Ruslan Viktorovich Galitsky(July 14, 1972, Ivano-Frankovsk, Ivano-Frankovsk region, Ukrainian SSR, USSR - December 5, 2016, Moscow, Russia) - Russian military leader, guard colonel of the Tank Forces Ground Forces Armed Forces Russian Federation. He was seriously wounded in Aleppo while performing a mission as a military adviser during Russia's military operation in Syria, and died in a hospital in Moscow. Posthumously awarded the Order of Courage for “courage and courage shown in the performance of military and official duty.”
Biography
Early life, education, military service
Ruslan Galitsky was born on July 14, 1972 in Ivano-Frankivsk. He came from a family of hereditary officers. He grew up in Western Ukraine, loved Ukraine and was a patriot of the USSR. He graduated from the Lviv military special school. In 1990, Galitsky moved from Lvov to Moscow and entered the Moscow Higher Combined Arms command school named after the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR, from which he graduated in 1994 with a gold medal and began serving there as a platoon and company commander of cadets. During his studies, he was actively involved in sports and became the school's boxing champion. In 2002, he graduated with a gold medal from the Combined Arms Academy of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation on the basis of the Frunze Military Academy and for eight years served in the Moscow Military District as commander of a motorized rifle battalion, deputy chief of staff of a separate motorized rifle brigade, and head of the operational department of the district's operational department.
In 2010, Galitsky entered the Military Academy General Staff, from which he graduated in 2012 with the rank of colonel with a gold medal “For excellent completion of the military educational institution higher vocational education Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation." The teachers considered Galitsky one of the most promising strategists and the best student of the course, and his name was engraved on the honorary board of the General Staff Academy.
After graduating from the academy, Galitsky was sent to continue his military service in the operational directorate of the Southern Military District to the position of chief of the operational directorate of military unit 64722 of the 12th reserve command, based in complete secrecy on the Russian-Ukrainian border in Novocherkassk (Rostov region), for service in which during armed conflict in eastern Ukraine he was awarded the badge “For Military Service” from the governor Rostov region Vasily Golubev.
In February 2016, Galitsky took over as commander of the 5th Guards Separate Tank Brigade, based in military unit 46108 at the Divisionnaya station in Ulan-Ude (Buryatia). He served in this position for less than a year. According to funds mass media, Buryat tank crews from this particular brigade took part in the battles for Debaltsevo on the territory of Ukraine. On May 6, Vadim Skibitsky, a representative of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, based on data military intelligence stated that Galitsky, being a high-ranking military man, was involved in coordinating the forces of Ukrainian separatists, which the Russian side denies. From August 30 to September 4, 2016, the 5th Tank Brigade under the command of Galitsky took part in the Russian-Mongolian exercises “Selenga-2016”, held at the Burduny training ground in the Eastern Military District, during which they “worked out the issues of conducting reconnaissance and search actions, as well as blocking and liquidating conditional illegal armed groups.”
After this, Galitsky, as part of a group of Russian military advisers, was sent to Syria, where, according to official data from the Russian Ministry of Defense, he was involved in coordinating interaction between the aviation group of the Russian Aerospace Forces, based at the Khmeimim airbase, units of the Syrian army and other units involved in the liquidation of terrorist groups , assisted the command staff of one of the formations of the Syrian army in organizing the training of units and subunits, developing military equipment, namely tanks - Soviet T-72 and Russian T-90. According to Irek Murtazin, who is personally acquainted with Galitsky, he took part in planning the operations to liberate Palmyra and the liberation of eastern Aleppo, in which private military companies such as the Wagner Group were involved.
G Alitsky Kuzma Nikitovich - commander of the 11th Guards Army of the 3rd Belorussian Front, colonel general.
Born on October 12 (24), 1897 in the city of Taganrog, Don Army Region, now part of the Rostov Region. From a working-class family. Russian. He graduated from a vocational and technical school in Taganrog. He worked as an apprentice mechanic and mechanic in a mechanical workshop, as an assistant driver at the Taganrog railway depot.
In April 1917 he was drafted into the Russian Army. Served in the 274th reserve infantry regiment (Taganrog), non-commissioned officer. In October 1917 he was demobilized. I worked at the depot again. During the period of the German-Austrian occupation, he took part in a strike, after the suppression of which he fled to the territory occupied by the Red Army.
In the Red Army since August 1918. Participant Civil War. From August 1918 - commanded a platoon, a company of the 9th Soviet Ukrainian Regiment of the 2nd Insurgent Soviet Division. Since June 1919 - battalion commander of the 1st shock regiment of the 7th Trans-Dnieper Ukrainian rifle division Southern Front. In September 1919 he was seriously wounded. From March 1920 - battalion commander, head of the political department of the railway section of the ChON, head of the political department of the Taganrog railway section. From July 1920 to June 1921 - battalion commander of the 397th Infantry Regiment of the 45th Infantry Division at Southwestern Front. Fought against the army of A.I. Denikin and Polish troops, against the troops of P.N. Wrangel and political banditry in Ukraine. Member of the CPSU(b)/CPSU since 1918.
In 1922 he graduated from the Higher Tactical Rifle School named after the Comintern. From August 1922 to August 1924 he commanded a battalion, then was assistant commander of the 67th Infantry Regiment in the 23rd Infantry Division of the Kharkov Military District.
In 1927 he graduated from the Military Academy of the Red Army named after M.V. Frunze. After graduating from the academy, K.N. Galitsky from August 1927 - chief of staff of the 1st rifle regiment of the Moscow Proletarian Rifle Division, from August 1928 - head of the scientific and editorial department of the Military Academy of the Red Army named after M. V. Frunze, from May 1930 - adjunct at this academy. Since November 1931 - commander of the 3rd Infantry Regiment in the Moscow Proletarian Rifle Division. From January - May 1934 - deputy head of the combat training department of the Moscow Military District. Since May 1934 - assistant commander of the 3rd Crimean Rifle Division of the Kharkov Military District. In September - November 1937 - Chief of Staff of the Kharkov Military District. Since November 1937 - commander of the 90th Infantry Division in the Leningrad Military District.
In July 1938, he was arrested by the NKVD of the USSR, dismissed from the Red Army and was under investigation. He did not admit guilt and did not incriminate any of his colleagues. In May 1939, he was released due to the termination of the criminal case and reinstated in the Red Army, but did not receive a new appointment and was at the disposal of the Administration of the command and control personnel of the Red Army. In December 1939 he was sent to the front of the Soviet-Finnish war of 1939-1940 and on December 23, 1939 he was appointed commander of the 24th Samara-Ulyanovsk Iron Twice Red Banner Rifle Division, replacing its killed commander P.E. Veshcheva.
After the war with the division, he was transferred to the Western Special Military District, to Belarus.
In the battles of the Great Patriotic War Major General Galitsky K.N. - since June 1941. Commanded the 24th Infantry Division as part of the 13th Army Western Front, participant in a border defensive battle. From June 25 to June 29, the division stubbornly defended itself in the Minsk fortified area, then the surviving units fought over 500 kilometers surrounded and on July 14 fought back to their own. Due to the loss of the Battle Banner, the division was disbanded (the banner was found on the battlefield on a killed officer by local residents, rescued by them and returned to the Soviet command in 1944). The order to remove Galitsky from the post of commander was dated only on December 27, 1941, but already from July 1941 he was officially in other positions.
From July 19, 1941 - commander of the 67th Rifle Corps of the 21st Army of the Central Front, fought in the Battle of Smolensk and was seriously wounded in battle on August 13, 1941. Evacuated to a hospital in Sverdlovsk (now Yekaterinburg), after recovery in January 1942, he was appointed deputy commander of the 1st Shock Army in the Western and Northwestern fronts, participated in the Rzhev-Vyazemsk and first Demyansk operations. But already in February 1942 he was seriously wounded for the second time and was again treated in the same hospital in Sverdlovsk.
In August 1942, he was appointed commander of the 1st Reserve Army (Tambov). Since September 18, 1942 Galitsky K.N. - Commander of the 3rd Shock Army on the Kalinin and North-Western Fronts. At the head of this army he distinguished himself in the Velikoluksk and Nevelsk operations.
From November 26, 1943 until the end of the war - commander of the 11th Guards Army on the 2nd Baltic and 3rd Belorussian fronts. Participated in the Gorodok, Belarusian strategic, Gumbinnen-Goldap, East Prussian and Zemland operations.
Particularly distinguished himself in the operation to defeat Nazi troops V East Prussia(1945), when his army broke through the powerful defensive line on Ragnit - Gumbinnen, surrounded a large enemy group in the Insterburg area and took this city by storm, then overcame the rear fortified area of Ilmenhorst and deeply enveloped Königsberg from the south. In April 1945, the 11th Guards Army became famous during the assault on Königsberg, and then during the assault on the large naval base of Pillau. IN
Z and the skillful command of the army during the assault on Koenigsberg and the personal courage and heroism shown by the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of April 19, 1945 to Colonel General Galitsky Kuzma Nikitovich awarded the title of Hero Soviet Union with the presentation of the Order of Lenin and the Gold Star medal.
After the war, K.N. Galitsky commanded the troops of the Special Military District on the territory of the former East Prussia (1945-1946), the 11th Guards Army of the Baltic Military District (March-October 1946), the troops of the Carpathian (October 1946 - November 1951) and Odessa (November 1951 - 1954) military districts. From May to August 1954 - commander of the troops of the Moscow Air Defense District. Then it was at the disposal of the Main Personnel Directorate of the USSR Ministry of Defense.
From April 1955 to January 1958, Army General K.N. Galitsky was the commander of the Northern Group of Forces in Poland, and then in January 1958 - June 1961 - the commander of the Transcaucasian Military District. Since June 1961 - at the disposal of the USSR Minister of Defense.
Since January 1962 - retired due to illness. Lived in the hero city of Moscow. He was involved in a lot of public work, was the chairman of the military-scientific society at the Central House Soviet army. Died on March 14, 1973. He was buried in Moscow at the Novodevichy cemetery (section 7).
He was elected as a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of the 2nd-5th convocations (1946-1962).
Military ranks:
Colonel (1936),
brigade commander (02/20/1938),
Major General (06/04/1940),
Lieutenant General (01/30/1943),
Colonel General (06/28/1944),
General of the Army (03/11/1955).Awarded four Orders of Lenin (02/21/1945, 04/19/1945, ...), four Orders of the Red Banner (03/21/1940, 04/12/1942, 11/3/1944, ...), Order of Suvorov 1st degree (10/11/1943 ), Kutuzov 1st degree (02/20/1943), Bogdan Khmelnitsky 1st degree (07/4/1944), Red Star, medals, foreign award - Polish order.
Bust of K.N. Galitsky was installed in Kaliningrad. Streets in the cities of Kaliningrad and Taganrog are named after him.
Essays:
In the battles for East Prussia. Notes of the commander of the 11th Guards Army. M., 1970;
Years of severe trials. 1941-1944. Notes of the army commander. M., 1973.The biography was supplemented by Anton Bocharov (Koltsovo village, Novosibirsk region).
Kuzma Nikitovich Galitsky was born on October 12 (new style - 24), 1897 in the city of Taganrog into a working-class family. Russian by nationality. After graduating from a vocational school, he worked as a mechanic's apprentice, as a mechanic in a mechanical workshop, then as an assistant driver at railway.
In April 1917, Galitsky was drafted into the Russian Army and assigned to the 274th Reserve Infantry Regiment. He rose to the rank of non-commissioned officer. He was demobilized after the dissolution of the old army and returned to work on the railroad. During the occupation of Taganrog by troops of Germany and Austria-Hungary, Galitsky took part in a strike, after the suppression of which he was forced to hide in a controlled area. Soviet power territories.
In August 1918, he volunteered to serve in the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army. He took part in the battles of the Civil War, being a platoon commander, a company commander of the 9th Soviet Ukrainian Front, then a battalion commander of the 1st shock regiment of the 7th Trans-Dnieper Ukrainian Rifle Division. In September 1919 he was seriously wounded. After recovery he served on the railway. From July 1920, he commanded a battalion of the 397th Infantry Regiment of the 45th Infantry Division, participated in battles with Polish troops, Ukrainian anti-Soviet formations, and the troops of P. N. Wrangel.
After the end of the war he continued to serve in the Red Army. In 1922, Galitsky graduated from the Higher Tactical Rifle School named after the Comintern, and in 1927, from the Military Academy of the Red Army. Since August 1928 he was actively engaged scientific work, headed the scientific and editorial part of this academy, then was an adjunct in it. Since 1931, he served in command and staff positions in various rifle units.
In November 1937, Galitsky was appointed commander of the 90th Infantry Division of the Leningrad Military District. During the period of the “great purge” in the Red Army in July 1938, he was arrested by the NKVD of the USSR on trumped-up charges. During interrogations, Galitsky did not admit his guilt, refused to incriminate anyone, and in May 1939 he was released and reinstated in the USSR Armed Forces due to the termination of criminal prosecution.
In December 1939, Galitsky was sent to the active army as commander of the 24th Infantry Division instead of its commander P.E. Veshchev, who was killed in battles with the Finns. After the end of hostilities, this division was redeployed to the Belarusian SSR, where it met the beginning of the Great Patriotic War.
From the first days of the war, Galitsky's division took an active part in battles with German troops as part of the 13th Army of the Western Front. At its head, he took part in the battles near the State Border of the USSR and the battles near Minsk. Galitsky distinguished himself more than once in these battles. So, on June 24, 1941, he went to the front line in an anti-tank division that was about to retreat and personal example attracted the artillerymen with him, thereby restoring the situation. In that battle, the enemy lost up to 30 tanks. On June 26, 1941, Galitsky again restored the precarious position by organizing an attack on the Wehrmacht tank division and inflicting heavy losses on it. Operating in conditions of complete lack of communication, having no information about the situation at the front, he decided not to retreat, which allowed him to defeat the 19th Panzer Division and the Wehrmacht motorized brigade at the end of the first week of the war.
In the fierce battles of the summer of 1941, the division found itself surrounded and for some time actually fought guerrilla actions, violating enemy rear lines and destroying his small formations. General Galitsky managed to save all the material, but when he reached his own people, he lost his banner, which was the reason for the disbandment of the division.
On July 19, 1941, Galitsky was appointed commander of the 67th Rifle Corps. During the Battle of Smolensk on August 13, 1941, he was seriously wounded and was treated for a long time in a rear hospital. In January 1942, Galitsky was appointed deputy commander of the 1st Shock Army, but a month later he was seriously wounded for the second time during the fighting in the Demyansk direction.
From August 1942, Galitsky commanded the 1st Reserve Army, stationed in Tambov, and from September of the same year, the 3rd Shock Army. Under his leadership, the latter achieved great success during the liberation of the Pskov region. On November 26, 1943, Galitsky was appointed commander of the 11th Guards Army and participated in the liberation of the Byelorussian SSR. The troops of this army broke through the powerful German defenses along the Minsk highway and, in cooperation with units of the 5th Army, defeated the Bogushevsko-Orsha group of German troops. Developing the offensive, fighting marches on average 25 km per day, army units reached East Prussia and crossed its border. During the offensive in Belarus, Galitsky's army successfully crossed the Beaver, Berezina and Neman rivers, managing to do this with minimal losses and in the most organized manner. On October 29, 1944, the commander of the 3rd Belorussian Front, Army General I. D. Chernyakhovsky, nominated Galitsky for the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. The submission noted that the operations carried out by the army were distinguished by their scope, decisiveness of action, courage of maneuver on the battlefield and their results.
In the battles for East Prussia, the 11th Guards Army broke through the German defense in depth at the Ragnit-Gumbinnen line, took the city of Insterburg by storm and captured Königsberg from the south. In April 1945, army units stormed first Königsberg and then the fortified city of Pillau.
After the end of the war, Galitsky continued to serve in the Soviet Army, for a year he commanded the Soviet occupation forces in the territory of the former East Prussia, then for seven months - the 11th Guards Army. In 1946-1951 he served as commander of the Carpathian military district, and in 1951-1954 - the Odessa military district. In May 1954, he was transferred to Moscow to the post of commander of the Moscow Air Defense District. In 1955-1958, Galitsky commanded the Northern Group of Forces on the territory of the Polish People's Republic, and in 1958-1961 he commanded the troops of the Transcaucasian Military District.
In January 1962, Galitsky retired with the rank of army general. He lived in Moscow, was actively involved in social activities, and led the military-scientific society at the Central House of the Soviet Army. He died on March 14, 1973, and was buried at the Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow (plot 7, row 4, place 20).
During the operation to liberate eastern Aleppo, Colonel Ruslan Galitsky was killed. The Ministry of Defense released information that the officer died from wounds received as a result of shelling from residential areas of Aleppo occupied by terrorist groups. The military department reports that a Russian officer helped one of the Syrian army units in training military personnel and mastering military equipment. But I have reason to believe that the Ministry of Defense is not telling something, and Colonel Galitsky was faced with a much more serious task.
Photos from open sources
The fact is that I was personally acquainted with Ruslan Viktorovich Galitsky. He himself was not a very talkative person, but from our mutual friends I knew that he was born and raised in Western Ukraine, in 1990 he came from Lvov to Moscow and entered the Moscow Higher Combined Arms Command School. Then he graduated from the Frunze Academy. In 2010, from a position with an unpronounceable title - “head of the operational department of the operational department of the headquarters of the Moscow Military District”, he entered the General Staff Academy, which he graduated brilliantly in 2012.
According to our sources in the Russian Defense Ministry, in Syria, Colonel Galitsky was involved in operational planning and coordination of interaction between the Russian Aerospace Forces aviation based at the Khmeimim airbase, units of the Syrian government army and “other units” participating in the liquidation of the terrorist international. It was Colonel Galitsky who was one of those who planned the operation to liberate Palmyra and the ongoing operation to eliminate terrorist groups in eastern Aleppo.
As for Aleppo, at the points where the militants’ defense line was broken through, a quantitative and qualitative superiority of forces was ensured; a few days before the start of the offensive, a series of sabotage and reconnaissance raids were carried out, during which, without engaging in contact clashes and using long-range sniper rifles, they eliminated dozens of militant leaders. Among them are the commander of the so-called “Aleppo Army” Abdel Rahman Nour, the leader of the Aleppo branch of the Harakat Ahrar al-Sham banned in Russia - Abu al-Harith, one of the field commanders of the Free Syrian Army - Abdal Hamid, leaders of the banned formations "Jabhat Shamiya" - Said Shahabi and Hasem al-Musa, and the emir of the "Harakat Nureddin al-Zinki" group - Omar Muhammad... And these are only those terrorists whose liquidation was confirmed by interceptions of telephone and radio communications.
It took a little more than a day after the start of the offensive to cut through the militant group surrounded in the eastern part of Aleppo and begin the systematic liberation of city neighborhoods.
The Syrian press claims that the main striking force defeating terrorist groups in Aleppo is the Syrian special forces “Desert Tigers”. However, I know from several sources that although there are Syrians in the “Syrian special forces “Desert Tigers”, the main task of this structure is to provide video images for journalists in order to hide the participation in hostilities of well-trained combat units, which in the Russian and foreign press called “PMC Wagner” (a private military company commanded by a retired GRU officer with the call sign “Wagner”). The radical turning point in the course of the operation to liberate the eastern part of the city was brought about by the transfer of more than a thousand Chevek soldiers to Aleppo, most of whom took part in the liberation of Palmyra.
“Colonel Ruslan Galitsky died in hospital as a result of a serious wound. Russian military doctors fought for his life for several days. The officer was wounded during artillery shelling by militants of the so-called “opposition” of one of the residential areas of the western part of Aleppo,” the report says. .
As the Ministry of Defense clarified, Galitsky performed tasks in Syria as part of a group of Russian military advisers. “The command presented Colonel Ruslan Galitsky with a high state award posthumously,” the department added.
“Colonel Ruslan Galitsky, while on a business trip to the Syrian Arab Republic as a military adviser, assisted the command staff of one of the Syrian army formations in organizing the training of units and subunits, as well as mastering military equipment,” the Ministry of Defense clarified.
Russian losses in Syria
Earlier this year, a Russian military adviser was killed in Syria. On February 1, terrorists of the Islamic State (IS, banned in the Russian Federation) fired at a military garrison where one of the Syrian army units was stationed. A Russian military adviser was mortally wounded. His name was not reported, but the Ministry of Defense said that he had been nominated for a state award.
Earlier this week, two Russian nurses died in Syria. On December 5, militants shelled the medical campus of the mobile hospital of the Ministry of Defense in Aleppo. As a result of a direct mine hit in the emergency room, two Russian military doctors, Nadezhda Durachenko and Galina Mikhailova, were killed, and pediatrician Vadim Arsentyev was seriously wounded.
