Colonel-General Alexander Lapin, commander of Russia’s Central Military District, rewarded his son, a tanker who led the offensive against the Ukrainian Sumy and Chernihiv – an unsuccessful offensive, as was already clear by that time. On the day the TV channel Zvezda aired the story about the award, the Russian army was retreating from the Chernihiv and Kyiv directions. From telephone interceptions of the Security Service of Ukraine and the stories of the Russian military, it is known about the poor condition of Russian equipment, insufficient supply of the army and losses during the offensive in the Kiev and Chernihiv directions in the first days of the war.

Two very similar men in full combat ammunition, modern helmets and body armor shake hands against the backdrop of a broken fence and white Ukrainian huts in a village in the Chernihiv region. There is a cordon around the perimeter.

“Congratulations from the bottom of my heart, for steadfastness, courage and bravery. Congratulations,” the older one says energetically. “I serve Russia,” the recipient quietly answers him, his uniform looks a little more shabby, a piece of red tape is pasted on his right sleeve.

On the morning of March 29, a story appeared on the website of the Zvezda TV channel of the Russian Ministry of Defense: the commander of the Central Military District (CMD), Russian Colonel General Alexander Lapin, presents state awards to servicemen for courage and heroism shown during a special operation in Ukraine. The award ceremony was held somewhere in the “Chernihiv direction”. To conduct it, Colonel-General Lapin personally arrived on the territory of Ukraine.

The author of this story on the Zvezda TV channel says that the Order of Courage, the medal “For Courage”, the Order “For Merit to the Fatherland”, the Zhukov Medal were awarded by the commander of the troops of the Central Military District (TsVO) to servicemen who showed courage and heroism during the liberation of settlements in Chernihiv area”.

However, the Russian army did not achieve any military successes in this direction. On that day (after negotiations between the Ukrainian and Russian delegations in Istanbul), Russia announced a retreat from the Kiev and Chernigov directions.

In Moscow, this maneuver then began to be called a “step of good will”, while in Kyiv they announced the successful reflection of aggression.

There is Lieutenant Colonel Denis Alexandrovich Lapin in the Russian army. We found out that this 36-year-old lieutenant colonel is the son of General Alexander Lapin.

Denis Lapin is in command of the 1st Guards Tank Regiment, which is part of the Tamanskaya motorized rifle division known since the Second World War. This is military unit No. 58198. The Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine named the 1st Tank Regiment among those units that take part in the invasion.

Relatives of the servicemen who served in this unit, having read the screenshots of the plot of the Zvezda TV channel, confirmed to the BBC Russian Service that General Lapin is rewarding Lieutenant Colonel Lapin.

Judging by the available information about Lapin Jr., the father always had the opportunity to look after his son’s career.

Lapin Sr. in the 2000s served first as chief of staff, and then as commander of the 20th Guards Motorized Rifle Brigade stationed in Volgograd. Lapin Jr. was also registered in the same apartment with him for some time.

It was in Volgograd, most likely, that Lapin Jr. began his military career: in 2009, he (or his full namesake) received a letter of thanks from the head of Volgograd – for “exemplary performance of military duty, increasing the authority and prestige of military service.” This most complete namesake of Lapin Jr. in the rank of lieutenant then commanded a tank company of a separate tank battalion in another local unit.

Six years later, in 2015, the full namesake is already in command of a tank battalion in the same 20th brigade, which was then commanded by Lapin Sr. (by that time already the chief of staff of the Eastern Military District).

“In order to perform the exercise perfectly, the crew needs to meet three minutes. Fire the first shot no later than 20 seconds and hit all targets, and the tank – no more than 2 shells,” Denis Lapin commented on the exercises in a report from the local branch of the All-Russian State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company.

In 2016, the name of Lapin Jr. was mentioned in the departmental “Red Star”. There he talked about a “new tactical technique” – “tank carousel”.

The GetContact service, which shows how the subscriber’s number is recorded by his acquaintances, reflects the career of Denis Lapin: someone listed him as a captain, someone as a major, and someone already knows him as a lieutenant colonel.

The 1st Guards Tank Regiment is the historical successor to the 1st Tank Brigade, commanded by Marshal Mikhail Katukov during the Great Patriotic War. It was this formation that won the first major victory over the tank army of Heinz Guderian in 1941, and then distinguished itself during the defense of Moscow.

The tanks of the regiment regularly take part in the Moscow victory parades: “A column of T-72B3M main battle tanks of the First Guards Chertkovskiy Tank Regiment named after Marshal Katukov of the Taman Division is passing through Red Square, Captain Rasim Tagiyev is in command of the ceremonial crew. During the war years, the regiment was awarded six military orders,” – the commentator told the spectators of the parade on May 9, 2021.

Captain Tagiev, who was driving along Red Square last year, ended up in Ukrainian captivity in March 2022. In a video posted by the Ukrainian security forces on Youtube on March 13, Capt. Rasim Tagiyev says that he serves as a company commander in unit 58198.

He calls Lieutenant Colonel Denis Lapin his commander. Already in captivity, Tagiyev said that on February 24, he led a column of about 30 tanks across the Russian-Ukrainian border.

According to the prisoner, up to the border with Ukraine, the command told the military that it was only about the exercises. When the tanks crossed the border, communication with the command was lost, and the tankers realized that they were at war.

After Tagiev was taken prisoner, the Ukrainian special services published an intercept of the conversations of the military personnel of this unit, where they discuss the capture of the captain, as well as the imminent awarding of the regiment commander.

“You’ll get something for it, no? Will the veterans give you certificates?” – asks a serviceman, presumably from Russian territory. “They should give a veteran woman. The fact that we are here, we have to pay money for it. … (Damn) he knows whether it will be or not,” his colleague, who ended up on Ukrainian territory, answers. “In short, do you want to neigh? Here is Lapin a colonel is also given an Order of Courage, and tankers …. (many) died, in captivity …. (many). We are, in short, stuck here. Lapin says: “…. (don’t give a damn) about artillery, we move on.” We are generally not considered human.”

During the same conversation, one of the servicemen says that the deputy commander of the regiment for weapons, the head of the technical unit, Lieutenant Colonel Yevgeny Starodubov, was also captured.

Youtube has a recording made immediately after a group of Russian soldiers were taken prisoner. They stand confused in the middle of the field, there are no tanks in the frame, and Lieutenant Colonel Starodubov says that a group of 18 military men, including two wounded and one platoon commander, were captured along with him, and that they crossed the Russian-Ukrainian border in the area of u200bu200bthe settlement Miropolye.

The conversation with the corporal, senior intelligence officer Alexei Savelyev was already recorded in a room that looked like either a pre-trial detention center or a hospital. Saveliev sits on a metal bench and says that the servicemen received the order to cross the border from Lapin, whom he calls a colonel, and that he last saw him from the Russian side of the border.

Several Russian servicemen who were taken prisoner said that their tanks simply stalled after crossing the Russian-Ukrainian border in the Chernihiv region, after which they tried to walk to the nearest settlement and were taken prisoner.

According to Lieutenant Dmitry Koloyartsev, the column in which he moved was destroyed by Javelins and Bayraktars.

In the telegram channel “Look for your own”, which was created by the adviser to the Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine Viktor Andrusiv and which was launched on February 26 by another adviser – Vadym Denisenko, a total of 19 records of interrogations of military personnel of unit 58198 were published, including detailed conversations with Lieutenant Colonel Starodubov and Captain Tagiev.

Captain Vasily Pichugin said that on the first day of the invasion, Denis Lapin entered the territory of Ukraine with his subordinates. According to the lieutenant of the medical service Daniil Pshenichny, the commanders of the unit downloaded maps of the Sumy and Kyiv regions to the navigators.

The Russian service of the BBC knows at least three cases when servicemen of the 1st Tank Regiment, after the start of the invasion of the territory of Ukraine, went missing there. They are neither in the lists of the dead, nor in the lists of the wounded.

Relatives of these servicemen are now trying to get at least some information from the command about the fate of their loved ones. One relative claims that the command set the task for the servicemen to march through the territory of Ukraine and occupy the Kyiv airport “Borispol”.

Through the Sumy and Chernihiv regions, the Russian army in the first month of the war tried to develop an offensive against Kyiv from the northeast direction. At some point, the advanced Russian columns reached Brovary, but in these two areas they got stuck in positional battles, failing to take control of the regional centers.

At the end of March, after negotiations in Istanbul, the Russian Defense Ministry announced the withdrawal of troops from the north and north-east of Ukraine.

From the very beginning of the Russian invasion, the Security Service of Ukraine has daily published on its Youtube channel telephone conversations between Russian military personnel and their relatives and friends in Russia. Usually such negotiations are difficult to geolocate, to tie to a specific time or place in order to verify their authenticity.

But on April 6, the SBU published another interception of the conversation of Russian soldiers from the territory of Ukraine, in which the military is heard discussing the arrival of television at the location of the troops and how Lapin the father rewards Lapin the son:

“Then television came here, we weren’t there, we left for the exit, the generals arrived, they presented the Order of Courage, and the boys started brainwashing the generals: we’ll put down weapons now, you go to … (far), there is no support, there is no defense, climb in, General, with me in the trench, stay here for a day. – And what are they? – And put your son, bitch, here, to whom he came to present the Order of Courage. Climb into the trench with us and sit. How did they start … (sort things out – Bi -b-c ), television removes … ”

After that, we found the plot of the Zvezda TV channel about the award.

On April 6, 14 and 28, Colonel General Lapin again awarded military personnel, already on the territory of military units in Russia, and by mid-April the Ministry of Defense began to hide the faces of those who receive awards.

Lapin, commander of the troops of the Central Military District, does not comment on the course of hostilities.

(On the other hand, on April 22, his deputy, General Minnekaev, made a loud statement . Speaking at a meeting of the Union of Defense Industries of the Sverdlovsk Region, he suddenly spoke about Russia’s goals during the “second stage” of the war. According to the general, this is taking control of all regions of the south- east of Ukraine, including not only a corridor to the annexed Crimea, but also an exit to the borders of Moldova and Transnistria.)

Little is known about Lapin Sr., as about any high-ranking Russian military man. However, sometimes such military men give interviews, where light is shed on their views.

“War is inevitable. It was, is and will be. This is a disaster, the cross of our civilization,” Lapin, then a major general, argued in an interview with Novaya Gazeta in 2013. “But when you think about life and death, about creation and destruction, you discover the interconnection in all this. This is war. It cleanses from the accumulated evil, allows you to destroy the old and build the new. But you will be able to know its meaning, its strength and meaning only when you understand that the sacrifices made to it, not in vain.”

In the same interview, Lapin talks about the fact that “in today’s material world, money is an absolute evil,” and in order to become a general, a graduate of a military school must have three important properties: to fully devote himself to the service, to be able to refuse the many temptations that surround him, and move towards excellence every day.

“It is in the pursuit of excellence and gaining experience that the key to moving up the career ladder. All the difficulties that fall on the shoulders of an officer are like trials in a computer game: there are also obstacles and barriers. If you were able to pass them, albeit stumbling, but found in you have the strength to get up and go – you reach a new level. It’s about the same in our officer service. The only difference is that, unlike a computer game, you have only one life, “said in 2013 a person who in 2022, he went to Ukrainian Chernihiv to award his own son a medal after a failed military operation by the Russian army in a foreign country.

The BBC Russian service tried to get a comment from Lieutenant Colonel Lapin, but his phone was turned off, and he did not answer the email at the time of publication of the text .

The BBC Russian service sent a request to the Russian Ministry of Defense asking for comment on whether it is common practice for the department when a father rewards his son, whether reports that Lieutenant Colonel Lapin was also promoted to colonel are true, and whether whether the Ministry of Defense is doing some work on the return of military personnel of military unit 58198 from captivity. At the time of the publication of the text, the editors did not receive a response to the request.

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