The timing of the Afghan war. What were the real losses of the USSR in the Afghan war

Relations Soviet Union relations with the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan have traditionally been distinguished by a friendly character, regardless of the political regimes that have changed in Kabul. By 1978, industrial facilities built with the technical assistance of the USSR accounted for up to 60% of all Afghan enterprises. But in the early 1970s XX century Afghanistan was still one of the poorest countries in the world. Statistics showed that 40% of the population lived in absolute poverty.

Relations between the Soviet Union and the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan received a new impetus after the victory in April 1978 of the Saur, or April, Revolution, carried out by the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA). General Secretary of the Party N.-M. Taraki announced that the country had entered the path of socialist transformations. In Moscow, this was met with increased attention. The Soviet leadership turned out to be quite a few enthusiasts of Afghanistan's "jump" from feudalism to socialism, like Mongolia or the Soviet republics of Central Asia. On December 5, 1978, a Treaty of Friendship, Good Neighborliness and Cooperation was signed between the two countries. But it was only due to a great misunderstanding that the regime that had established itself in Kabul could be qualified as socialist. In the PDPA, the long-standing struggle between the factions "Khalk" (leaders - N.-M. Taraki and H. Amin) and "Parcham" (B. Karmal) intensified. In the country, in essence, the agrarian reform failed, it was in a fever of repression, and the norms of Islam were grossly violated. Afghanistan faced the fact of unleashing a large-scale civil war. Already in early spring 1979 Taraki asked for Soviet troops to enter Afghanistan to prevent the worst-case scenario. Later, such requests were repeated many times and came not only from Taraki, but also from other Afghan leaders.

SOLUTION

In less than a year, the position of the Soviet leadership on this issue changed from restraint to consent to open military intervention in the intra-Afghan conflict. With all the reservations, it boiled down to the desire "under no circumstances to lose Afghanistan" (the literal expression of the KGB chairman Yu.V. Andropov).

Minister of Foreign Affairs A.A. Gromyko at first opposed the provision of military assistance to the Taraki regime, but failed to defend his position. Supporters of the introduction of troops into a neighboring country, first of all, Minister of Defense D.F. Ustinov, had no less influence. L.I. Brezhnev began to lean towards a forceful solution of the issue. The unwillingness of other members of the top leadership to challenge the opinion of the first person, together with a lack of understanding of the specifics of Islamic society, ultimately predetermined the adoption of an ill-considered decision to send troops.

The documents show that the Soviet military leadership (except for the Minister of Defense D.F. Ustinov) thought quite sensibly. Chief of the General Staff of the USSR Armed Forces Marshal of the Soviet Union N.V. Ogarkov recommended refraining from attempts to resolve political issues in the neighboring country by military force. But at the top, they ignored the opinion of experts not only from the Ministry of Defense, but also from the Foreign Ministry. Political decision to introduce a limited contingent Soviet troops(OKSV) to Afghanistan was adopted on December 12, 1979 in a narrow circle - at a meeting of L.I. Brezhnev with Yu.V. Andropov, D.F. Ustinov and A.A. Gromyko, as well as the secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU K.U. Chernenko, i.e. five members of the Politburo out of 12. The objectives of the entry of troops into the neighboring country and the methods of their actions were not determined.

The first Soviet units crossed the border on December 25, 1979 at 18:00 local time. Paratroopers were airlifted to the airfields of Kabul and Bagram. On the evening of December 27, the special operation "Storm-333" was carried out by special groups of the KGB and a detachment of the Main Intelligence Directorate. As a result, the Taj Beck Palace, where the residence of the new head of Afghanistan, H. Amin, was located, was captured, and he himself was killed. By this time, Amin had lost Moscow's confidence in connection with the overthrow and assassination of Taraki organized by him and information about cooperation with the CIA. The election of B. Karmal, who arrived illegally from the USSR, as the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the PDPA, was hastily formalized.

The population of the Soviet Union was faced with the fact of bringing troops into a neighboring country in order, as they said, to provide international assistance to the friendly Afghan people in protecting the April Revolution. The official position of the Kremlin was set out in the answers of L.I. Brezhnev to questions from a Pravda correspondent on January 13, 1980, Brezhnev pointed to an armed intervention unleashed against Afghanistan from outside, the threat of turning the country into an "imperialist military foothold on the southern border of our country." He also mentioned the repeated appeals of the Afghan leadership for the entry of Soviet troops, which, according to him, would be withdrawn "as soon as the reasons that prompted the Afghan leadership to request their entry cease."

The USSR at that time was really afraid of interference in Afghan affairs by the United States, as well as China and Pakistan, a real threat to its borders from the south. For reasons of politics, morality, and the preservation of international prestige, the Soviet Union also could not continue to indifferently observe the development of civil strife in Afghanistan, during which innocent people died. Another thing is that it was decided to stop the escalation of violence by another force, ignoring the specifics of intra-Afghan events. The loss of control over the situation in Kabul could be regarded in the world as the defeat of the socialist camp. Not the last role in the events of December 1979 was played by personal, as well as departmental assessments of the situation in Afghanistan. The fact is that the United States was extremely interested in drawing the Soviet Union into the Afghan events, believing that Afghanistan would become for the USSR what Vietnam was for the USA. Through third countries, Washington supported the forces of the Afghan opposition, which fought against the Karmal regime and Soviet troops.

STAGES

The direct participation of the Soviet Armed Forces in the Afghan war is usually divided into four stages:

1) December 1979 - February 1980 - commissioning of the main staff of the 40th Army, placement in garrisons; 2) March 1980 - April 1985 - participation in hostilities against the armed opposition, assistance in the reorganization and strengthening of the armed forces of the DRA; 3) May 1985 - December 1986 - a gradual transition from active participation in hostilities to supporting operations conducted by Afghan troops; 4) January 1987 - February 1989 - participation in the policy of national reconciliation, support for the DRA forces, withdrawal of a contingent of troops to the territory of the USSR.

The initial number of Soviet troops in Afghanistan was 50 thousand people. Then the number of OKSV exceeded 100 thousand people. Soviet soldiers entered the first battle already on January 9, 1980, during the disarmament of the insurgent artillery regiment of the DRA. Later, the Soviet troops, against their will, became involved in active fighting, the command moved to the organization of planned operations against the most powerful groups of the Mujahideen.

Soviet soldiers and officers showed the highest fighting qualities, courage and heroism in Afghanistan, although they had to act in the most difficult conditions, at an altitude of 2.5-4.5 km, at a temperature of plus 45-50 ° C and an acute shortage of water. With the acquisition of the necessary experience, the training of Soviet soldiers made it possible to successfully resist the professional cadres of the Mujahideen, trained with the help of the Americans in numerous training camps in Pakistan and other countries.

However, the involvement of the OKSV in hostilities did not increase the chances of a forceful resolution of the intra-Afghan conflict. The fact that it was necessary to withdraw troops was understood by many military leaders. But such decisions were beyond their competence. The political leadership of the USSR believed that the peace process in Afghanistan, guaranteed by the UN, should become a condition for the withdrawal. However, Washington interfered in every possible way with the UN mediation mission. On the contrary, American assistance to the Afghan opposition after the death of Brezhnev and the coming to power of Yu.V. Andropov has risen sharply. Only since 1985 did significant changes take place in relation to the participation of the USSR in the civil war in a neighboring country. The need to return OKSV to their homeland became completely obvious. The economic difficulties of the Soviet Union itself became more and more acute, for which large-scale assistance to the southern neighbor became ruinous. By that time, several thousand Soviet servicemen had died in Afghanistan. A latent dissatisfaction with the ongoing war was ripening in society, about which the press spoke only in general official phrases.

PROPAGANDA

ABOUT THE PROPAGANDISM SUPPORT OF OUR ACTION IN REGARD TO AFGHANISTAN.

Top secret

Special folder

When covering in our propaganda work - in the press, on television, on the radio, an action undertaken by the Soviet Union at the request of the leadership of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan, an action of assistance in relation to external aggression, be guided by the following.

In all propaganda work, proceed from the provisions contained in the appeal of the Afghan leadership to the Soviet Union with a request for military assistance and from the TASS report on this matter.

As the main thesis, to emphasize that the sending of limited Soviet military contingents to Afghanistan, carried out at the request of the Afghan leadership, serves one goal - to provide the people and government of Afghanistan with assistance and assistance in the fight against external aggression. This Soviet action does not pursue any other goals.

Emphasize that as a result of acts of external aggression and growing interference from outside in internal Afghan affairs, a threat arose to the gains of the April Revolution, to the sovereignty and independence of the new Afghanistan. Under these conditions, the Soviet Union, to which the leadership of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan has repeatedly asked for help in repelling aggression over the past two years, responded positively to this request, guided, in particular, by the spirit and letter of the Soviet-Afghan Treaty of Friendship, Good Neighborliness and Cooperation .

The request of the government of Afghanistan and the satisfaction of this request by the Soviet Union is exclusively a matter for two sovereign states, the Soviet Union and the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan, which regulate their own relations. They, like any UN member state, have the right to individual or collective self-defence, which is provided for in Article 51 of the UN Charter.

When covering changes in the leadership of Afghanistan, emphasize that this is an internal affair of the Afghan people, proceed from the statements published by the Revolutionary Council of Afghanistan, from the speeches of the Chairman of the Revolutionary Council of Afghanistan, Karmal Babrak.

Give a firm and reasoned rebuff to any possible insinuations about the alleged Soviet interference in internal Afghan affairs. Emphasize that the USSR had and has nothing to do with changes in the leadership of Afghanistan. The task of the Soviet Union in connection with the events in and around Afghanistan is to render assistance and assistance in safeguarding the sovereignty and independence of friendly Afghanistan in the face of external aggression. As soon as this aggression ceases, the threat to the sovereignty and independence of the Afghan state will disappear, the Soviet military contingents will be immediately and completely withdrawn from the territory of Afghanistan.

WEAPON

FROM THE INSTRUCTIONS OF THE COUNCIL AMBASSADOR IN THE DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF AFGHANISTAN

(Secret)

Specialist. No. 397, 424.

Visit Comrade Karmal and, referring to the instructions, inform him that the requests of the government of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan for the supply of special equipment for the border troops and detachments of party activists and the protection of the revolution have been carefully considered.

The government of the USSR, guided by the desire to assist the government of the DRA in carrying out measures to combat the counter-revolution, found an opportunity to supply the DRA in 1981 45 BTR-60 PB armored personnel carriers with ammunition and 267 military radio stations for the border troops and 10 thousand Kalashnikov AK assault rifles, 5 thousand Makarov PM pistols and ammunition for detachments of party activists and the defense of the revolution, totaling about 6.3 million rubles ...

GRAVES

... Suslov. I would like to advise. Comrade Tikhonov presented a note to the Central Committee of the CPSU regarding the perpetuation of the memory of the soldiers who died in Afghanistan. Moreover, it is proposed to allocate a thousand rubles to each family for the installation of tombstones on the graves. The point, of course, is not the money, but the fact that if we now perpetuate the memory, we write about it on the tombstones of the graves, and in some cemeteries there will be several such graves, then from a political point of view this is not entirely correct.

Andropov. Of course, it is necessary to bury warriors with honors, but it is still too early to perpetuate their memory.

Kirilenko. It is not advisable to install tombstones now.

Tikhonov. In general, of course, it is necessary to bury, it is another matter whether inscriptions should be made.

Suslov. We should also think about the answers to parents whose children died in Afghanistan. There should be no liberties here. Answers should be concise and more standard...

LOSSES

The servicemen who died in hospitals on the territory of the USSR from wounds received during the fighting in Afghanistan were not included in the official statistics of the losses of the Afghan war. However, the casualty figures directly on the territory of Afghanistan are accurate and carefully verified, Vladimir Sidelnikov, professor of the Department of Thermal Injuries at the Military Medical Academy of St. Petersburg, said in an interview with RIA Novosti. In 1989, he served in the Tashkent military hospital and worked as part of the commission of the USSR Ministry of Defense based on the headquarters of the Turkestan military district, which checked the true number of losses during the war in Afghanistan.

According to official figures, 15,400 Soviet servicemen were killed in Afghanistan. Sidelnikov called “speculation” the assertions of some media that in Russia, even 28 years after the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan on February 15, 1989, they are silent about the true scale of losses in the Afghan war. “The fact that we are hiding colossal losses is stupidity, this cannot be,” he said. According to the professor, such rumors appeared due to the fact that very a large number military personnel needed health care. 620 thousand citizens of the USSR went through the war in Afghanistan. And during the ten years of the war, medical assistance was provided to 463,000 servicemen, he said. “This figure includes, among other things, almost 39 thousand people who were injured during the hostilities. The most significant part of those who applied for medical assistance, about 404,000, are infectious patients who have had dysentery, hepatitis, typhoid fever and other infectious diseases,” the military physician said. “But a significant number of people who were admitted to hospitals on the territory of the USSR died due to severe complications, wound disease, purulent-septic complications, severe wounds, and injuries. Some stayed with us for up to six months. These people who died in hospitals were not among the officially announced losses,” the military doctor noted. He added that he could not name their exact number due to the fact that there are simply no statistics on these patients. According to Sidelnikov, rumors about colossal losses in Afghanistan are sometimes based on the stories of combat veterans themselves, who often "tend to exaggerate." “Often such opinions are based on the statements of the Mujahideen. But, naturally, each belligerent side tends to exaggerate its victories,” the military doctor noted. “The largest reliable one-time losses were, as far as I know, up to 70 people. As a rule, more than 20-25 people did not die at a time,” he said.

After the collapse of the USSR, many documents of the Turkestan military district were lost, but the medical archives were saved. “The fact that documents about the losses in the Afghan war have been preserved for our descendants in the Military Medical Museum is an undoubted merit of military doctors,” former military intelligence officer, retired colonel Akmal Imambaev told RIA Novosti by phone from Tashkent. After serving in the southern Afghan province of Kandahar, he served at the headquarters of the Turkestan Military District (TurkVO).

According to him, they managed to save “every single case history” in the 340th combined-arms hospital in Tashkent. All the wounded in Afghanistan were admitted to this hospital, and then they were transferred to other medical facilities. “In June 1992, the district was disbanded. His headquarters was occupied by the Ministry of Defense of Uzbekistan. Most of the military personnel by this time had already left for new duty stations in other independent states", - said Imambaev. Then, according to him, the new leadership of the Russian Ministry of Defense refused to accept the documentation of the TurkVO, and behind the building of the former headquarters of the district, a furnace was continuously working, in which hundreds of kilograms of documents were burned. But still, even at that difficult time, officers, including military doctors, tried to do everything possible so that the documents did not sink into oblivion, Imambaev said. According to the Ministry of Defense of Uzbekistan, the case histories of servicemen who were wounded in Afghanistan were sent to the Military Medical Museum after their closure. “Unfortunately, no other statistical data on this issue has been preserved in Uzbekistan, since all orders and accounting books for the 340th combined-arms military hospital in Tashkent were handed over to the Podolsky archive of the USSR Ministry of Defense until 1992,” the veteran noted. “It is difficult to overestimate what military doctors and officers of the Ministry of Defense of Uzbekistan have preserved for posterity,” he said. “However, it is not for us to evaluate it. We only honestly fulfilled our duty to the Fatherland, remaining true to the oath. Let our children judge whether this war was just or not,” said the veteran of the Afghan war.

RIA Novosti: The statistics of the losses of the Soviet Army in Afghanistan do not include those who died from wounds in hospitals in the USSR. 15.02.2007

AMNESTY

Supreme Soviet of the USSR

Decree

ON AMNESTY FOR FORMER SOVIET TROOPS COMMITTED CRIMES IN AFGHANISTAN

Guided by the principles of humanism, the Supreme Soviet of the USSR decides:

1. Release former servicemen from criminal liability for crimes committed by them during their military service in Afghanistan (December 1979 - February 1989).

2. Release from serving sentences persons convicted by the courts of the USSR and Union republics for crimes committed during military service in Afghanistan.

3. Remove the conviction of persons released from punishment on the basis of this amnesty, as well as from persons who have served sentences for crimes committed during military service in Afghanistan.

4. Instruct the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR within ten days to approve the procedure for the implementation of the amnesty.

Chairman

Supreme Soviet of the USSR

Soviet war in Afghanistan e lasted 9 years 1 month and 18 days.

Date of: 979-1989

A place: Afghanistan

Outcome: The overthrow of H. Amin, the withdrawal of Soviet troops

Enemies: USSR, DRA against - Afghan Mujahideen, Foreign Mujahideen

With the support of : Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, UAE, USA, UK, Iran

Side forces

USSR: 80-104 thousand military personnel

DRA: 50-130 thousand military personnel According to the NVO, no more than 300 thousand

From 25 thousand (1980) to more than 140 thousand (1988)

Afghan war 1979-1989 - a prolonged political and armed confrontation between the parties: the ruling pro-Soviet regime of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (DRA) with the military support of the Limited Contingent of Soviet Forces in Afghanistan (OKSVA) - on the one hand, and the Mujahideen ("dushmans"), with a part of the Afghan society sympathizing with them, with political and financial support foreign countries and a number of states of the Islamic world - on the other.

The decision to send troops of the USSR Armed Forces to Afghanistan was made on December 12, 1979 at a meeting of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU, in accordance with the secret resolution of the Central Committee of the CPSU No. friendly regime in Afghanistan. The decision was made by a narrow circle of members of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU (Yu. V. Andropov, D. F. Ustinov, A. A. Gromyko and L. I. Brezhnev).

To achieve these goals, the USSR sent a group of troops into Afghanistan, and a detachment of special forces from among the emerging special unit of the KGB "Vympel" killed the incumbent President H. Amin and everyone who was with him in the palace. By decision of Moscow, the protege of the USSR, the former Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Afghanistan in Prague, B. Karmal, became the new leader of Afghanistan, whose regime received significant and versatile - military, financial and humanitarian - support from the Soviet Union.

Chronology of the Soviet war in Afghanistan

1979

December 25 - Columns of the Soviet 40th Army cross the Afghan border on a pontoon bridge across the Amu Darya River. H. Amin expressed gratitude to the Soviet leadership and ordered the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the DRA to assist the troops being brought in.

1980

January 10-11 - an attempt at an anti-government rebellion by artillery regiments of the 20th Afghan division in Kabul. During the battle, about 100 rebels were killed; Soviet troops lost two killed and two more were wounded.

February 23 - tragedy in the tunnel at the Salang pass. During the movement of oncoming columns in the middle of the tunnel, a collision occurred, a traffic jam formed. As a result, 16 Soviet servicemen suffocated.

March - the first major offensive operation of the OKSV units against the Mujahideen - the Kunar Offensive.

April 20-24 - Massive anti-government demonstrations in Kabul are dispersed by low-flying jets.

April - The US Congress authorizes $15 million in "direct and open assistance" to the Afghan opposition. The first military operation in Panjshir.

June 19 - decision of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU on the withdrawal of some tank, missile and anti-aircraft missile units from Afghanistan.

1981

September - fighting in the Lurkoh mountain range in the province of Farah; the death of Major General Khakhalov.

October 29 - the introduction of the second "Muslim battalion" (177 OSSN) under the command of Major Kerimbaev ("Kara Major").

December - the defeat of the base point of the opposition in the Darzab region (Dzauzjan province).

1982

November 3 - Tragedy at the Salang pass. More than 176 people died as a result of the explosion of a fuel tanker. (Already during the years of the civil war between the Northern Alliance and the Taliban, Salang became a natural barrier and in 1997 the tunnel was blown up on the orders of Ahmad Shah Massoud to prevent the Taliban from moving north. In 2002, after the unification of the country, the tunnel was reopened).

November 15 - meeting of Y. Andropov and Ziyaul-Khak in Moscow. The Secretary General had a private conversation with the Pakistani leader, during which he informed him about the "new flexible policy of the Soviet side and understanding of the need for a speedy resolution of the crisis." The meeting also discussed the expediency of the war and the presence of Soviet troops in Afghanistan and the prospects for the participation of the Soviet Union in the war. In exchange for the withdrawal of troops from Pakistan, it was required to refuse assistance to the rebels.

1983

January 2 - in Mazar-i-Sharif, dushmans abducted a group of Soviet civilian specialists numbering 16 people. They were released only a month later, while six of them died.

February 2 - The village of Vakhshak in northern Afghanistan was destroyed by bombs in retaliation for the hostage-taking in Mazar-i-Sharif.

March 28 - meeting of the UN delegation headed by Perez de Cuellar and D. Cordoves with Y. Andropov. He thanks the UN for "understanding the problem" and assures the mediators that he is ready to take "certain steps", but doubts that Pakistan and the US will support the UN proposal regarding their non-intervention in the conflict.

April - an operation to defeat opposition groups in the Nijrab Gorge, Kapisa province. Soviet units lost 14 people killed and 63 wounded.

May 19 - soviet ambassador in Pakistan, V. Smirnov officially confirmed the desire of the USSR and Afghanistan "to set a date for the withdrawal of the contingent of Soviet troops."

July - Dushman offensive on Khost. An attempt to blockade the city was unsuccessful.

August - the hard work of the mission of D. Cordoves to prepare agreements on a peaceful settlement of the war in Afghanistan is almost completed: an 8-month program for the withdrawal of troops from the country has been developed, but after Andropov's illness, the issue of the conflict was removed from the agenda of the Politburo meetings. Now it was only about "dialogue with the UN".

Winter - hostilities intensified in the Sarobi region and the Jalalabad valley (the reports most often mention the province of Laghman). For the first time, armed opposition detachments remain on the territory of Afghanistan for the entire winter period. The creation of fortified areas and resistance bases directly in the country began.

1984

January 16 - Dushmans shot down a Su-25 aircraft from the Strela-2M MANPADS. This is the first case of successful use of MANPADS in Afghanistan.

April 30 - During a major operation in the Panjshir Gorge, the 1st Battalion of the 682nd Motorized Rifle Regiment was ambushed and suffered heavy losses.

October - over Kabul from the Strela MANPADS, dushmans shoot down an Il-76 transport aircraft.

1985

April 26 - Soviet and Afghan prisoners of war revolt in the Badaber prison in Pakistan.

June - army operation in Panjshir.

Summer is a new course of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU for a political solution to the "Afghan problem".

Autumn - The functions of the 40th Army are reduced to covering the southern borders of the USSR, for which new motorized rifle units are involved. The creation of basic base areas in hard-to-reach places of the country has begun.

1986

February - at the XXVII Congress of the CPSU, M. Gorbachev makes a statement about the beginning of the development of a plan for a phased withdrawal of troops.

March - the decision of the R. Reagan administration to start deliveries to Afghanistan to support the Mujahiddins of the Stinger MANPADS of the ground-to-air class, which makes the combat aviation of the 40th Army vulnerable to ground attack.

April 4-20 - an operation to defeat the Javar base: a major defeat for the dushmans. Unsuccessful attempts by Ismail Khan's detachments to break through the "security zone" around Herat.

May 4 - at the XVIII Plenum of the Central Committee of the PDPA, instead of B. Karmal, M. Najibullah, who previously headed the Afghan counterintelligence service KhAD, was elected to the post of Secretary General. The plenum proclaimed the policy of solving the problems of Afghanistan by political means.

July 28 - M. Gorbachev defiantly announced the imminent withdrawal of six regiments of the 40th Army from Afghanistan (about 7 thousand people). Late term the output will be moved. In Moscow, there are disputes about whether to withdraw troops completely.

August - Massoud defeated the base of government troops in Farkhar, Takhar province.

Autumn - Major Belov's reconnaissance group from the 173rd detachment of the 16th special forces brigade captures the first batch of three Stinger portable anti-aircraft missile systems in the Kandahar region.

October 15-31 - tank, motorized rifle, anti-aircraft regiments were withdrawn from Shindand, motorized rifle and anti-aircraft regiments were withdrawn from Kunduz, and anti-aircraft regiments were withdrawn from Kabul.

November 13 - The Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU sets the task of withdrawing all troops from Afghanistan within two years.

December — an emergency plenum of the Central Committee of the PDPA proclaims a course towards a policy of national reconciliation and advocates an early end to the fratricidal war.

1987

January 2 - An operational group of the USSR Ministry of Defense headed by First Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the USSR Armed Forces General of the Army V. I. Varennikov was sent to Kabul.

February - Operation "Strike" in the province of Kunduz.

February-March - Operation Flurry in Kandahar province.

March - Operation Thunderstorm in the province of Ghazni. Operation Circle in the provinces of Kabul and Logar.

May - operation "Volley" in the provinces of Logar, Paktia, Kabul. Operation "South-87" in the province of Kandahar.

Spring - Soviet troops begin to use the Barrier system to cover the eastern and southeastern sections of the border.

1988

Soviet spetsnaz group preparing for operation in Afghanistan

April 14 - Through the mediation of the UN in Switzerland, the Foreign Ministers of Afghanistan and Pakistan signed the Geneva Agreements on a political settlement of the situation around the situation in the DRA. The USSR and the USA became the guarantors of the agreements. The Soviet Union undertook to withdraw its contingent within 9 months, starting on May 15; The US and Pakistan, for their part, had to stop supporting the Mujahideen.

June 24 - Opposition detachments captured the center of the province of Wardak - the city of Maidanshahr.

1989

February 15 - Soviet troops are completely withdrawn from Afghanistan. The withdrawal of the troops of the 40th Army was led by the last commander of the Limited Contingent, Lieutenant-General B.V. Gromov, who, allegedly, was the last to cross the border river Amu-Darya (the city of Termez).

War in Afghanistan - results

Colonel General Gromov, the last commander of the 40th Army (led the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan), in his book "Limited Contingent" expressed this opinion regarding the victory or defeat of the Soviet Army in the war in Afghanistan:

I am deeply convinced that there is no basis for asserting that the 40th Army was defeated, nor that we won a military victory in Afghanistan. At the end of 1979, Soviet troops entered the country without hindrance, completed their tasks, unlike the Americans in Vietnam, and returned to their homeland in an organized manner. If we consider armed opposition detachments as the main enemy of the Limited Contingent, then the difference between us lies in the fact that the 40th Army did what it considered necessary, and the dushmans only what they could.

The 40th Army had several main tasks. First of all, we had to assist the government of Afghanistan in resolving the internal political situation. Basically, this assistance consisted in the fight against armed opposition groups. In addition, the presence of a significant military contingent in Afghanistan was supposed to prevent aggression from outside. These tasks were fully completed by the personnel of the 40th Army.

The Mujahideen, before the start of the withdrawal of OKSVA in May 1988, never managed to carry out a single major operation and failed to take a single big city.

Military casualties in Afghanistan

USSR: 15,031 dead, 53,753 wounded, 417 missing

1979 - 86 people

1980 - 1,484 people

1981 - 1,298 people

1982 - 1,948 people

1983 - 1,448 people

1984 - 2,343 people

1985 - 1,868 people

1986 - 1,333 people

1987 - 1,215 people

1988 - 759 people

1989 - 53 people

By rank:
Generals, officers: 2,129
Ensigns: 632
Sergeants and soldiers: 11,549
Workers and employees: 139

Out of 11,294 people dismissed from military service 10,751 people remained disabled due to health reasons, of which - 1st group - 672, 2nd group - 4216, 3rd group - 5863 people

Afghan Mujahideen: 56,000-90,000 (civilians from 600 thousand to 2 million people)

Losses in technology

According to official data, there were 147 tanks, 1314 armored vehicles (armored personnel carriers, infantry fighting vehicles, infantry fighting vehicles, armored personnel carriers), 510 engineering vehicles, 11,369 trucks and fuel trucks, 433 artillery systems, 118 aircraft, 333 helicopters. At the same time, these figures were not specified in any way - in particular, information on the number of combat and non-combat losses aviation, on the losses of aircraft and helicopters by type, etc.

Economic losses of the USSR

About 800 million US dollars were spent annually from the USSR budget to support the Kabul government.

The Soviet-Afghan war lasted more than nine years from December 1979 to February 1989. Mujahideen rebel groups fought during it against the Soviet Army and allied Afghan government forces. Between 850,000 and 1.5 million civilians were killed and millions of Afghans fled the country, mostly to Pakistan and Iran.

Even before the arrival of Soviet troops, power in Afghanistan through 1978 coup captured by the communists, planting the president of the country Nur Mohammad Taraki. He undertook a series of radical reforms, which proved extremely unpopular, especially among the adherents of national traditions. rural population. The Taraki regime brutally suppressed all opposition, arresting many thousands and executing 27,000 political prisoners.

Chronology of the Afghan war. video film

Armed groups began to form around the country to resist. By April 1979, many large areas of the country had rebelled; in December, the government kept only cities under its rule. It itself was torn apart by internal strife. Taraki was soon killed Hafizullah Amin. In response to the requests of the Afghan authorities, the allied Kremlin leadership, headed by Brezhnev, first sent privy advisers to the country, and on December 24, 1979, moved the 40th Soviet Army of General Boris Gromov there, declaring that they were doing this in pursuance of the terms of the 1978 agreement on friendship and cooperation and good neighborliness with Afghanistan.

Soviet intelligence had information that Amin was making attempts to communicate with Pakistan and China. On December 27, 1979, about 700 Soviet special forces captured the main buildings of Kabul and staged an assault on the Taj Beck presidential palace, during which Amin and his two sons were killed. Amin was replaced by a rival from another Afghan communist faction, Babrak Karmal. He headed the "Revolutionary Council of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan" and requested additional Soviet assistance.

In January 1980, the foreign ministers of 34 countries of the Islamic Conference approved a resolution demanding the "immediate, urgent and unconditional withdrawal of Soviet troops" from Afghanistan. The UN General Assembly by 104 votes to 18 adopted a resolution protesting Soviet interference. President of the U.S.A Carter announced a boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympics. Afghan fighters began to receive military training in neighboring Pakistan and China - and receive huge amounts of assistance, funded primarily by the United States and the Arab monarchies of the Persian Gulf. In carrying out operations against Soviet forces CIA Pakistan actively helped.

Soviet troops occupied the cities and main lines of communication, and the Mujahideen waged guerrilla warfare in small groups. They operated on almost 80% of the country's territory, not subject to the control of the Kabul rulers and the USSR. Soviet troops made extensive use of aircraft for bombing, destroyed villages where the Mujahideen could find shelter, destroyed ditches, and laid millions of land mines. However, almost the entire contingent introduced into Afghanistan consisted of conscripts who were not trained in the complex tactics of fighting partisans in the mountains. Therefore, the war from the very beginning went hard for the USSR.

By the mid-1980s, the number of Soviet troops in Afghanistan had risen to 108,800 soldiers. The fighting went on throughout the country with more energy, but the material and diplomatic cost of the war for the USSR was very high. In mid-1987 Moscow, where a reformer has now come to power Gorbachev announced its intention to begin the withdrawal of troops. Gorbachev openly called Afghanistan a "bleeding wound."

On April 14, 1988, in Geneva, the governments of Pakistan and Afghanistan, with the participation of the United States and the USSR as guarantors, signed the "Agreements to Settle the Situation in the Republic of Afghanistan." They determined the schedule for the withdrawal of the Soviet contingent - it took place from May 15, 1988 to February 15, 1989.

The Mujahideen did not take part in the Geneva Accords and rejected most of their terms. As a result, after the withdrawal of Soviet troops, the civil war in Afghanistan continued. New pro-Soviet leader Najibullah barely held back the onslaught of the Mujahideen. His government split, many of its members entered into relations with the opposition. In March 1992, General Abdul Rashid Dostum and his Uzbek militia stopped supporting Najibullah. A month later, the Mujahideen took Kabul. Najibullah hid in the capital building of the UN mission until 1996, and then was captured by the Taliban and hanged.

The Afghan war is considered part of cold war. In the Western media, it is sometimes called "Soviet Vietnam" or "Bear Trap", because this war became one of the most important reasons for the fall of the USSR. It is believed that about 15 thousand Soviet soldiers died during it, 35 thousand were injured. After the war, Afghanistan lay in ruins. Grain production in it fell to 3.5% of the pre-war level.

Afghan war 1979-1989 - a prolonged political and armed confrontation between the parties: the ruling pro-Soviet regime of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (DRA) with the military support of the Limited Contingent of Soviet Forces in Afghanistan (OKSVA) - on the one hand, and the Mujahideen ("dushmans"), with a part of the Afghan society sympathizing with them, with political and financial support of foreign countries and a number of states of the Islamic world - on the other.

The decision to send troops of the USSR Armed Forces to Afghanistan was made on December 12, 1979 at a meeting of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU, in accordance with the secret resolution of the Central Committee of the CPSU No. friendly regime in Afghanistan. The decision was made by a narrow circle of members of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU (Yu. V. Andropov, D. F. Ustinov, A. A. Gromyko and L. I. Brezhnev).

To achieve these goals, the USSR sent a group of troops into Afghanistan, and a detachment of special forces from among the emerging special unit of the KGB "Vympel" killed the incumbent President H. Amin and everyone who was with him in the palace. By decision of Moscow, the protege of the USSR, the former Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Afghanistan in Prague, B. Karmal, became the new leader of Afghanistan, whose regime received significant and versatile - military, financial and humanitarian - support from the Soviet Union.

background

"Big game"

Afghanistan is located in the very center of Eurasia, which allows it to play an important role in relations between neighboring regions.

FROM early XIX century between the Russian and British empires begins a struggle for control over Afghanistan, called " Big game" (eng. TheGreatGame).

Anglo-Afghan Wars

The British tried to establish dominance over Afghanistan by force, sending their troops from neighboring British India in January 1839. Thus began the first Anglo-Afghan war. Initially, success accompanied the British - they managed to overthrow Emir Dost-Mohammed and put Shuja Khan on the throne. The rule of Shuja Khan, however, did not last long and in 1842 he was overthrown. Afghanistan concluded a peace treaty with Britain and retained its independence.

Meanwhile, the Russian Empire continued to actively move south. In the 1860-1880s, the accession of Central Asia to Russia was basically completed.

The British, worried about the rapid advance of Russian troops to the borders of Afghanistan, began the second Anglo-Afghan war in 1878. The stubborn struggle lasted two years and in 1880 the British were forced to leave the country, but at the same time leaving the loyal Emir Abdur-Rahman on the throne and thus maintaining control over the country.

In the 1880-1890s, the modern borders of Afghanistan were formed, determined by joint agreements between Russia and Britain.

Independence of Afghanistan

In 1919, Amanullah Khan declared the independence of Afghanistan from Great Britain. The third Anglo-Afghan war began.

The first state to recognize independence was Soviet Russia which provided Afghanistan with significant economic and military assistance.

At the beginning of the 20th century, Afghanistan was a backward agrarian country with a complete lack of industry, an extremely impoverished population, over half of which was illiterate.

Republic of Dauda

In 1973, during the visit of the King of Afghanistan Zahir Shah to Italy, a coup d'état took place in the country. Power was seized by a relative of Zahir Shah, Mohammed Daoud, who proclaimed the first republic in Afghanistan.

Daoud established an authoritarian dictatorship and attempted reforms, but most of them failed. The first republican period in the history of Afghanistan is characterized by strong political instability, rivalry between pro-communist and Islamist groups. The Islamists raised several uprisings, but they were all crushed by government forces.

Daoud's reign ended with the Saur Revolution in April 1978, as well as the execution of the president and all members of his family.

Saur Revolution

On April 27, 1978, the April (Saur) Revolution began in Afghanistan, as a result of which the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) came to power, proclaiming the country the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (DRA).

Attempts by the country's leadership to carry out new reforms that would make it possible to overcome the backlog of Afghanistan ran into resistance from the Islamic opposition. Since 1978, even before the introduction of Soviet troops, a civil war began in Afghanistan.

In March 1979, during a mutiny in the city of Herat, the first request from the Afghan leadership for direct Soviet military intervention followed (there were about 20 such requests in total). But the commission of the Central Committee of the CPSU for Afghanistan, created back in 1978, reported to the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU about the obvious negative consequences of direct Soviet intervention, and the request was rejected.

However, the Herat rebellion forced the strengthening of Soviet troops near the Soviet-Afghan border, and by order of the Minister of Defense D.F. Ustinov, preparations began for a possible landing in Afghanistan by the landing method of the 105th Guards Airborne Division.

Further development situations in Afghanistan - armed actions of the Islamic opposition, mutinies in the army, internal party struggle and especially the events of September 1979, when the leader of the PDPA N. Taraki was arrested and then killed on the orders of H. Amin, who removed him from power, caused serious concern among the Soviet leadership. It warily followed the activities of Amin at the head of Afghanistan, knowing his ambitions and cruelty in the struggle to achieve personal goals. Under H. Amin, terror unfolded in the country not only against the Islamists, but also against members of the PDPA who were supporters of Taraki. Repression also affected the army, the main pillar of the PDPA, which led to the fall of its already low morale, caused mass desertion and riots. The Soviet leadership was afraid that further aggravation of the situation in Afghanistan would lead to the fall of the PDPA regime and the coming to power of forces hostile to the USSR. Moreover, information was received through the KGB about Amin's connections with the CIA in the 1960s and about secret contacts of his emissaries with American officials after the assassination of Taraki.

As a result, it was decided to prepare for the overthrow of Amin and his replacement by a leader more loyal to the USSR. As such, B. Karmal was considered, whose candidacy was supported by the chairman of the KGB, Yu. V. Andropov.

When developing an operation to overthrow Amin, it was decided to use the requests of Amin himself for Soviet military assistance. In total, from September to December 1979, there were 7 such appeals. In early December 1979, the so-called "Muslim battalion" was sent to Bagram - a detachment special purpose GRU - specially formed in the summer of 1979 from Soviet military personnel of Central Asian origin to protect Taraki and perform special tasks in Afghanistan. In early December 1979, USSR Minister of Defense D.F. Ustinov informed a narrow circle of officials from among the top military leadership that a decision would obviously be made in the near future on the use of Soviet troops in Afghanistan. From December 10, on the personal orders of D. F. Ustinov, the deployment and mobilization of units and formations of the Turkestan and Central Asian military districts was carried out. Chief of the General Staff N. Ogarkov, however, was against the introduction of troops.

According to V. I. Varennikov, in 1979 the only member of the Politburo who did not support the decision to send Soviet troops to Afghanistan was A. N. Kosygin, and from that moment A. N. Kosygin had a complete break with Brezhnev and his entourage .

On December 13, 1979, the Operational Group of the Ministry of Defense for Afghanistan was formed, headed by the First Deputy Chief of the General Staff, General of the Army S. F. Akhromeev, which began work in the Turkestan Military District on December 14. On December 14, 1979, a battalion of the 345th Guards Separate Airborne Regiment was sent to Bagram to reinforce the battalion of the 111th Guards Airborne Regiment of the 105th Guards Airborne Division, which had been guarding the Soviet military in Bagram since July 7, 1979. transport aircraft and helicopters.

At the same time, B. Karmal and several of his supporters were secretly brought to Afghanistan on December 14, 1979 and were in Bagram among Soviet military personnel. On December 16, 1979, an attempt was made to assassinate Amin, but he survived, and B. Karmal was urgently returned to the USSR. On December 20, 1979, a “Muslim battalion” was transferred from Bagram to Kabul, which entered the guard brigade of Amin’s palace, which greatly facilitated the preparations for the planned assault on this palace. For this operation, in mid-December, 2 special groups of the KGB also arrived in Afghanistan.

Until December 25, 1979, in the Turkestan military district, the field command of the 40th combined arms army, 2 motorized rifle divisions, an army artillery brigade, an anti-aircraft missile brigade, an air assault brigade, units of combat and logistics support were prepared for entry into Afghanistan, and in the Central Asian military district - two motorized rifle regiments, a mixed air corps command, 2 fighter-bomber air regiments, 1 fighter air regiment, 2 helicopter regiments, units of aviation technical and airfield support. Three more divisions were mobilized as a reserve in both districts. More than 50 thousand people from the Central Asian republics and Kazakhstan were called up from the reserve to complete the units, were transferred from National economy about 8 thousand cars and other equipment. It was the largest mobilization deployment of the Soviet Army since 1945. In addition, the 103rd Guards Airborne Division from Belarus was also prepared for the transfer to Afghanistan, which was transferred to airfields in the Turkestan military district on December 14.

By the evening of December 23, 1979, it was reported that the troops were ready to enter Afghanistan. On December 24, D. F. Ustinov signed Directive No. 312/12/001, which stated:

The directive did not provide for the participation of Soviet troops in hostilities on the territory of Afghanistan, and the procedure for using weapons even for self-defense purposes was not determined. True, already on December 27, D. F. Ustinov issued an order to suppress the resistance of the rebels in cases of attack. It was assumed that the Soviet troops would become garrisons and guard important industrial and other facilities, thereby freeing up parts of the Afghan army for active operations against opposition groups, as well as against possible external interference. The border with Afghanistan was ordered to be crossed at 15:00 Moscow time (17:00 Kabul time) on December 27, 1979. But on the morning of December 25, the 4th battalion of the 56th Guards Airborne Assault Brigade crossed over the pontoon bridge across the Amu Darya border river, which was tasked with capturing the Salang high mountain pass on the Termez-Kabul road to ensure unhindered passage of Soviet troops.

In Kabul, by noon on December 27, units of the 103rd Guards Airborne Division completed the landing method and took control of the airport, blocking Afghan aviation and air defense batteries. Other units of this division concentrated in the designated areas of Kabul, where they received the task of blocking the main government institutions, Afghan military units and headquarters, and other important objects in the city and its environs. The 357th Guards Airborne Regiment of the 103rd Division and the 345th Guards Airborne Regiment established control over the Bagram airfield after a skirmish with Afghan servicemen. They also provided protection for B. Karmal, who was again taken to Afghanistan with a group of close supporters on December 23.

Storming of Amin's Palace

On the evening of December 27, Soviet special forces stormed Amin's palace, during the assault Amin was killed. Government agencies in Kabul captured by Soviet paratroopers.

On the night of December 27-28, B. Karmal arrived in Kabul from Bagram and radio Kabul broadcast the appeal of this new ruler to the Afghan people, in which the "second stage of the revolution" was proclaimed.

Main events

In July 1979, a battalion from the 111th Airborne Regiment arrived in Bagram (111 pdp) 105th Airborne Division (105 vdd), the 103rd Airborne Division also arrived in Kabul, in fact, after the regular reorganization in 1979 - a separate battalion 345 opdp. These were the first military units and units of the Soviet Army in Afghanistan.

From December 9 to 12, the first "Muslim battalion" arrived in Afghanistan - 154 ooSpN 15obrSpN.

December 25 columns of the 40th Army (40 BUT) of the Turkestan Military District cross the Afghan border on a pontoon bridge over the Amu Darya River. H. Amin expressed gratitude to the Soviet leadership and ordered the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the DRA to assist the troops being brought in.

• January 10-11 - an attempt at an anti-government rebellion by artillery regiments of the 20th Afghan division in Kabul. During the battle, about 100 rebels were killed; Soviet troops lost two killed and two more were wounded. At the same time, a directive from the Minister of Defense D. Ustinov appeared on the planning and start of hostilities - raids against rebel detachments in the northern regions of Afghanistan adjacent to the Soviet border, by forces of a no less reinforced battalion and the use of army firepower, including the Air Force to suppress resistance.

• February 23 - tragedy in the tunnel at the Salang pass. When passing the tunnel units 186 SME and 2 zrr in the absence of a commandant's service, a traffic jam formed in the middle of the tunnel due to an accident. As a result, 16 Soviet servicemen suffocated 2 zrr. No data are available for suffocated Afghans.
• February-March - the first major operation to suppress an armed rebellion in the mountain infantry regiment in Asmara, Kunar province of the OKSV units against the Mujahideen - Kunar offensive. On February 28-29, units of the 317th Guards Airborne Regiment of the 103rd Guards Airborne Division in the Asmara region entered into heavy bloody battles, due to the blocking of the 3rd Airborne Battalion by dushmans in the Asmara Gorge. 33 people were killed, 40 people were injured, one soldier was missing.
• April – The US Congress authorizes $15,000,000 in "direct and open aid" to the Afghan opposition.

The first military operation in Panjshir.

• May 11 - the death of the 1st motorized rifle company of the 66th brigade (Jalalabad) near the village of Khara, Kunar province.
• June 19 - decision of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU on the withdrawal of some tank, missile and anti-aircraft missile units from Afghanistan.
• August 3 - battle near the village of Shaest. In the Mashkhad Gorge - the Kishim region near the city of Faizabad, the 783rd separate reconnaissance battalion of the 201st MSD was ambushed, 48 servicemen were killed, 49 were wounded. It was one of the bloodiest episodes in the history of the Afghan war.
• August 12 - the arrival of the special forces of the KGB of the USSR "Karpaty" in the country.
• September 23 - Lieutenant General Boris Tkach is appointed Commander of the 40th Army.

• September - fighting in the Lurkoh mountain range in Farah province; the death of Major General Khakhalov.
• October 29 - the introduction of the second "Muslim battalion" (177 ooSpN) under the command of Major Kerimbaev ("Kara Major").
• December - the defeat of the base point of the opposition in the Darzab region (Jawzjan province).

• April 5 - During a military operation in western Afghanistan, Soviet troops mistakenly invaded Iran. Iranian combat aircraft destroyed two Soviet helicopters.
• In May-June, the fifth Panjshir operation was carried out, during which a mass landing in Afghanistan was carried out for the first time: only during the first three days more than 4,000 airborne personnel were parachuted. In total, about 12,000 military personnel of various branches of the armed forces took part in this confrontation. The operation took place simultaneously for all 120 km into the depths of the gorge. As a result of this operation, Panjshir was taken.
• November 3 - tragedy at the Salang pass. More than 176 people died as a result of a traffic jam outside the tunnel.
• November 15 - meeting of Y. Andropov and Zia ul-Haq in Moscow. The Secretary General had a private conversation with the Pakistani President, during which he informed him of " the new flexible policy of the Soviet side and the understanding of the need for a speedy resolution of the crisis". The meeting also discussed the expediency of the presence of Soviet troops in Afghanistan and the prospects for the participation of the Soviet Union in the war. In exchange for the withdrawal of troops, Pakistan was required to refuse assistance to the rebels.

• January 2 - in Mazar-i-Sharif, the Mujahideen kidnapped a group of Soviet "civilian specialists" numbering 16 people.
• February 2 - Hostages kidnapped in Mazar-i-Sharif and located in the village of Vakhshak in northern Afghanistan were released, but six of them died.
• March 28 - meeting of the UN delegation headed by Perez de Cuellar and D. Cordoves with Yu. Andropov. Andropov thanks the UN for " problem understanding”and assures the mediators that he is ready to undertake“ certain steps”, but doubts that Pakistan and the US will support the UN proposal regarding their non-intervention in the conflict.
• April - an operation to defeat opposition groups in the Nijrab Gorge, Kapisa province. Soviet units lost 14 people killed and 63 wounded.
• May 19 - Soviet Ambassador to Pakistan V. Smirnov officially confirmed the desire of the USSR and Afghanistan " set deadlines for the withdrawal of the contingent of Soviet troops».
• July - offensive of the Mujahideen on Khost. An attempt to blockade the city was unsuccessful.
• August - the hard work of D. Cordoves' mission to prepare agreements on a peaceful settlement of the Afghan problem is almost completed: an 8-month program for the withdrawal of troops from the country has been developed, but after Andropov's illness, the issue of the conflict was removed from the agenda of Politburo meetings. Now it was only about dialogue with the UN».
• Winter - hostilities intensified in the Sarobi region and the Jalalabad valley (the reports most often mention the province of Laghman). For the first time, armed opposition detachments remain on the territory of Afghanistan for the entire winter period. The creation of fortified areas and resistance bases directly in the country began.

• January 16 - the Mujahideen shot down a Su-25 aircraft from the Strela-2M MANPADS. This is the first case of successful use of MANPADS in Afghanistan.

• April 30 - in the Khazar Gorge, during a large-scale military operation in the Panjshir Gorge, the 1st Battalion of the 682nd Motorized Rifle Regiment was ambushed and suffered heavy losses.
• October 27 - Mujahideen shoot down an Il-76 transport aircraft from the Strela MANPADS over Kabul.

• April 21 - The death of the Maravar company.
• April 26 - Soviet and Afghan POWs revolt in the Badaber prison in Pakistan.
• May 25 - Kunar operation. Battle near the village of Konyak, Pechdara Gorge, Kunar province, 4th company of the 149th Guards. Motor Rifle Regiment. Once in the ring surrounded by the Mujahideen and Pakistani mercenaries - "Black Storks" guardsmen of the 4th company and the forces of the 2nd battalion attached to it lost 23 dead and 28 wounded.
• June - army operation in Panjshir.
• Summer is a new course of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU for a political solution to the "Afghan problem".
• October 16-17 - Shutulskaya tragedy (20 dead, several dozen wounded)
• The main task of the 40th Army is to cover the southern borders of the USSR, for which new motorized rifle units are involved. The creation of stronghold fortified areas in hard-to-reach areas of the country began.
• On November 22, 1985, while performing a task, an outpost of the Motomaneuverable Group (MMG) of the Panfilov Border Detachment of the Eastern Border District of the KGB of the USSR was ambushed. In the battle near the village of Afrij in the Zardev Gorge of the province of Badakhshan, 19 border guards were killed. These were the largest losses of border guards in one battle in the Afghan war of 1979-1989.

• February - at the XXVII Congress of the CPSU, M. Gorbachev makes a statement about the beginning of the development of a plan for a phased withdrawal of troops.
• April 4-20 - an operation to defeat the Javar base: a major defeat for the Mujahideen. Unsuccessful attempts by Ismail Khan's detachments to break through the "security zone" around Herat.
• May 4 - at the XVIII Plenum of the Central Committee of the PDPA, instead of B. Karmal, M. Najibullah, who previously headed the Afghan counterintelligence KHAD, was elected to the post of Secretary General. The plenum proclaimed the policy of solving the problems of Afghanistan by political means.
• June 16 - Military operation "Maneuver" - Takhar province. A long battle on Mount Yafsaj of the 783rd ORB of the 201st MSD - Jarav Gorge, in which 18 scouts died, 22 were wounded. This was the second tragedy of the Kunduz Intelligence Battalion.
• July 28 - M. Gorbachev publicly announced the imminent withdrawal of six regiments of the 40th Army from Afghanistan (about 7,000 people). The withdrawal date will be rescheduled at a later date. In Moscow, there are disputes about whether to withdraw troops completely.
• August - Massoud defeated the base of government troops in Farkhar, Takhar province.
• August 18-26 - Military operation "Trap" under the command of General of the Army V. I. Varennikov. The assault on the Kokari-Sharshari fortified area in the province of Herat.
• Autumn - Major Belov's reconnaissance group of 173 ooSpN 22obrSpN captures the first batch of MANPADS "Stinger" in the amount of three pieces in the Kandahar region.
• October 15-31 - tank, motorized rifle, anti-aircraft regiments were withdrawn from Shindand, motorized rifle and anti-aircraft regiments were withdrawn from Kunduz, and anti-aircraft regiments were withdrawn from Kabul.
• November 13 - at a meeting of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU, Mikhail Gorbachev noted: “ We have been fighting in Afghanistan for six years now. If we do not change approaches, then we will fight for another 20-30 years". Chief of the General Staff Marshal Akhromeev said: There is not a single military task that would be set, but not solved, but there is no result.<…>We control Kabul and the provincial centers, but we cannot establish power in the occupied territory. We lost the fight for the Afghan people". At the same meeting, the task was set to withdraw all troops from Afghanistan within two years.
• December - an extraordinary plenum of the Central Committee of the PDPA proclaims a course towards a policy of national reconciliation and advocates an early end to the fratricidal war.

• January 2 - an operational group of the USSR Ministry of Defense headed by the First Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the USSR Armed Forces, General of the Army V. I. Varennikov, was sent to Kabul.
• February - Operation "Strike" in the province of Kunduz.
• February-March - Operation Flurry in Kandahar province.
• March 8 - shelling by Mujahideen of the city of Panj, Tajik SSR.
• March - Operation "Thunderstorm" in the province of Ghazni.
• March 29, 1986 - during the fighting of the 15th brigade, when the Jalalabad battalion, with the support of the Asadabad battalion, defeated a large Mujahideen base in Karer.

Operation Circle in the provinces of Kabul and Logar.

• April 9 - Mujahideen attacked the Soviet frontier post. When repelling an attack, 2 Soviet servicemen are killed, 20 Mujahideen are destroyed.
• April 12 - the defeat of the base of the rebels Milov in the province of Nangarhar.
• May - operation "Volley" in the provinces of Logar, Paktia, Kabul.

Operation "South-87" in the province of Kandahar.

• Spring - Soviet troops begin to use the Barrier system to cover the eastern and southeastern sections of the state border.
• November 23 - the beginning of Operation Highway to deblock the city of Khost.

• January 7-8 - battle at height 3234.
• April 14 - With the mediation of the UN in Switzerland, the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of Afghanistan and Pakistan signed the Geneva Agreements on a political settlement of the situation around the situation in the DRA. The USSR and the USA became the guarantors of the agreements. The Soviet Union undertook to withdraw its contingent within 9 months, starting on May 15; The US and Pakistan, for their part, had to stop supporting the Mujahideen.
• June 24 - Opposition detachments captured the center of the province of Wardak - the city of Maidanshehr. In September 1988, Soviet troops near Maidanshehr carried out an operation to destroy the Khurkabul base area.
• August 10 - Mujahideen took Kunduz

• January 23-26 - operation "Typhoon", Kunduz province. The last military operation of the SA in Afghanistan.
• February 4 - The last unit of the Soviet Army left Kabul.
• February 15 - Soviet troops are completely withdrawn from Afghanistan. The withdrawal of troops of the 40th Army was led by the last commander of the Limited Military Contingent, Lieutenant General B.V. Gromov, who, according to the official version, was the last to cross the border river Amu Darya (Termez). He declared: "There was not a single Soviet soldier left behind me." This statement was not true, since both Soviet military personnel who were captured by the Mujahideen and border guard units remained in Afghanistan, covering the withdrawal of troops and returning to the territory of the USSR only in the afternoon of February 15. The border troops of the KGB of the USSR performed the tasks of protecting the Soviet-Afghan border by separate units on the territory of Afghanistan until April 1989.

results

• Colonel General Gromov, the last commander of the 40th Army (led the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan), in his book "Limited Contingent" expressed this opinion regarding the victory or defeat of the Soviet Army in Afghanistan:

Indeed, before the beginning of the withdrawal of OKSVA in May 1988, the Mujahideen never managed to carry out a single major operation and failed to occupy a single large city. At the same time, Gromov's opinion that the 40th Army was not tasked with military victory, is inconsistent with the estimates of some other authors. In particular, Major General Yevgeny Nikitenko, who in 1985-1987 was the deputy head of the operations department of the headquarters of the 40th army, believes that throughout the war the USSR pursued the same goals - to suppress the resistance of the armed opposition and strengthen the power of the Afghan government. Despite all efforts, the number of opposition formations only grew from year to year, and in 1986 (at the peak of the Soviet military presence), the Mujahideen controlled more than 70% of the territory of Afghanistan. According to Colonel General Viktor Merimsky, former deputy. head of the Operational Group of the USSR Ministry of Defense in the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan, the leadership of Afghanistan actually lost the fight against the rebels for its people, could not stabilize the situation in the country, although it had 300,000 military units (army, police, state security).

• After the outbreak of the Afghan war, several countries declared a boycott Olympic Games 1980, held in Moscow.

Humanitarian consequences

The result of hostilities from 1978 to 1992 was the flow of refugees to Iran and Pakistan, a considerable percentage of whom remain there to this day. Sharbat Gula's photograph, featured on the cover of National Geographic magazine in 1985 under the title "Afghan Girl", has become a symbol of the Afghan conflict and the problem of refugees around the world.

The bitterness of the belligerents reached extreme limits. It is known that the Mujahideen subjected prisoners to torture, among which such as the "red tulip" is widely known. Weapons were used so widely that many of the villages in literally words were built from rockets left over from the withdrawal of the Soviet army, residents used rockets to build houses, as ceilings, window and door beams, but the statements of the US administration about the use of chemical weapons by the 40th Army, voiced in March 1982, and have not been documented.

Side losses

The exact number of Afghans killed in the war is unknown. The most common figure is 1 million dead; available estimates range from 670,000 civilians to 2 million in total. According to Harvard professor M. Kramer, an American researcher of the Afghan war: “During the nine years of the war, more than 2.5 million Afghans (mostly civilians) were killed or maimed, several million more were in the ranks of refugees, many of whom left the country” . Apparently, there is no exact division of victims into government army soldiers, Mujahideen and civilians.

USSR losses

Total - 13 833 people. These data first appeared in the Pravda newspaper in August 1989. In the future, the final figure increased slightly, presumably due to those who died from the consequences of injuries and illnesses after their dismissal from the armed forces. As of January 1, 1999, irretrievable losses in the Afghan war (killed, died from wounds, diseases and in accidents, missing) were estimated as follows:

• Soviet Army - 14,427
• KGB - 576
• Ministry of Internal Affairs - 28

Total - 15,031 people. Sanitary losses - almost 54 thousand wounded, shell-shocked, injured; 416 thousand cases.

According to Vladimir Sidelnikov, Professor of the Military Medical Academy of St. Petersburg, the final figures do not include servicemen who died from wounds and diseases in hospitals in the USSR.

In a study of the Afghan war, conducted by officers of the General Staff under the direction of prof. Valentina Runova, gives an estimate of 26,000 dead, including those killed in action, those who died of wounds and disease, and those who died in accidents. The breakdown by year is as follows:

Of the approximately 400 servicemen who were listed as missing during the war, a certain number of prisoners were taken by Western journalists to the countries of Western Europe and North America. According to the USSR Foreign Ministry, as of June 1989, about 30 people lived there; three people returned to the Soviet Union after the USSR Prosecutor General's statement that the former prisoners would not be prosecuted. As of February 15, 2009, the Committee on the Affairs of Internationalist Warriors under the Council of Heads of Government of the Commonwealth Member States (CIS) included 270 people in the list of missing Soviet citizens in Afghanistan from 1979 to 1989.

The number of dead Soviet generals according to publications in the press, it is usually four dead, sometimes a figure of 5 dead and dead in Afghanistan is given.

Losses in equipment, according to official data, amounted to 147 tanks, 1314 armored vehicles (armored personnel carriers, infantry fighting vehicles, BMD, BRDM), 510 engineering vehicles, 11,369 trucks and fuel trucks, 433 artillery systems, 118 aircraft, 333 helicopters. At the same time, these figures were not specified in any way - in particular, no information was published on the number of combat and non-combat losses of aviation, on the losses of aircraft and helicopters by type, etc.

Some of the Soviet servicemen who fought in Afghanistan experienced the so-called "Afghan syndrome" - post-traumatic stress disorders. Testing conducted in the early 1990s showed that at least 35-40% of the participants in the war in Afghanistan were in dire need of the help of professional psychologists.

Other losses

According to the Pakistani authorities, in the first four months of 1987, more than 300 civilians were killed as a result of Afghan air raids on Pakistani territory.

Economic losses of the USSR

About 800 million US dollars were spent annually from the USSR budget to support the Kabul government.

In works of culture and art

Fiction

• Andrey Dyshev. Reconnaissance. - M.: Eksmo, 2006. - ISBN 5-699-14711-X
• Dyshev Sergey. Lost Squad. - M.: Eksmo, 2006. - ISBN 5-699-15709-3
• Mikhail Evstafiev. Two steps from paradise. - M.: Eksmo, 2006 - ISBN 5-699-18424-4
• Nikolay Prokudin. Raid Battalion. - M.: Eksmo, 2006 - ISBN 5-699-18904-1
• Sergei Skripal, Gennady Rytchenko. The doomed contingent. - M.: Eksmo, 2006. - ISBN 5-699-16949-0
• Gleb Bobrov. Soldier Saga. - M.: Eksmo, 2007 - ISBN 978-5-699-20879-1
• Alexander Prokhanov. A tree in the center of Kabul. - M.: Soviet writer, 1982. - 240 p.
• Svetlana Aleksievich. Zinc boys. - M.: Time, 2007. - ISBN 978-5-9691-0189-3
• Frolov I. A. Walks with a flight engineer. Helicopter. - M.: EKSMO, 2007. - ISBN 978-5-699-21881-3
• Viktor Nikolaev. Alive in help. Notes of an Afghan. - M.: Soft Publishing House, 2006. - ISBN 5-93876-026-7
• Pavel Andreev. Twelve stories. "Afghan war 1979-1989", 1998-2002.
• Alexander Segen. Lost APC. - M.: Armada-Press, 2001, 224 p. - ISBN 5-309-00098-4
• Oleg Ermakov. Afghan stories. The sign of the beast.
• Igor Moiseenko. Firing sector. - M.Eksmo, 2008

Memoirs

• Gromov B.V."Limited contingent". M., ed. Group "Progress", "Culture", 1994. 352 p. The book of the last commander of the 40th Army contains many documents that reveal the reasons for the introduction of troops, many events of the war are described.
• Lyakhovsky A. A. The tragedy and valor of Afghan M., Iskona, 1995, 720 p. ISBN 5-85844-047-9 Large fragments of the text coincide with the book by Gromov B.V.
• Mayorov A. M. The truth about the Afghan war Testimonies of the chief military adviser. M., Human Rights, 1996, ISBN 5-7712-0032-8
• Gordienko A. N. Wars of the second half of the XX century. Minsk., 1999 ISBN 985-437-507-2 A large section of the book is devoted to the background and course of hostilities in Afghanistan
• Ablazov V.I."Afghanistan. The Fourth War”, Kyiv, 2002; “A cloudless sky over all of Afghanistan”, Kyiv, 2005; "Long way from Afghan captivity and obscurity", Kyiv, 2005
• Bondarenko I. N.“How we built in Afghanistan”, Moscow, 2009
• Pillows D. L. Confession to oneself (on participation in hostilities in Afghanistan). - Vyshny Volochek, 2002. - 48 s
• David S. Insby. Afghanistan. Soviet Victory // Flame of the Cold War: Victories that never happened. = Cold War Hot: Alternative Decisuicions of the Cold War / ed. Peter Tsouros, trans. Y.Yablokova. - M.: AST, Lux, 2004. - S. 353-398. - 480 s. - (Great confrontations). - 5000 copies. - ISBN 5-17-024051 (alternative history of the war)
• Kozhukhov, M. Yu. Alien stars over Kabul - M .: Olympus: Eksmo, 2010-352 p., ISBN 978-5-699-39744-0

In cinema

• "Hot Summer in Kabul" (1983) - a film directed by Ali Khamraev
• "Paid for Everything" (1988) - a film directed by Alexei Saltykov
• "Rambo 3" (1988, USA)
• "Sergeant" (1988) - a film as part of the film almanac "Bridge", dir. Stanislav Gaiduk, production: Mosfilm, Belarusfilm
• “Scorched by Kandahar” (1989, director: Yuri Sabitov) - a Soviet Afghan officer decommissioned due to injury enters the fight against the mafia and, in the end, at the cost of his own life, exposes the criminals
• "Cargo 300" (1989) - a film by the Sverdlovsk film studio
• "Two Steps to Silence" (1991) - a film directed by Yuri Tupitsky
• "Gorge of Spirits" (1991) - a film directed by Sergei Nilov
• "Afghan break" (1991, USSR-Italy) - a film by Vladimir Bortko about the war in Afghanistan
• "Leg" (1991) - a film directed by Nikita Tyagunov
• "Afghan" (1991) - a film directed by Vladimir Mazur. Contrabalt
• "Afghan-2" (1994) - continuation of the film "Afghan"
• "Peshawar Waltz" (1994) - a film by T. Bekmambetov and G. Kayumov, in the opinion of "Afghan" veterans, one of the most poignant and truthful films about that war, dedicated to the events in Badaber
• "Muslim" (1995) - a film by Vladimir Khotinenko about a Soviet soldier who returned home after 7 years in captivity of the Mujahideen
• "9th Company" (2005, Russia-Ukraine-Finland) - a film by Fyodor Bondarchuk
• "Star of a Soldier" (2006, France) - a film by French journalist Christophe de Ponfilly about the history of a Soviet prisoner of war in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The prototype of the protagonist was one of the participants in the armed uprising in the camp of Badaber
• "Charlie Wilson's War" (2007, USA) - film based on real history about how, during the Afghan war, Congressman from Texas Charles Wilson organized the financing of a covert CIA operation to supply weapons to the Afghan resistance forces (Operation Cyclone)
• The Wind Runner (2007)
• "Afghan War" 2009 - a documentary series with elements of historical reconstruction
• "Caravan Hunters" (2010) - a military drama based on the works of Alexander Prokhanov "Caravan Hunter" and "Muslim Wedding".

In music

• "Blue Berets": Our Afghan, Afghan kink, Silver plane, War is not a walk, Borders
• "Cascade": Cuckoo, We leave at dawn, On the Bagram road, I'll be back, We're leaving, Warriors-motorists, Who needed this war?
• "Contingent": Cuckoo, Prisoners, Meter by two
• "Echo of Afghanistan": I was killed near Kandahar, Cigarette smoke
• "Lube": For you
• "Survival Manual": 1988 - Confrontation in Moscow - Afghan Syndrome
• Igor Talkov: Ballad of an Afghan
• Maxim Troshin: Afghanistan
• Valery Leontiev. Afghan wind (I. Nikolaev - N. Zinoviev)
• Alexander Rosenbaum. Pilot's monologue of the "Black Tulip", Caravan, In the mountains of Afghanistan, It's raining on the pass, We'll be back
• Yuri Shevchuk. War is childish, don't shoot
• Konstantin Kinchev. Tomorrow may be late (album "Nervous Night", 1984)
• Egor Letov. afghan syndrome
• N. Anisimov. The last monologue of the Mi-8, Helicopter gunner's song
• M. Bessonov. Heart shrinks to pain
• I. Burlyaev. In memory of the helicopter pilots of Afghanistan
• V. Verstakov. Allah Akbar
• A. Doroshenko. Afghan
• V. Gorsky. Afghan
• S. Kuznetsov. Incident on the road
• I. Morozov. Talukan-Fayzabad convoy, Midnight toast, Helicopter pilots
• A. Smirnov. For KamAZ drivers
• I. Baranov. Chance in battle, In the mountains near Peshawar
• Sprint. Afghanistan
• Nesmeyana."Fur Coat from Afghanistan", "Bottle", "Elevator of Love"
• Collection of Afghan songs "Time has chosen us", 1988

In computer games

• Squad Battles: Soviet-Afghan War
• Rambo III
• 9 Rota
• The truth about the ninth company
• Front line. Afghanistan 82

Afghan war- civil war in Afghanistan 1979-2001, in which in 1979-1989. Soviet troops were involved.

Crisis of the pro-Soviet regime

The crisis of the semi-feudal state in Afghanistan led to an increase in political upheaval in the 1970s. The pro-communist coup of 1978 and radical anti-feudal reforms destabilized the situation in the country. Repressions against all those dissatisfied with the regime of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) met with armed resistance from the population of the country. A resistance movement began to grow under the banner of Islam. Repression and the outbreak of war caused a flow of refugees to neighboring Pakistan. Already by the mid-1980s, their number reached more than 3 million people. Tens of thousands of them returned to Afghanistan with weapons supplied by NATO countries seeking to overthrow the PDPA regime.

The resistance to the communists was led by supporters of the Islamic state. Partisans were called fighters for the faith - Mujahideen.

Amin became the President of Afghanistan. In Moscow, Amin was considered an unpredictable leader who could reorient himself towards the United States or China in order to bring about an end to the war. Then a hostile state would have arisen at the borders of the USSR. To prevent this threat, the leaders of the Soviet Union decided to overthrow Amin, replace him with a more moderate leader Babarak Karmal, and at the same time a decision was made to introduce a limited contingent of Soviet troops into Afghanistan.

After the entry of Soviet troops