Fights near Shatsk

Polish troops, having lost uniform control in the second week of hostilities, mainly sought to move to Hungary or Romania. By the end of September 29, the troops of the Ukrainian Front were on the line Pugachow - Pyaski - Piotrków - Křemen - Bilgoraj - Przemysl - the upper reaches of the San River, despite the fact that they had dozens of disparate formations of Polish troops in the rear, some of which retained a single command. The largest group was in Polesie - the Polish task force "Polesie" (about 18 thousand people), formed from the border units , the gendarmerie , small garrisons and sailors of the Pinsk Flotilla under the command of General Franciszek Kleiberg , who retreated to the west.

On September 27, 1939, the 52nd Infantry Division , transferred that day from the 23rd Infantry Corps of the Belorussian Front to the subordination of the 15th Infantry Corps of the 5th Army of the Ukrainian Front, advanced north of Pripyat from Kobrin to Wlodawa, reaching Malorita district by evening . At 4 p.m., the 411th tank battalion and the 54th anti-tank division were occupied by Shack, capturing 429 Polish troops. At the same time, the 28th separate combat engineer battalion was advancing towards Vlodava, at the approaches to which he was fired upon, and having lost several soldiers wounded, he began to withdraw.

On the morning of September 28, in Shatsk, Soviet units were misinformed that there was a detachment of Poles outside the city, ready to surrender. Without checking this information, the 411th tank battalion (having up to 15 T-26 and 15 T-38 ) moved in a convoy and in the defile of the lakes Lucimir and Krugloye was fired by Polish artillery, losing 7 people. The attacked Soviet units, having no connection with the division command, began to withdraw. On the night of September 29, a detachment of border guards, led by Colonel Nicodemus Sulik, again occupied Shatsk ^[1] . On September 28, the 58th Rifle Regiment and reconnaissance battalion of the 52nd Rifle Division on the isthmus between the Western Bug River and Lake Pulemetskoe entered into battle with the Polish unit, which had at its disposal a large number of machine guns and light machine guns. An attempt to encircle the Soviet units, undertaken by a detachment of the Border Guard Corps, failed. Hastily retreating Soviet units managed to break out of the ring ^[1] .

As a result of a night battle, the Polish units at Melniki, with a force of up to one and a half battalions, were surrounded by the 112th Rifle Regiment and surrendered by 8 hours on September 29 . At the same time, the 411th tank battalion, fighting for the capture of Shatsk and trying to get behind enemy lines through the defile of the Chernoye and Lutsemir lakes, was fired by anti-tank guns and suffered heavy losses.

The next clash of opponents was the battle of Vytichno .

A later analysis of the results of the battle showed that the personnel of the 52nd Infantry Division, which had previously tasks in equipping and defending a fortified area ^[2] , accustomed to relatively quiet advancement in Western Belarus , was not ready for fierce resistance from the Poles. Operating in a wooded and swampy area, units of the division often did not have connections with each other. Only by 9 a.m. on September 29 did the division command manage to restore order in the units. All of these factors led to prolonged fighting and high losses. 81 people were killed (including the commander of the 411th tank battalion, Captain Nasenyuk) and 184 wounded (including the division commander, Colonel Ivan Russiyanov ), 5 T-26 tanks, 2 T-38, 2 tractors and 3 anti-tank guns were killed.

In Melniki, 18 captured Polish border guard officers were shot by the Red Army ^[3] .

• Meltiukhov M.I.Soviet -Polish war. Military-political confrontation 1918-1939 Part three. September 1939 War from the West - M., 2001.