they could afford not only to cultivate their land plot, but also to rent an additional plot of land. The family was large, and Nikolai was only one of nine children.

In 1909-1917, Nikolai studied at the local parish school, the zemstvo school in the city of Valuyki, and a commercial school. Until April 1920, he lived and worked in his native village, and then was drafted into the Red Army and served near Kharkov and Lugansk in 1920-1922. The unit where Vatutin served fought with the gangs of Makhno and Belsky. Vatutin’s learning abilities, education, energy and initiative allowed him, in parallel with his service, to continue his education in the military sphere.

In 1922, he graduated from the Poltava Infantry School, after which he continued to serve in junior command positions until 1926, rising from squad commander to company commander. Also in 1922, Vatutin joined the party. However, 1922 became for Nikolai Vatutin not only a year of victories and personal growth. In the same year, he had to endure a personal tragedy when his grandfather, father and one of his brothers died of hunger.

From 1926 to 1934, Vatutin studied at the Military Academy named after M.V. Frunze in Moscow. In parallel with his academic success, he manages to move forward along the party line. After graduating from the Academy of the General Staff in 1937, Nikolai Fedorovich received the rank of brigade commander, after which his period of service in staff positions began.

Since 1940, Vatutin has continued to serve at the General Staff in Moscow. With the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, he was appointed to the post of chief of staff of the North-Western Front and remained in this position until May 1942. In an extremely difficult situation, the command still managed to stabilize the front by conducting both defensive and offensive operations.

The return to the General Staff and service there in late spring and early summer was replaced in July 1942 by appointment to the post of commander of the newly formed Voronezh Front. Vatutin remained in this position until October 1942. Having not achieved major strategic successes in this direction, he nevertheless succeeded in another very important task: with constant offensive actions of a limited nature, to keep the enemy in constant tension in this direction, not allowing him to transfer forces from here to Stalingrad and the Caucasus.

Nikolai Vatutin received a new appointment on October 25, 1942. He took command of the Southwestern Front, which was to strike as part of the upcoming Operation Uranus (counteroffensive at Stalingrad). Vatutin’s troops brilliantly completed their task, and the blow they inflicted was simply crushing for the German troops and the troops of their satellites. For his successful command of troops, Vatutin became one of the first holders of the Order of Suvorov, 1st degree, and also received the rank of army general.

By the will of fate, Vatutin had the opportunity to command troops during another successful major offensive operation of the Red Army, which sealed the turning point in the course of the war. We are talking about the Battle of Kursk, where Vatutin commanded the troops of the Voronezh Front. Throughout the spring and half of the summer until July, Vatutin worked to create a deeply echeloned defense in his front zone, as did his colleagues, the commander of the Central Front, Army General Rokossovsky, and the commander of the Steppe Front, Colonel General Konev. Vatutin's troops coped with their task when, in July 1943, in stubborn defensive battles, having exhausted the advancing German troops, they launched a counteroffensive together with other fronts and defeated the enemy. For these successes, Vatutin received the Order of Kutuzov, 1st degree.

In October 1943, Vatutin already commanded the 1st Ukrainian Front. But this position was not related to the transfer of the general’s positions, but was due to the reorganization of the front line after the Battle of Kursk, when the Voronezh Front was renamed the 1st Ukrainian Front. Under the command of Vatutin, the troops of this front continued offensive operations, liberating Ukraine from Nazi troops. The life of this talented commander, an experienced military leader, an extraordinary person, behind his back called “general of the offensive” or “general of victory”, and by the enemy out of respect “grandmaster”, ended prematurely and tragically.

Driving accompanied by members of the headquarters on February 29, 1944, Vatutin’s car was fired upon by Ukrainian nationalists from the UPA. During the ensuing shootout, Vatutin was wounded in the thigh, taken to a hospital in the city of Rivne, and then to Kyiv, where the best surgeons fought for the general’s life.

In Moscow, a salute of honor was given to their commander with 24 salvos from 24 guns. Soviet military leaders highly valued Vatutin's personal and professional qualities. Such military figures as G.K. spoke very positively about him. Zhukov, A.M. Vasilevsky and others.

On May 6, 1965, Nikolai Vatuin was awarded the Gold Star medal and posthumously nominated for the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

The name of the commander was immortalized in many monuments and obelisks, names of streets and avenues of cities and towns throughout the Soviet Union.

Nikolai Fedorovich Vatutin died on April 15, 1944, from blood poisoning in the city of Kyiv, where he was buried in the Mariinsky Park with full military honors.