Exactly 30 years ago, at the end of July 1986, Mikhail Gorbachev announced the imminent withdrawal of six regiments of the 40th Army from Afghanistan, and there were disputes in the government about whether it was necessary to completely withdraw troops from the DRA. By that time, Soviet troops were fighting in Afghanistan for almost 7 years, without achieving any particular results, and the decision to withdraw the troops was made - after more than two years, the last Soviet soldier left the Afghan land.
So, in this post, we will look at exactly how the war in Afghanistan went, what the conscientious soldiers and their opponents, the Mujahideen, looked like. Under the cut - a lot of color photos.
02. And it all started like this - the introduction of the so-called "Limited contingent" Soviet troops to Afghanistan began on the eve of the new year, 1980 - December 25, 1979. They introduced into Afghanistan mainly motorized rifle formations, tank units, artillery and landing forces. Also, aviation units were introduced into Afghanistan, later attached to the 40th Army as an Air Force.
It was assumed that there would be no large-scale hostilities, and the troops of the 40th Army would simply guard important strategic and industrial facilities in the country, helping the pro-communist government of Afghanistan. However, the troops of the USSR quickly became involved in hostilities, providing support to the government forces of the DRA, which led to an escalation of the conflict - as the enemy, in turn, also strengthened his ranks.
In the photo - Soviet armored personnel carriers in the mountainous region of Afghanistan, local residents with their faces covered with a veil pass by.
03. Very soon it became clear that the skills of "classic warfare", which were trained by the troops of the USSR, were not suitable in Afghanistan - this was facilitated by the mountainous terrain of the country, and the tactics of "guerrilla war" imposed by the Mujahideen - they appeared as if from nowhere, inflicted point and very painful blows and disappeared without a trace in the mountains and gorges. Formidable tanks and infantry fighting vehicles of the Soviet troops in the mountains were practically useless - neither a tank nor an infantry fighting vehicle could climb a steep slope, and their guns often simply could not hit targets on the tops of the mountains - the angle did not allow.
04. The Soviet command began to adopt the tactics of the Mujahideen - attacks by small strike groups, ambushes on supply caravans, thorough reconnaissance of the surrounding area to find the best paths, and interaction with the local population. Around 1980-81, the image and style of afghan war- checkpoints on the roads, small operations in the highlands, carried out by helicopter pilots and airborne units, blocking and destroying "rebellious" villages, ambushes.
In the photo - one of the soldiers photographs camouflaged firing positions on the flat terrain.
05. Snapshot of the beginning of the eighties - the T-62 tank took up the dominant height and covers the advance of the column of "fillers" - as fuel trucks were called in Afghanistan. The tank looks rather shabby - apparently, it has been participating in hostilities for quite some time. The gun is pointed towards the mountains and "green" - a small strip of vegetation in which an ambush of the Mujahideen can hide.
06. The Afghans called the Soviet troops "shuravi", which is translated from the Dari language as "Soviet", and the Soviet soldiers called their opponents "dushmans" (which is translated from the same Dari language as "enemies"), or abbreviated as "spirits". All movements of the Shuravi along the roads of the country quickly became known to the dushmans, since they received all the information directly from the local residents - this made it easy to set up ambushes, mine roads, and so on - by the way, Afghanistan is still full of mined areas; mines were laid by both the Mujahideen and Soviet soldiers.
07. The classic "Afghan" form is very recognizable thanks to the wide-brimmed panama, which protected from the sun better than the classic cap of those years used in the SA. Even as a headdress, sand-colored caps were often used. Interestingly, such panama hats in the Soviet army were not at all an innovation of those years; Soviet soldiers wore very similar headdresses during the battles at Khalkhin Gol in 1939.
08. According to the participants in the Afghan war, there were often problems with the uniform - one unit could wear kits different color and style, and the dead soldiers, whose bodies were sent home, were often dressed in the old uniform of the 40s model in order to “save” one set of full dress uniform in the warehouse ...
Soldiers often replaced standard boots and boots with sneakers - they were more comfortable in hot climates, and also contributed to less injury as a result of a mine explosion. Sneakers were bought in Afghan cities at the "dukan" bazaars, and also occasionally beat off Mujahideen supplies from the caravans.
09. The classic form "Afghan" (with many patch pockets), known to us from films about Afghanistan, appeared already in the second half of the 80s. It was of several types - there were special suits for tankers, for motorized riflemen, landing jump suits "mabuta" and several others. By the color of the uniform, it was easy to determine how much time a person spent in Afghanistan - since over time, the yellow “hebeshka” faded under the sun to almost white.
10. There were also winter sets of "Afghan" uniforms - they were used in the cold months (it is far from always hot in Afghanistan), as well as in high-altitude regions with a cold climate. In fact, an ordinary insulated jacket with 4 patch pockets.
11. And this is what the Mujahideen looked like - as a rule, their clothes were very eclectic and mixed traditional Afghan outfits, trophy uniforms and ordinary civilian clothes of those years like Adidas sweatpants and Puma sneakers. Open shoes like modern slippers were also very popular.
12. Ahmad Shah Masoud, a field commander, one of the main opponents of the Soviet troops, is pictured surrounded by his Mujahideen - it is clear that the clothes of the soldiers are very different, the uncle to the right of Masoud is wearing a clearly trophy hat with earflaps from the winter set Soviet form.
Of the headdresses among the Afghans, in addition to the turban, hats called "pakol" were also popular - something like a kind of beret made of fine wool. In the photo, the pakol is on the head of Ahmad Shah himself, as well as some of his soldiers.
13. And these are Afghan refugees. Outwardly, they rarely differed from the Mujahideen, which is why they often died - in total, at least 1 million civilians died during the Afghan war, the largest casualties occurred as a result of bombing or artillery attacks on villages.
14. A Soviet tanker looks at a village destroyed during the fighting near the Salang Pass. If the village was considered "rebellious" - it could be wiped off the face of the earth along with everyone who was inside the perimeter...
15. A significant place in the Afghan war was occupied by aviation, especially small ones - with the help of helicopters, the main part of the cargo was delivered, as well as military operations and cover for convoys. In the photo - a helicopter of the Afghan government army, covering the Soviet convoy.
16. And this is an Afghan helicopter shot down by the Mujahideen in the province of Zabul - this happened in 1990, after the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan.
17. Soviet soldiers who were captured - military uniforms were taken away from the prisoners, dressed in Afghan outfits. By the way, some of the prisoners converted to Islam and wished to stay in Afghanistan - I once read the stories of such people who now live in Afghanistan.
18. Checkpoint in Kabul, winter 1989, shortly before the withdrawal of Soviet troops. The photo shows a typical Kabul landscape with snow-capped mountain peaks near the horizon.
19. Tanks on the Afghan roads.
20. Soviet plane comes in to land at the airport in Kabul.
21. Military equipment.
22. Beginning of the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan.
23. Shepherd looks at the outgoing column of Soviet troops.
At the age of eighteen, the traveler Alexei Kotelnikov wrote a statement to the military registration and enlistment office to be sent to serve in Afghanistan. I was terrified to go there! But each time he was refused: “We don’t need heroes!” 16 years have passed since the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan, but Kotelnikov did not forget about his dream. Last year, he finally visited this country and today tells the readers of "SK" about his amazing journey.
Soviet legacy
- Most of all, I was afraid of an unfriendly attitude on the part of the Afghans - after all, they fought with us for ten years. Nothing like this! They have a great relationship with the Russians. For example, I was never allowed to spend the night in a tent. I specially took her with me, but every evening the Afghans dragged me to their home and provided me with dinner and an overnight stay. And every evening gatherings! As soon as they find out that a foreigner has arrived, people gather from everywhere and start asking questions.
Many Afghans, especially in the north, speak Russian well. Someone worked for Najibullah (the former pro-Soviet president of Afghanistan. - Approx. Aut.), Someone studied in Russia.
A lot of questions were asked. The most painful topic for Afghans is how is it with women in Russia? Do Russian women really go without a veil at all, and are they really so accessible?
They talked about themselves. About how badly they lived under the Taliban and how good they were under the Soviet Union. I was very surprised when I first heard the question: “Why did you leave? It was so good with you! Yes, there was a war, but at the same time there was almost free bread and gasoline, you gave cars, built roads, factories. And the most interesting thing is that I heard this every day and from completely different people. It all boiled down to "how stupid we were when we fought with you."
If a person is over 35 years old, he must have fought. Because the whole country was at war then, the only question is who is on whose side. And, as a rule, if there are 15 Afghans in the room with you, then ten of them fought on the side of the Dushmans, and five on the side Soviet Union. They remember what the battles were like, show each other the shot hands and feet. And all this is absolutely harmless.
Later, when I was in an Afghan hospital, a frank dushman looked after me. I asked him:
"Why are you taking care of me?" It is written on your face that you fought against the Soviet troops!
“Of course,” he replies. - Three years. But we have such a law: while there is a war, rob and kill. The war is over - no one will touch a guest with a finger, everyone will only be happy about him.
traces of war
- When you drive through Afghanistan, there are pebbles along the roads - red and blue. For a long time I could not understand what they mean. It turned out that the red circle on the stone means a minefield. In total, about 20 million mines remained there, that is, one mine for every Afghan. Of course, they are gradually neutralized, but people and livestock continue to be undermined.
People
- If you go to Paris, then you look at the Eiffel Tower, the Champs Elysees. And you go to Afghanistan to see people. You look at them with your mouth open - this is such an unprecedented flavor! Externally, the Afghans are very worthy - they are somewhat reminiscent of eagles. Their movements are graceful, unhurried.
What is striking is that everyone around is very young. Average age Afghan population - 19 years! In addition, they are very active and cheerful, so there is a feeling that you are in the country of youth. And everywhere there are only men. There are practically no women on the street.
In general, the farther south you go, the fewer women there are. For example, in Moscow, the streets are mostly women. Somewhere in Dagestan they sit at home. And in Afghanistan there is already a limit. 70% of people are men. All positions in this country, even exclusively female ones, are occupied by men. Men work in hairdressing salons, as well as in cafes. Women stay at home and only occasionally go shopping. They go exclusively in the veil, and, interestingly, in blue.
guardianship of special services
- The only thing that interferes is the local security services. If they understand that you are a tourist, then frenzied guardianship begins. Somehow I managed to fall into the clutches of the special services and then for a whole week I could not escape from them. Afghanistan has a strange curfew - from ten in the evening until one in the morning. And it was at this time that I should have caught the eye of the police. They don’t seem to detain me, but they don’t let me go either, under the pretext of ensuring my own safety. After that, my trip began to look like this: I wake up in some military unit, where they begin to introduce me to everyone - from a sergeant to a general. Once I was even invited to the local governor. I waited for an audience for two hours, after which I was taken to a room resembling the office of a Russian factory director. In the office sat the governor - a rather young man - and his retinue stood. Very colorful personalities - externally poured out Bin Laden and Basayev.
After all the official presentations, I was taken on a tour accompanied by guards with machine guns. And so we walked around the city for several hours, after which we returned to the military unit and they took me to the border of the next district. There I was met by other policemen, and everything started anew. I managed to get rid of the special services only in the city of Herat.
“I expected Afghans to be poorer. As in many other countries, there is a very large gap between the city and the countryside. Outwardly, the Afghan settlements look really poor: there are unsightly alumina houses around - one even gets the impression that no one lives there. But as soon as you go inside, you see a completely different picture: very clean courtyards, about fifteen children are running around. There are no problems with food - whoever is richer sets luxurious tables, like for a wedding.
The fact is that the Afghans are a very hardworking nation. As soon as another war ends, they start working, building houses, roads.
Cars
- There is a joke: if you are tired of your old car, do not rush to throw it away. Come to Afghanistan - they will gladly buy it there for a thousand dollars. True, they will make reconstruction in the Afghan way. First of all, they will put the springs from the truck. They will tear off the trunk lid, because four people standing up fit well there. Another roof rack will be attached to the roof - these are four more passenger seats. Thus, Afghan craftsmen manage to make a twenty-seater car out of an old five-seater Volga! And he will serve them for who knows how many years. The Afghans don't throw away their cars, they fix them all the time, which means that the life of their cars is literally endless. What kind of cars you just won’t meet there - up to the old domestic “Zaporozhets” and “disabled cars”.
At the same time - a huge number of brand new jeeps. In general, SUVs are the most popular vehicles in Afghanistan. You can't get there in a simple car. In vain they say that Russia has the worst roads - in Afghanistan they are incomparably worse. The traditional Afghan road is an ordinary track in the middle of the field. Sometimes only UAZ and KamAZ can drive through it.
Oleg KOPYLOV.
Glory to the Soviet Union, which sends its sons to death and obscurity!I recommend this slogan to all soviet lovers. Because it reflects reality.
And the reality is this. Just watched on Channel 5 (St. Petersburg) Andrey Maksimov's program "Personal Things" with Mikhail Shemyakin (October 30 at 13.00-14.00) (link to the announcement). In which Shemyakin told how he and his American wife went to Afghanistan to see the Mujahideen in what conditions the Soviet prisoners were kept (there were about 300 of them). Some of which were kept in acceptable conditions - by Rabbani, and some - by Hekmatyar - were subjected to cruel reprisals. Soviet authority declared all the prisoners "missing" and did not hint at the negotiations about returning them to their homeland. Shemyakin heard something out of the corner of his ear about the prisoners (he somehow arranged an auction and gave the proceeds about 15 thousand ue to Radio Afghanist - and he was reminded of this). That is why he got indignant and set up the International Committee "For the Rescue of Soviet Servicemen in Afghanistan" - in order to draw attention to the problem.
The scoop was a betrayal from the beginning - from the Bolshevik betrayal of their own Motherland in World War 1, from the Brest separate surrender immediately after the usurpation of all power - the betrayal of Russia's allies, etc. - to the end - to the betrayal of their captured soldiers in Afghanistan. Therefore, it is not surprising that the people did not oppose another betrayal - the betrayal of the nomenclature clans of the Soviet Union itself - the collapse of the USSR.
Postsovok is a continuation of the Soviet, the same power of the same nomenklatura, only diluted with ethnomafies and bandits. The attitude towards the problem of prisoners is almost the same.
I searched the net and found an article on the topic, which I reprint below, under the cut.
http://nvo.ng.ru/wars/2004-02-13/7_afgan.html
http://nvo.ng.ru/printed/86280 (for printing)
Independent military review
Cursed and forgotten?
It is difficult to search for the missing in Afghanistan, but even more difficult to overcome the indifference of their own officials
2004-02-13 / Andrey Nikolaevich Pochtarev - candidate of historical sciences.
When the Limited Contingent of Soviet Troops (OKSV) was introduced into the DRA, no one could have imagined that this "friendly action" would cost more than 15 thousand lives of Soviet soldiers and more than 400 missing.
"BROTHERHOOD" IS NOT FOR EVERYONE
What are you, what kind of "Combat Brotherhood" is there, - with irony answered my question about the associations of "Chechens" or "Afghans" the military commissar of the Inza district of the Ulyanovsk region, Lieutenant Colonel Oleg Korobkov. - It is in the capital that they are active - they are engaged in political games, but in the outback everyone is abandoned, who survive as best they can. And the military registration and enlistment office does not even have funds for elementary internal needs ...
There are 15 "Afghans" in the Inza district. Only few people have heard the name of the former private Nikolai Golovin.
And in July 1988, the story of this guy flew around the front pages of newspapers. How - from Canada to the Union voluntarily returned one of those whom foreign journalists managed to take to the West - Private Nikolai Golovin. He returned immediately after the statement by the USSR Prosecutor General Sukharev that the former servicemen who were held captive in the DRA would not be subjected to criminal prosecution.
He won’t tell you anything, - Nikolay Lyuba’s wife met me. - Two years as a disabled person of group I. As he returned, the wedding was played, two daughters bore him. Didn't notice any weirdness. Only at night sometimes he screamed and jumped up. He did not like to spread about Afghanistan, he closed himself. Then he began to drink. Got into an accident. She barely got out, but only with his head he became ill. You need to be admitted to the hospital for permanent treatment. And if I send it, how will we live with the girls? The plant has been closed for a long time, there is no work. We live on one of his pensions.
In the neighboring village there is another "Afghan" - Alexander Lebedev. For him, the "undeclared" war ended just as badly. And now the former warrior-internationalist is wandering around the village, constantly talking to himself, collecting funeral scraps for food at the local cemetery.
Part of the truth about the Afghan captivity of Golovin was revealed by an article in Ogonyok for 1989 by Artem Borovik about meetings with those who were captured in Afghanistan, got out with foreign help and stayed in America - Alexander Voronov, Alexei Peresleni, Nikolai Movchan and Igor Kovalchuk. It was Kovalchuk, a former paratrooper who served in Ghazni and, 9 days before returning home, who escaped from the guardhouse in Kunduz a second time, was the one with whom Private Nikolai Golovin, a diesel operator, spent all 4 years in captivity.
Yes, in Afghanistan, OKSV, in which about 1 million soldiers and officers served during the 9 years of the war, everything happened. Along with the selfless fulfillment of military duty, there were also cases of cowardice, cowardice, leaving units with and without weapons in an attempt to escape from "non-status", suicides and shooting at friendly people, smuggling, drugs and other crimes.
According to the military prosecutor's office, from December 1979 to February 1989, 4,307 people were prosecuted as part of the 40th Army in the DRA. At the time of entry into force of the resolution of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR (December 15, 1989) "On amnesty for former servicemen of the contingent of Soviet troops in Afghanistan who committed crimes," more than 420 former internationalist soldiers were in prison.
Most of those who left the location of their units, consciously or not, fell into the hands of dushmans. As the former prisoners said, the first question that interested their new owners was: did they shoot at the Mujahideen and how many were killed? At the same time, they did not give a damn about any military secrets or secrets of the Russians. They didn't even care about their names. In return, they gave theirs.
The irreconcilable, as a rule, were immediately shot, the wounded, hesitant or expressing obedience were taken with them to gangs, where they were forced to learn the Koran and convert to Islam. There were also renegades who took up arms and went to fight together with the "spirits" against their own.
Major General Alexander Lyakhovsky, who served in Afghanistan for two years (1987-1989) as part of the Operational Group of the USSR Ministry of Defense, recalls how Lieutenant Khudaev, nicknamed Kazbek, became the leader of one of the gangs. A certain bearded Kostya was also known, who boldly fought against his own at Ahmad Shah Massoud in Panjshir. He escaped somewhere in 1983, for a long time was listed in the personal guards of the "Panjshir lion" until he expressed a desire to return to the Union. At Masud, according to the memoirs of the former head of the Operational Group of the USSR Ministry of Defense (1989-1990), General of the Army Makhmut Gareev, another former Soviet prisoner of war, whose name was Abdollo, was training machine gunners. He was given a house, he got married and in 1989 already had three children. He answered all secret offers to return home with a categorical refusal.
ALL CIRCLES OF HELL
Here is what private Dmitry Buvaylo from the Khmelnitsky region said in December 1987 after his release: “On the very first day of capture, I was brutally beaten, my uniform and shoes were torn off. imprisoned, the food was from nothing but waste.Sometimes after eating I felt some strange state of excitement, then depression.Later, one captured Afghan cellmate said that this was the effect of drugs added to food.In prison, for 8-10 hours daily, the guards forced to learn Farsi, to memorize suras from the Koran, to pray.For any disobedience, for mistakes in reading suras, they beat them with lead clubs until they bled.
Western correspondents often visited the prison. They brought a lot of anti-Soviet literature, excitedly told what a carefree life awaits me in the West, if I agree to go there.
Dmitry was lucky - he was exchanged for convicted rebels. But some agreed. According to the USSR Foreign Ministry (as of June 1989), 16 people remained in the United States, about 10 - in Canada, a few - in Western Europe. After July 1988, three people immediately returned home: one from America and two from Canada.
In the Pakistani camp Mobarez there was a prison, which was a cave in the rock without access to light and fresh air. Here in 1983-1986. 6-8 people of our citizens were kept. Haruf, the head of the prison, systematically subjected them to abuse and torture. They spent more than two years there, and before that, privates Valery Kiselev from Penza and Sergey Meshcheryakov from Voronezh spent in the Ala-Jirga camp. Unable to stand it, the first committed suicide on August 22, and the second on October 2, 1984.
With a high degree of probability, it can be argued that they were shot while trying to escape or for disobedience, Private Vladimir Kashirov from Sverdlovsk region, corporal Alexander Matveev from Volgograd, junior sergeant Gasmulla Abdulin from the Chelyabinsk region, privates Andrei Gromov from Karelia, Anatoly Zakharov from Mordovia, Ravil Sayfutdinov from the Perm region, sergeant Viktor Chekhov from Kislovodsk, lieutenant colonel Nikolai Zayats from the Volyn region ...
"VOLGA" FOR RUTSKOY
The countdown of the missing began already in January 1981. At that time, four military advisers did not return from the Afghan regiment, where the rebellion began. At the end of 1980, there were already 57 such people, including 5 officers, and by April 1985 - 250 people.
In 1982, we managed to reach an agreement with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) on assistance in rescuing our soldiers from captivity and transferring them to Switzerland to the Zugerberg camp. Conditions: complete isolation, promotion of Western values, work in the subsidiary farm, for which 240 francs a month were due, excursions to the city on weekends. The term of imprisonment was set at two years. 11 people passed through the Zugerberg. Three returned to the USSR, eight remained in Europe. Therefore, in 1986, the assistance of the ICRC was refused.
For a long time in the Special Department of the 40th Army, the department for the search for missing servicemen was headed by Colonel Yevgeny Veselov. According to him, over 9 years of the war, counterintelligence officers managed to literally wrest from captivity (exchange, ransom) more than 50 people. The first on this list was pilot Captain Zaikin, who was handed over in February 1981 to the USSR Embassy in Pakistan. Then there were servicemen Korchinsky, Zhuraev, Yazkuliev, Battakhanov, Yankovsky, Fateev, Charaev.
The future vice president of the Russian Federation, Hero of the Soviet Union, Major General of Aviation, and at that time (August 4, 1988) the deputy commander of the Air Force of the 40th Army, Colonel Alexander Rutskoi was shot down during a bombing and assault strike near the village of Shaboheil south of Khost, from where to the border with Pakistan remained only 6-7 kilometers (aircraft were strictly forbidden to approach the border closer than 5 km). After the attack, Rutskoy's Su-25 loitered at an altitude of 7,000 meters and corrected the work of the other seven "rooks" that were hiding behind a flight of MiG-23 fighters. Near the Pakistani border, he was caught by a pair of F-16s of the Pakistan Air Force, led by pilot Ater Bokhari. After a series of maneuvers from a distance of 4,600 meters, Bokhari shot down Rutskoi's Su-25 with a Sidewinder missile. The pilot barely managed to eject. According to fragments of the map, he found that he was 15-20 kilometers on the other side of the border. After five days of wandering in the mountains, skirmishes, and attempts to come to their side, captivity followed at the Pakistani base of Miramshah. According to the memoirs of Valentin Varennikov, to rescue Alexander Vladimirovich from captivity, they used all the channels of communication between our military intelligence officers and KGB intelligence officers with dushmans, as well as the channels of the President of the DRA Najibulla. A week later, the officer was redeemed. As one of the participants in these events testified, his head was valued approximately at the cost of the Volga car (some soldiers were ransomed for 100,000 Afghani).
LONG ROAD TO HOME
Activists of the All-Union Association of Families of Soviet Prisoners of War "Nadezhda" collected a file of 415 missing persons. In the summer and autumn of 1989, its delegations worked in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The result was the transfer in November of the same year in Peshawar of Valery Prokopchuk from the Zhytomyr region, who spent two years in captivity, and Andrei Lopukh from the Brest region, who was held by dushmans for two and a half years. The names of six more prisoners of war were established. Two, of whom one was thought dead for a long time, were released. Private Alloyarov managed to be redeemed for 12 million afghani.
In the mid-80s, there was an International Committee "For the Rescue of Soviet Servicemen in Afghanistan" in the United States, led by the artist Mikhail Shemyakin, and in June 1988 a similar Soviet Coordinating Committee of the Soviet Public for the Liberation of Soviet Servicemen was created under the leadership of the Deputy Chairman of the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions Vladimir Lomonosov , where various officials, artists and public figures "worked". The results of their work were deplorable, if not zero.
A number of foreign figures also did something. Thus, in 1984, a member of the European Parliament Commission on Human Rights, Lord Bethell, was taken to England by former prisoners of war Igor Rykov from Vologda and Sergei Tseluevsky from Leningrad regions(later returned to the Union).
Through the representative of the head of the PLO, Yasser Arafat - Abu Khaled, in December 1988, 5 more servicemen were released from the dungeons of Hekmatyar. At the same time, it was reported that 313 people remained in captivity, and a total of up to 100 military personnel were returned.
In 1991, the 1st department of the Main Directorate of the KGB of the USSR took up this issue, and two years later military intelligence officers and counterintelligence officers of the then Ministry of Security of Russia joined in. Under the President of the Russian Federation, a Commission was created to search for prisoners of war, internees and missing citizens, headed by Colonel General Dmitry Volkogonov. As time has shown, she was more interested in finding not her compatriots, but American ones.
And only one organization since its creation in December 1991 (registered in March 1992) has remained true to the chosen direction - the Committee on the Affairs of Internationalist Warriors under the Council of Heads of Government of the CIS Member States. In its structure there is a department of international cooperation and coordination of work on the search for and release of prisoners of war. His boss is retired colonel Leonid Biryukov, an "Afghan".
For eleven years of work of our department, - says Leonid Ignatievich, - the Committee managed to return 12 people to their homeland, and in total since February 15, 1989 - 22 people. Three places of burial of Soviet soldiers who died in captivity, the place of burial of the shot political adviser and the place of death of the An-12 transport aircraft with Vitebsk paratroopers on board were determined. During the same period, we organized about 10 meetings of parents with their sons, who for various reasons remained in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Today, the names of 8 servicemen who refused to return to their homeland are known: D. Gulgeldiyev, S. Krasnoperov, A. Levenets, V. Melnikov, G. Tsevma, G. Tirkeshov, R. Abdukarimov, K. Ermatov. Some of them started families, others became drug addicts, and still others have the blood of compatriots on their conscience.
In our file of missing persons, Leonid Biryukov continues, there are 287 names, including 137 from Russia, 64 from Ukraine, 28 from Uzbekistan, 20 from Kazakhstan, 12 from Belarus, 5 each from Azerbaijan, Moldova and Turkmenistan, 4 each from Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, 1 each from Latvia, Armenia and Georgia.
Over the past three years, the search has received an additional impetus in connection with the discovery of new details of the uprising in the prisoner of war camp in the Pakistani village of Badaber.
BADABER - A SYMBOL OF THE UNSUBITED SPIRIT
Badaber was a typical Afghan refugee camp. On an area of 500 hectares, about 8 thousand people lived in adobe huts. Another 3,000 unmarried refugees huddled in about 170 tattered tents. But most importantly, here was the basic training center of the armed formations of the IOA Rabbani. Closer to the spurs of the Khyber, in the far corner of the camp behind an eight-meter fence, the training regiment "Khaled-ibn-Walid" was based. About 300 Mujahideen cadets were trained there for 6 months. The head of the center was Major Kudratullah of the Pakistani Armed Forces. The teaching staff consisted of up to 20 Pakistani and Egyptian military instructors and 6 American advisers, headed by a certain Warsan.
A special zone of the center (fortress) was considered 6 warehouses with weapons and ammunition and 3 underground prisons. The latter contained up to 40 Afghan and 12 Soviet prisoners of war. The agents of the Ministry of State Security of the DRA established their Muslim names: Abdul Rahman, Ibrahim Fazlikhuda, Kasym, Rustam, Muhammad Islam, Muhammad Aziz Sr., Muhammad Aziz Jr., Kanand, Islameddin and Yunus. According to witnesses, the elders among them were tall, under two meters, 35-year-old Abdul Rahman and 31-year-old, slightly below average height Yunus, aka Viktor.
Soviet prisoners were kept in shackles and periodically taken to work in a quarry and unload ammunition. They were systematically beaten by the guards, led by the commandant of the prison, Abdurakhman, who wore a whip with a lead tip.
But every patience has a limit. On the evening of March 26, 1985, having removed two sentries (the rest, having laid down their arms, prayed), the Soviet and Afghan prisoners quickly took possession of the arsenal. Twin ZPU, DShK were put up on the roof. The M-62 mortars and RPGs were put on alert.
However, among the rebels there was a traitor from among the Uzbeks or Tajiks named Muhammad Islam, who escaped from the fortress. The entire regiment of "spirits" rose in alarm. But their first attack was repelled by heavy, well-aimed POW fire.
The entire area was soon blocked by a triple ring of detachments of the Mujahideen, Pakistani Malishes, infantry, tank and artillery units of the 11th Army Corps of the Pakistani Armed Forces.
The fight went on all night. And the next morning, an assault began, in which, along with the Mujahideen, regular Pakistani troops took part. MLRS "Grad" and a link of helicopters of the Pakistani Air Force were used. Radio intelligence of the 40th Army recorded a radio interception between their crews and the air base, as well as a report from one of the crews about a bombing attack on the fortress. Obviously, the ammunition depot was detonated from the explosion of an aerial bomb. Everything went up in the air. Fragments rained down in a radius of a kilometer. More than 120 Mujahideen were killed (IPA leader Hekmatyar reported 97 dead "brothers in faith"), 6 foreign advisers and 13 representatives of the Pakistani authorities. 3 Grad MLRS, about 2 million missiles and shells were destroyed various types, about 40 artillery pieces, mortars and machine guns. Most of the Soviet prisoners of war also died from the explosion. And although in November 1991 Rabbani claimed in Moscow that "three of them survived and were released," there is evidence that they, wounded, buried under the rubble, were finished off by brutal dushmans with grenades.
What our guys have done in Afghanistan, of course, can be equated with heroism. Hekmatyar appreciated this in his own way, who gave a ciphered circular instruction to his thugs: henceforth, do not take Russians prisoner and strengthen the protection of the existing ones. But, as it turns out, this order was not carried out by everyone. And after until the end of 1985, for example, privates Valery Bugaenko from the Dnepropetrovsk region, Andrey Titov and Viktor Chupakhin from the Moscow region were captured.
Soviet military intelligence, following the order of the Minister of Defense, bit by bit collected data on the participants in the uprising. Our diplomats also took part in this. Some breakthrough came with the coming to power of President Ghulam Ishaq Khan (Zia Ul-Haq died in a plane crash in 1988). In November 1991, Rabbani told something about the participants in the uprising during his visit to the USSR. At the same time, he named 8 names held by Soviet military personnel. Later, during 1993-1996, 6 of them were released from captivity. The fate of the other two - Viktor Balabanov and Archli Jinari - remains unknown to this day.
In December 1991, after Alexander Rutskoi's visit to Islamabad, the Pakistani authorities handed over to Moscow a list of 54 prisoners of war who were with the Mujahideen. 14 of them were still alive at that time.
And, finally, in early 1992, Pakistan's First Deputy Foreign Minister Shahriyar Khan handed over to the Soviet side a list of participants in the Badaber uprising. It originally included 5 names: privates Vaskov Igor Nikolaevich (military unit 22031, Kabul province, from the Kostroma region), Zverkovich Alexander Anatolyevich (military unit 53701, Bagram, from the Vitebsk region), junior sergeant Sergey Vasilyevich Korshenko (in / unit 89933, Fayzabad, from the Crimean region), corporal Dudkin Nikolai Iosifovich (military unit 65753, Balkh, from the Altai Territory) and Private Kuskov Valery Grigoryevich (military unit 53380, Kunduz, from the Donetsk region). Later, Kuskov's surname disappeared due to the appearance of information about his death during shelling in the summer of the same 1985 in the village of Kubai, which is 10 kilometers from Kunduz. He was buried at the local cemetery near the Kunduz airfield.
According to the story of Rabbani and the Afghan officer Gol Mohammad, it was possible to establish the name of Yunus, the fifth participant in the uprising. It turned out to be an employee of the SA Dukhovchenko Viktor Vasilyevich from Zaporizhia, who worked as a diesel operator in the Bagram KECh.
Thanks to the activity of the Ukrainian State Committee for Veterans Affairs, headed by its chairman Major General Serhiy Chervonopisky, by the end of 2002 information came from Pakistan that junior sergeant Mykola Grigoryevich Samin (military unit 38021, Parvan, from the Tselinograd region) and private Sergey Levchishin (military unit 13354, Baglan, from the Samara region). Thus, they became seven out of twelve.
MEMORY IS NEEDED ALIVE
At the request of the State Committee for Veterans Affairs, on February 8, 2003, President of Ukraine Leonid Kuchma, by his decree, awarded Sergey Korshenko posthumously with the Order "For Courage" III degree "for special courage and courage shown in the performance of military duty."
In 2002, a similar request was sent to Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov to award the Russians Igor Vaskov, Nikolai Dudkin and Sergei Levchishin. In May last year, petitions went to the presidents of Belarus and Kazakhstan so that they, in turn, would award their natives former republics Alexander Zverkovich and Nikolai Samin. On December 12, 2003, President Nazarbayev awarded Nikolai Semin with the Order of Valor, III degree. posthumously.
And here is the answer from the awards department of the Main Directorate of Personnel of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation. We read: “According to the lists at our disposal (Book of Memory of Soviet soldiers who died in Afghanistan), the internationalist soldiers you mentioned are not among the dead.
I inform you that the award for the fulfillment of international duty in the Republic of Afghanistan ended in July 1991 on the basis of the Directive of the Deputy Minister of Defense of the USSR on personnel dated March 11, 1991.
Based on the foregoing, and also, given the lack of documentary confirmation of the specific merits of the former military personnel indicated in the list, at present there are no grounds for initiating a petition for an award. "Commenting on this reply is pointless.
And these overwhelmingly 20-22-year-old guys, whom a bunch of officials sent to Afghanistan, abandoned and forgot, performed feats. So it was in Badaber in April 1985. And in 1986 near Peshawar, where a group of prisoners of war led by junior sergeant Yuri Siglyar from Krasnodar entered into a fight with the "spirits" (we have yet to find out about this). We will also have to learn about those who preferred death to captivity: tanker Private Nikolai Sokolov, who defended the commander in the last battle, Muscovite Private Andrey Nefedov, who covered his comrades, interpreter Junior Lieutenant German Kiryushkin, and adviser to the Afghan commando brigade, Lieutenant Colonel Mikhail Borodin, who fought to the last surrounded by gangsters, and about many others whose names are still on the list of the missing.
Probably writing about such terrible things on the eve of the upcoming new year holidays- it's not quite right. However, on the other hand, this date cannot be changed or changed in any way. After all, it was on the eve of the new 1980 that the entry of Soviet troops into Afghanistan began, which became the starting point of the long-term Afghan war that cost our country many thousands of lives...
Today, hundreds of books and memoirs, all kinds of other historical materials have been written about this war. But here's what catches your eye. The authors somehow diligently avoid the topic of the death of Soviet prisoners of war on Afghan soil. Yes, some episodes of this tragedy are mentioned in separate memoirs of participants in the war. But the author of these lines has never come across a systemic, generalizing work about the dead prisoners of war - although I follow the Afghan historical theme very carefully. Meanwhile, whole books (mainly by Western authors) have already been written about the same problem on the other side - the death of Afghans at the hands of Soviet troops. There are even websites (including those in Russia) that tirelessly expose "the crimes of the Soviet troops, who brutally destroyed civilians and Afghan resistance fighters." But almost nothing is said about the often terrible fate of Soviet captured soldiers.
I did not make a reservation - it was a terrible fate. The thing is that Afghan dushmans doomed to death of Soviet prisoners of war rarely killed immediately. Those whom the Afghans wanted to convert to Islam were lucky, exchanged for their own or donated as a "gesture of goodwill" to Western human rights organizations, so that they, in turn, glorified the "generous Mujahideen" all over the world. But those who were doomed to death ... Usually the death of a prisoner was preceded by so terrible torture and torture, from the mere description of which immediately becomes uncomfortable.
Why did the Afghans do it? Apparently, the whole point is in the backward Afghan society, where the traditions of the most radical Islam, which demanded the painful death of the infidel as a guarantor of getting into paradise, coexisted with the wild pagan remnants of individual tribes, where human sacrifices were practiced, accompanied by real fanaticism. Often all this served as a means of psychological warfare in order to frighten the Soviet enemy - the mutilated remains of captured dushmans were often thrown to our military garrisons ...
According to experts, our soldiers were captured in different ways - someone was in unauthorized absence from a military unit, someone deserted due to hazing, someone was captured by dushmans at a post or in a real battle. Yes, today we can condemn these prisoners for their rash acts that led to the tragedy (or vice versa, admire those who were captured in a combat situation). But those who among them accepted martyrdom have already atoned for all their obvious and imaginary sins by their death. And therefore, at least from a purely Christian point of view, they deserve no less blessed memory in our hearts than those soldiers of the Afghan war (living and dead) who performed heroic, recognized deeds.
Here are just some of the episodes of the tragedy of the Afghan captivity, which the author managed to collect from open sources.
The legend of the "red tulip"
From the book by American journalist George Crile "Charlie Wilson's War" (unknown details of the secret CIA war in Afghanistan):
“They say this is a true story, and although the details have changed over the years, in general it sounds something like this. On the morning of the second day after the invasion of Afghanistan, a Soviet sentry spotted five jute sacks on the edge of the airstrip at the Bagram Air Base near Kabul. At first, he did not attach much importance to this, but then he poked the barrel of his machine gun into the nearest bag and saw blood come out. Explosives experts were called in to check the bags for booby traps. But they discovered something much more terrible. Each bag contained a young Soviet soldier wrapped in his own skin. As far as medical examination was able to determine, these people died a particularly painful death: their skin was cut on the stomach, and then pulled up and tied over their heads.
This type of brutal execution is called the "red tulip", and almost all the soldiers who served on Afghan soil have heard of it - a doomed person, having entered unconsciousness with a large dose of the drug, was hung by the arms. The skin was then trimmed around the entire body and rolled up. When the action of the dope ended, the condemned, having experienced a strong pain shock, first went crazy, and then slowly died ...
Today it is difficult to say how many of our soldiers found their end in this way. Usually, there was and is a lot of talk among veterans of Afghanistan about the “red tulip” - one of the legends was just brought by the American Crile. But few of the veterans can name the specific name of this or that martyr. However, this does not mean that this execution is only Afghan legend. Thus, the fact of the use of the “red tulip” on private Viktor Gryaznov, the driver of an army truck who went missing in January 1981, was reliably recorded.
Only 28 years later, Viktor's countrymen, journalists from Kazakhstan, were able to find out the details of his death.
In early January 1981, Viktor Gryaznov and ensign Valentin Yarosh were ordered to go to the city of Puli-Khumri to a military warehouse to receive cargo. A few days later they set off on their return journey. But on the way the column was attacked by dushmans. The truck driven by Gryaznov broke down, and then he and Valentin Yarosh took up arms. The battle lasted for half an hour ... The ensign's body was later found not far from the place of the battle, with a broken head and gouged out eyes. But the dushmans dragged Victor with them. What happened to him later is evidenced by a certificate sent to Kazakhstani journalists in response to their official request from Afghanistan:
“In early 1981, the Mujahideen of Abdul Razad Askhakzai’s detachment, during a battle with the infidels, was captured by Shuravi (Soviet), he called himself Gryaznov Viktor Ivanovich. He was asked to become a devout Muslim, a Mujahideen, a defender of Islam, to participate in ghazavat - a holy war - with infidels. Gryaznov refused to become a true believer and destroy the Shuravi. By the verdict of the Sharia court, Gryaznov was sentenced to death penalty- red tulip, sentence carried out.
Of course, everyone is free to think about this episode as he pleases, but personally it seems to me that ordinary Gryaznov accomplished a real feat, refusing to commit betrayal and accepting a cruel death for it. One can only guess how many more of our guys in Afghanistan have committed the same heroic deeds, which, unfortunately, remain unknown to this day.
Foreign witnesses speak
However, in the arsenal of dushmans, in addition to the “red tulip”, there were many more brutal ways to kill Soviet prisoners.
The Italian journalist Oriana Falacci, who repeatedly visited Afghanistan and Pakistan in the 80s, testifies. During these trips, she finally became disillusioned with the Afghan Mujahideen, whom Western propaganda then painted exclusively as noble fighters against communism. "Noble fighters" turned out to be real monsters in human form:
“In Europe, they didn’t believe me when I talked about what they usually did with Soviet prisoners. How Soviet hands and feet were sawn off... The victims did not die immediately. Only after some time the victim was finally decapitated and the severed head was played in buzkashi, an Afghan variety of polo. As for the arms and legs, they were sold as trophies in the market...”.
Something similar is described by the English journalist John Fullerton in his book “ Soviet occupation Afghanistan":
“Death is the usual end of those Soviet prisoners who were communists ... The first years of the war, the fate of Soviet prisoners was often terrible. One group of flayed prisoners was hung on hooks in a butcher's shop. Another prisoner became the centerpiece of an attraction called buzkashi, the cruel and savage polo of Afghans riding horses, snatching a headless sheep from each other instead of a ball. Instead, they used a prisoner. Alive! And he was literally torn to pieces.”
And here is another shocking confession of a foreigner. This is an excerpt from Frederick Forsyth's novel The Afghan. Forsyth is known for his closeness to the British intelligence agencies who helped the Afghan spooks, and therefore, knowingly, he wrote the following:
“The war was brutal. Few prisoners were taken, and those who died quickly could consider themselves lucky. The highlanders especially fiercely hated Russian pilots. Those who were captured alive were left in the sun with a small incision in the abdomen, so that the entrails swelled, spilled out and fried until death brought relief. Sometimes the prisoners were given to women who ripped off the skin of the living with knives ... ".
Beyond the human mind
All this is confirmed by our sources. For example, in the memoir of the international journalist Iona Andronov, who has repeatedly been to Afghanistan:
“After the battles near Jalalabad, I was shown in the ruins of a suburban village the mutilated corpses of two Soviet soldiers captured by the Mujahideen. The bodies cut open by daggers looked like a sickeningly bloody mess. I heard about such savagery many times: the flayers cut off the ears and noses of the captives, dissected the bellies and pulled out the intestines, cut off the heads and stuffed the open peritoneum inside. And if they captured several captives, they tortured them one by one in front of the next martyrs.
Andronov in his book recalls his friend, military translator Viktor Losev, who had the misfortune of being wounded and captured:
"I learned that ... the army authorities in Kabul were able, through Afghan intermediaries, to buy Losev's corpse from the Mujahideen for a lot of money ... The body of a Soviet officer given to us was subjected to such abuse that I still do not dare to describe it. And I don’t know: whether he died from a combat wound or the wounded was tortured to death by monstrous torture.The hacked remains of Victor in tightly soldered zinc were taken home by the “black tulip”.
By the way, the fate of the captured Soviet military and civilian advisers was really terrible. For example, in 1982, military counterintelligence officer Viktor Kolesnikov, who served as an adviser in one of the units of the Afghan government army, was tortured by dushmans. These Afghan soldiers went over to the side of the dushmans, and as a “gift” they “presented” a Soviet officer and translator to the Mujahideen. Major of the KGB of the USSR Vladimir Garkavy recalls:
“Kolesnikov and the translator were tortured for a long time and subtly. In this case, the “spirits” were masters. Then they cut off their heads and, having packed the tormented bodies in bags, threw them into the roadside dust on the Kabul-Mazar-i-Sharif highway, not far from the Soviet checkpoint.
As we can see, both Andronov and Garkavy refrain from details of the death of their comrades, sparing the reader's psyche. But one can guess about these tortures - at least from the memoirs of the former KGB officer Alexander Nezdolya:
“And how many times, due to inexperience, and sometimes as a result of elementary neglect of security measures, not only internationalist soldiers died, but also Komsomol workers seconded by the Central Committee of the Komsomol to create youth organizations. I remember a case of blatantly brutal reprisal against one of these guys. He was to fly from Herat to Kabul. But in a hurry, I forgot the folder with documents and returned for it, and catching up with the group, I ran into dushmanov. Having captured him alive, the “spirits” cruelly mocked him, cut off his ears, cut open his stomach and stuffed him and his mouth with earth. Then the still living Komsomol member was put on a stake and, demonstrating their Asian cruelty, was carried in front of the population of the villages.
After this became known to everyone, each of the special forces of our Karpaty team made it a rule to wear an F-1 grenade in the left lapel of a jacket pocket. So that, in case of injury or a hopeless situation, not to fall into the hands of dushmans alive ... "
A terrible picture appeared before those who, on duty, had to collect the remains of tortured people - employees of military counterintelligence and medical workers. Many of these people are still silent about what they had to see in Afghanistan, and this is quite understandable. But some still dare to speak. Here is what a nurse at a Kabul military hospital once told Belarusian writer Svetlana Aleksievich:
“The whole of March, right there, near the tents, cut off arms and legs were dumped ...
Corpses ... They lay in a separate room ... Half-naked, with gouged out eyes,
once - with a carved star on his stomach ... Earlier in the movie about civil
I saw this in the war."
No less amazing things were told to the writer Larisa Kucherova (author of the book “The KGB in Afghanistan”) by the former head of the special department of the 103rd Airborne Division, Colonel Viktor Sheiko-Koshuba. Once he happened to investigate an incident with the disappearance of an entire convoy of our trucks along with drivers - thirty-two people, led by an ensign. This column left Kabul for the area of the Karcha reservoir for sand for construction needs. The column left and ... disappeared. Only on the fifth day, the paratroopers of the 103rd division, alerted, found what was left of the drivers, who, as it turned out, were captured by dushmans:
“The mutilated, dismembered remains of human bodies, powdered with thick viscous dust, were scattered over the dry rocky ground. Heat and time have already done their job, but what people have created is beyond description! Empty sockets of gouged out eyes, staring at the indifferent empty sky, ripped and gutted bellies, cut off genitals ... Even those who had seen a lot in this war and considered themselves impenetrable men lost their nerves ... After some time, our intelligence officers received information that that after the guys were captured, the dushmans led them bound around the villages for several days, and civilians with furious fury stabbed the helpless boys, distraught with horror, with knives. Men and women, old and young... Having quenched their bloody thirst, a crowd of people seized by a feeling of animal hatred threw stones at half-dead bodies. And when the stone rain knocked them down, spooks armed with daggers got down to business ...
Such monstrous details became known from a direct participant in that massacre, captured during the next operation. Calmly looking into the eyes of the Soviet officers present, he spoke in detail, savoring every detail, about the abuse that unarmed boys were subjected to. With the naked eye, it was clear that at that moment the prisoner received special pleasure from the very memories of torture ... ".
Dushmans really attracted the peaceful Afghan population to their brutal actions, which, it seems, took part in mockery of our servicemen with great willingness. This happened to the wounded soldiers of our special forces company, which in April 1985 fell into a dushman ambush in the Marawara gorge, near the Pakistani border. A company without proper cover entered one of the Afghan villages, after which a real massacre began there. Here is how General Valentin Varennikov, head of the Operational Group of the Ministry of Defense of the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, described it in his memoirs.
“The company spread across the village. Suddenly, several large-caliber machine guns began to hit from the heights to the right and left at once. All the soldiers and officers jumped out of the yards and houses and scattered around the village, looking for shelter somewhere at the foot of the mountains, from where there was intense shooting. It was a fatal mistake. If the company took refuge in these adobe houses and behind thick duvals, which are not penetrated not only by heavy machine guns, but also by a grenade launcher, then the personnel could fight for a day, and more, until help came up.
In the first minutes, the company commander was killed and the radio station was destroyed. This made things even more disorganized. The personnel rushed about at the foot of the mountains, where there were neither stones nor a bush that would have sheltered from a leaden downpour. Most of the people were killed, the rest were wounded.
And then the dushmans descended from the mountains. There were ten or twelve of them. They consulted. Then one climbed onto the roof and began to observe, two went along the road to a neighboring village (it was a kilometer away), and the rest began to bypass our soldiers. The wounded, having thrown a loop from a belt on their feet, were dragged closer to the village, and all the dead were given a control shot in the head.
Approximately an hour later, the two returned, but already accompanied by nine teenagers aged ten to fifteen years and three big dogs- Afghan Shepherds. The leaders gave them certain instructions, and with squealing and shouting they rushed to finish off our wounded with knives, daggers and axes. Dogs gnawed our soldiers by the throat, the boys chopped off their arms and legs, cut off their noses, ears, and ripped open their stomachs., gouged out eyes. And adults cheered them up and laughed approvingly.
It was over in thirty or forty minutes. The dogs licked their lips. Two older teenagers chopped off two heads, strung them on a stake, raised them like a banner, and the whole team of frenzied executioners and sadists went back to the village, taking with them all the weapons of the dead.
Varenikov writes that only junior sergeant Vladimir Turchin survived then. The soldier hid in the river reeds and saw with his own eyes how his comrades were being tortured. Only the next day did he manage to get out to his own. After the tragedy, Varenikov himself wished to see him. But the conversation did not work out, because as the general writes:
“He was shaking all over. Not only did he tremble a little, no, everything was trembling in him - his face, arms, legs, torso. I took him by the shoulder, and this trembling was transmitted to my arm. It was as if he had a vibration disease. Even if he said something, he clattered his teeth, so he tried to answer questions with a nod of his head (he agreed or denied). The poor man did not know what to do with his hands, they were trembling very much.
I realized that a serious conversation with him would not work. He sat him down and, taking him by the shoulders and trying to calm him down, began to console him, to speak good words that everything is already behind, that you need to get into shape. But he continued to tremble. His eyes expressed the full horror of the experience. He was mentally severely traumatized."
Probably, such a reaction on the part of a 19-year-old boy is not surprising - from the spectacle he saw, even quite adult men who had seen the views could move their minds. They say that Turchin, even today, after almost three decades, still has not come to his senses and categorically refuses to talk to anyone about the Afghan topic ...
God be his judge and comforter! Like all those who have seen with their own eyes all the wild inhumanity of the Afghan war.
Vadim Andryukhin, editor-in-chief
The threats were not empty. Soviet military prosecutors in Afghanistan had to deal with a whole bunch of crimes: murder, looting, rape, drug use, desertion, self-mutilation, theft and violence against the local population. Severe sentences were imposed on the guilty, including imprisonment, sending to disciplinary battalions in the USSR, and in some cases, execution. There was a time when two hundred Soviet soldiers were kept in the infamous Puli-Charkhi prison near Kabul, accused of various crimes against the Afghan population, including murders. By the end of the war, more than two and a half thousand Soviet soldiers were serving a sentence, more than two hundred - for premeditated murder (376) .
Until the archive of the military prosecutor's office is published, it is impossible to give any reliable estimates. And the available statistics are quite heterogeneous. The general, speaking to the commanders of the 40th Army in 1988, said that in 1987 the number of crimes had decreased from 745 to 543. He named several units where the situation was very difficult: reconnaissance detachments, known for their reckless attitude to discipline, the Air Force, 108- I and the 201st motorized rifle divisions, the 66th and 70th separate motorized rifle brigades, the 860th separate motorized rifle regiment. According to other sources, 6,412 criminal cases were initiated against Soviet soldiers in Afghanistan, including 714 on charges of murder, 2,840 on charges of selling weapons to Afghans, and 534 cases related to drug trafficking (377) .
Despite the sanctions, the soldiers committed many atrocities both individually and collectively. The perpetrators justified themselves: "They did this to us, so we have the right to do this to them." Soviet commanders considered it necessary to convey to their subordinates stories about how the Mujahideen were executing and torturing prisoners.
These stories had a basis: after all, such was the old Afghan tradition, which Kipling was a witness to. A minor leader of the Mujahideen boasted that he had introduced the practice of skinning ambushed Russians, after which, while still alive, they surrounded them with mines in order to trap and rescuers (378) . Varennikov described the catastrophe that turned out in April 1985 during the operation of one company of the 22nd Special Forces Brigade. It was in eastern mountains the province of Kunar, where twenty years later the Americans fought fierce battles. The company did not expect resistance. They were ambushed and thirty-one died. When trying to pick up the bodies of the fallen, the Soviet forces lost three more. It turned out that seven soldiers committed suicide in order not to give up. The rest were mutilated or burned alive. Varennikov met with one of the survivors, a sergeant - he went crazy (379) .
Sometimes soldiers committed crimes in cold blood, sometimes in the heat of battle or immediately after the battle. “Thirst for blood,” wrote one of them, “is a terrible desire. It is so strong, no strength to resist. I myself witnessed how the battalion opened heavy fire on the group descending from the hill to the column. And they were OUR soldiers! The reconnaissance squad, retreating from cover! The distance was two hundred meters, and the fact that they were their own, everyone understood by ninety percent. And yet - the thirst for death, the desire to kill at all costs. Dozens of times I saw with my own eyes how the “young”, having “attached” their first “dude”, yelled and squealed with joy, poked their fingers in the direction of the killed enemy, slapped each other on the shoulders, congratulated; and pushed into the prostrate body in the store, “to be sure” ... Not everyone is given the opportunity to step over this feeling, through this instinct, to crush this monster in the soul.
Ivan Kosogovsky from Odessa, who served in the 860th separate motorized rifle regiment, was a cheerful guy, and everyone loved him. His company was sent by helicopter to check intelligence information about the village, located 25 kilometers from the regimental base. On the way, machine gunners amused themselves by shooting herds of cows and sheep. Their excuse was that they allegedly deprive the Mujahideen of their food supplies. Having shot the kishlak, the soldiers landed and began combing it. In one of the houses, Kosogovsky noticed a small door and heard breathing behind it. There was a small opening above the door. He pulled the pin, pushed the grenade into the hole and accompanied the explosion with a burst from the machine gun. When he knocked down the door, he saw the results of his labor. The elderly woman was dead, the young woman was still breathing, and next to her lay seven children aged from one to five, some still moving. Kosogovsky released the magazine into the moving mass and threw another grenade. “I don’t know,” he said later. - You know, I was not myself. Maybe he didn’t want to be tormented - all the same, krants! Yes, and special officers ... You know. And indeed, he could have ended up in a disciplinary battalion if the officers had not hushed up this story (380).
On February 14, 1981, a reconnaissance detachment - eleven soldiers of the 66th separate motorized rifle brigade under the command of a senior lieutenant - broke into a house in a village near Jalalabad. There, the soldiers found two old men, three young women and five or six children. They raped and shot the women, and then they shot everyone else, except for the little boy, who hid and therefore survived. General Mayorov, chief military adviser in Kabul from June 1980 to November 1981, promptly ordered an investigation. The perpetrators confessed and were arrested. Fearing that Mujahideen leaders would use this as a pretext for a nationwide jihad, Mayorov demanded greater security in major cities and apologized to Afghan Prime Minister Ali Sultan Keshtmand for the incident.
The KGB representative in Kabul, the Ministry of Defense and the KGB from Moscow began to put pressure on Mayorov, demanding that he change the official version. The KGB claimed that, according to its information, this was a provocation: they say that Mujahideen, dressed in Soviet uniforms, carried out this brutal massacre. Why, the head of the General Staff Ogarkov was indignant, is Mayorov trying to denigrate the Soviet army? Defense Minister Ustinov hinted that if Mayorov did not speak differently, he might not be re-elected to the Central Committee at the upcoming 26th Congress of the CPSU.
Majorov stood his ground. He was not re-elected to the Central Committee. But Karmal complained to Brezhnev, who ordered that the perpetrators be given a well-deserved punishment. They were sentenced to death or long prison terms. The brigade commander, Colonel Valery Smirnov, was severely reprimanded. The brigade itself was on the verge of being disbanded, and only successes during the Second World War saved it (381).
Even high-ranking officers could be punished for condoning the atrocities of their soldiers. After the fifth Panjshir operation in May-June 1982, the commander of the 191st separate motorized rifle regiment, Lieutenant Colonel Kravchenko, was sentenced by a field court to ten years in prison for shooting prisoners. The commander of the 860th separate motorized rifle regiment, Colonel Alexander Shebed, was removed from his post in April 1986 - he stayed at his post for only six months. During the fighting, the soldiers captured twenty prisoners and brought them to the base in Faizabad. Shebeda left them for the night under the supervision of a reconnaissance company. The company has recently suffered losses. The soldiers killed the captives and threw the bodies into the Kochka River. A scandal arose, and Shebeda was removed from office (382).
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