Afgantsy

by Rodric Braithwaite

  29 Alexander Shkirando, interview, Moscow, 27 July 2007.

  30 Lyakhovski, Cold War International History Working Paper No. 51, p. 454.

  31 Ibid., p. 67.

  32 Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana, 2004, p. 288.

  33 V. Snegirev, Ryzhy (Moscow, 2000), p. 145.

  34 Other versions are that he was killed by a grenade splinter, or even by his own guards: Lyakhovski, Cold War International History Working Paper No. 51, p. 62.

  35 In Lyakhovski’s successive accounts, the casualty figures vary. In his Tragedia i doblest Afgana, 2004, pp. 285 and 295, he gives slightly higher figures for the Soviet casualties than those in Cold War International History Working Paper No. 51, p. 64. I have taken the latter figures.

  36 Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana, 2004, p. 285.

  37 Galina Ivanov, interview, Moscow, 14 March 2010.

  38 S. Balenko, SpetsNaz GRU v Afganistane (Moscow, 2010), p. 69. Since the early 1990s, when the veil of secrecy on the storming of the palace began to be lifted, there have been a number of more or less coherent reconstructions of these confused events. One of the most lucid is Lester Grau’s 2003 article, ‘The Takedown of Kabul: An Effective Coup de Main’ (http://www.cgsc.edu/carl/download/csipubs/Block/chp9_Block_by.pdf). This is based on the testimony of eyewitnesses and the technical analysis of the Russian general staff. Map 3 is based on the detailed map in Mr Grau’s article.

  39 The cat features in Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana, 1995, and in General Drozdov’s account of the storming of the palace in Balenko, SpetsNaz GRU v Afganistane, p. 66.

  5: Aftermath

  1 A. Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana (Moscow, 2004), pp. 308–9.

  2 Dr Lutfullah Latif, interview, London, 18 July 2008.

  3 A. Kalinovsky, ‘A Long Goodbye: The Politics and Diplomacy of the Soviet Withdrawal from Afghanistan, 1980–1992’, PhD thesis, London School of Economics, 2009, quoting C. Andrew and V. Mitrokhin, The World Was Going Our Way (New York, 2006), p. 407.

  4 A. Greshnov, Afganistan: Zalozhniki vremeni (Moscow, 2006), pp. 44, 134, and 136.

  5 There are many accounts of this embarrassing moment. See, for example, Rasskazy ob operatsiakh—Baikal (http://antiterror.ru/to_profs/tales/71898035).

  6 Greshnov, Afganistan: Zalozhniki vremeni, p. 42.

  7 A. Sukhoparov, ‘Afganski sindrom’ (www.russia-today.ru/2009/no_02/02_world_02.html).

  8 A. Belofastov and A. Rebrik (eds.), Mushavery (Moscow, 2005), p. 44.

  9 The Americans lost twenty-four soldiers dead and 325 wounded. The Panamanian military lost about 205 dead. US military estimates of civilian casualties range from 200 to 1,000. Other estimates range from 2,000 to 5,000 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_invasion_of_Panama).

  10 Dmitri Ryurikov, interview, Moscow, 24 July 2009.

  11 The Bonner and Sakharov texts are at www.hro.org-editions-karta.

  12 M. Galeotti, Afghanistan: The Soviet Union’s Last War (London, 1995), pp. 139–54.

  13 Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana, p.19; interview with Oleg Bogomolov, Moscow, May 2007.

  14 Information from Dr Galina Yemelyanova, a former scholar from the institute, 6 June 2009.

  15 Information from Sir Christopher Mallaby, who was serving in the Foreign Office at the time.

  16 A. Chernyaev, Sovmestny iskhod: Dnevnik dvukh epokh 1972–1991 gody (Moscow, 2008), diary entries for 30 December 1979, 5 February 1980, and 9 February 1980, pp. 386, 391, and 392.

  17 A. Savinkin, Afganskie uroki: Vyvody dlya budushchego v svete ideinogo nasledia A. E. Snegareva (Moscow, 2003), p. 728.

  18 S. Coll, Ghost Wars (London, 2005), pp. 132–3.

  19 D. MacEachin, ‘Predicting the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan’, Center for the Study of Intelligence (https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/books-and-monographs/).

  20 Coll, Ghost Wars, pp. 132–3.

  21 FCO File FSA 020/2, Folio 74e: Howell Minute of 28 November 1979.

  22 Alexander Maiorov, who was the Chief Soviet Military Adviser in Afghanistan in 1980–81, says that Ustinov, the Defence Minister, spoke of both objectives. There is no evidence that Ustinov was talking about concrete plans rather than vague aspirations: A. Maiorov, Pravda ob afganskoi voine (Moscow, 1996), pp. 50 and 269; R. Gates, From the Shadows (New York, 1996), p. 148; FCO File FS 021/6: letter of 28 September from South Asia Department to High Commission in Islamabad.

  23 ‘Grain Becomes a Weapon’, Time, 21 January 1980.

  24 FCO File EN021/1/1980, Folio 103: Washington Tel 137 of 9 January 1980 to FCO.

  25 See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carter_Doctrine.

  26 G. Dorronosoro, Revolution Unending: Afghanistan, 1979 to the Present (New York, 2005), p. 192, fn.

  27 Z. Brzezinski, ‘Reflections on Soviet Intervention in Afghanistan’, 26 December 1979 (http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/cold.war/episodes/20/documents/brez.carter/).

  28 Coll, Ghost Wars, p. 44; Brzezinski interview with Le Nouvel Observateur, 15–21 January 1998 (http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/BRZ110A.html).

  29 Daily Telegraph, 14 January 1985.

  30 J. Prados, Safe for Democracy: The Secret Wars of the CIA (Chicago, 2006), pp. 488–90.

  31 Memorandum of 6 December 1984, quoted in Coll, Ghost Wars, p. 102. The point about the politicisation of American support for the mujahedin was made to me by Artemy Kalinovsky.

  32 They base themselves primarily on Brzezinski’s interview with Le Nouvel Observateur in January 1998.

  33 A. Lyakhovski, Cold War International History Working Paper No. 51: Inside the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan and the Seizure of Kabul, December 1979, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, January 2007, p. 64.

  34 G. Feifer, The Great Gamble: The Soviet War in Afghanistan (New York, 2009), p. 97.

  35 V. Kryuchkov, Lichnoe delo, 2 vols. (Moscow, 1996), Vol. 1, p. 207.

  36 Private information.

  Part II: The Disasters of War

  1 I. Chernobrovkin, ‘Desyat gorkikh let’ (http://www.centrasia.ru/newsA.php4?st=1091161680).

  6: The 40th Army Goes to War

  1 A. Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana (Moscow, 2004), p. 251; D. Gai and V. Snegirev, Vtorzhenie (Moscow, 1991), p. 91.

  2 I. Tukharinov, Sekretny komandarm (http://www.rsva.ru/biblio/prose_af/secret_com/index.shtml).

  3 A. Kalinovsky, ‘A Long Goodbye: The Politics and Diplomacy of the Soviet Withdrawal from Afghanistan, 1980–1992’, PhD thesis, London School of Economics, 2009.

  4 Some 155 officers died between 1946 and 1950 in the Chinese civil war; 168 during the Korean War; twelve during the fighting in Vietnam between 1965 and 1974; seven from accidents and illness in Cuba in 1962–4; eighteen in the wars between the Arabs and the Israelis in 1967–74; twenty-three in Ethiopia; forty during the fighting along the frontier with China in 1969: G. Krivosheev, Rossia i SSSR v voinakh XX veka: Poteri vooruzhennykh sil (Moscow, 2001), pp. 521–34.

  5 Ibid., p. 537.

  6 Anatoli Yermolin, conversation, Warsaw, September 2006.

  7 Alexander Kartsev, interviews, and material from his memoir Shelkovy put (privately published, 2004).

  8 O. Caroe, The Pathans (New York, 1964), p. 320.

  9 According to the UN, more than half of Afghanistan’s gross domestic product in 2005 came from the production of drugs. In many parts of the country ‘opium was the only commercially viable crop’, UNODC Afghanistan Opium Survey 2005 (http://www.unodc.org/newsletter/en/200504/page008.html).

  10 A. Prokhanov, Tretii tost (Moscow, 2003), p. 61.

  11 M. Townsend, ‘I Could Feel the Breeze as the Bullets Went By’, Observer, 5 August 2007.

  12 A. Kartsev, Voenny razvedchik (Moscow, 2007), p. 47.

  13 Yu. Lapshin, Afganski dnevnik (Moscow, 2004), p. 62.

  14 Gai and Snegirev, Vtorzhenie, p. 236; Lapshin, Afganski dnevnik, p. 101.

  15 L. Grau, ‘The Soviet-Afghan War: Sup
erpower Mired in the Mountains’ (http://www.smallwars.quantico.usmc.mil/search/LessonsLearned/afghanistan/miredinmount.asp); V. Korolev, ‘Uroki voiny v Afganistane 1979–1989 godov’ (http://www.sdrvdv.org/node/159).

  16 S. Kozlov (ed.), SpetsNaz GRU: Afganistan (Moscow, 2009), p. 25; ‘Istoria SpetsNaza GRU’ (http://bratishka.ru/specnaz/gru/history.php); ‘Afganistan’ (http://www.agentura.ru/dossier/russia/gru/imperia/specnaz/afgan/).

  17 Lecture by General Vadim Kokorin, Chief of Intelligence of the 40th Army 1985–7: copy kindly given to me by Colonel Ruslan Kyryliuk.

  18 Igor Morozov, interviews, Moscow, 19 February 2007 and 11 March 2010; http://www.agentura.ru/specnaz/bezopasnost/kaskad/; ‘Nezavisimoe Voennoe Obozrenie’ (http://nvo.ng.ru/spforces/2000–09–22/7_kaskader.html); R. Kipling, Stalky & Co. (London, 1899), p. 257.

  19 L. Kucherova, SpetsNaz KGB v Afganistane (Moscow, 2009), pp. 321 and 319.

  20 V. Kharichev, ‘Pogranichniki—v ognennoi voine Afganistana’ (http://pv-afghan.ucoz.ru/publ/ctati/1).

  21 V. Ogryzko, Pesni afganskogo pokhoda (Moscow, 2000), pp. 30–31.

  22 Lecture by General Vadim Kokorin.

  23 According to Gorelov, the Soviet military adviser in Afghanistan at the beginning of the war, the Afghans had ten divisions, 145,000 men, 650 tanks, eighty-seven infantry fighting vehicles, 780 armoured personnel carriers, 1,919 guns, 150 aircraft, and twenty-five helicopters.

  24 M. Galeotti, Afghanistan: The Soviet Union’s Last War (London, 1995), p. 7.

  25 The first figure is from M. Urban, War in Afghanistan (London, 1990), p. 106; the second from G. Dorronosoro, Revolution Unending: Afghanistan, 1979 to the Present (New York, 2005), p. 188.

  26 Valeri Shiryaev, interview, Moscow, 12 March 2010.

  27 G. Bobrov, Soldatskaya saga (Moscow, 2007), pp. 237–40.

  28 Ogryzko, Pesni afganskogo pokhoda, p. 49.

  29 V. Kryuchkov, Lichnoe delo, 2 vols. (Moscow, 1996), Vol. 1, p. 213.

  30 Gai and Snegirev, Vtorzhenie, p. 137.

  31 Ibid., p. 113.

  32 Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana, 2009, p. 450; M. Kakar, Afghanistan: The Soviet Invasion and the Afghan Response, 1979–1982 (Berkeley, CA, 1995), pp. 114–19.

  33 Tukharinov, Sekretny komandarm.

  34 Lapshin, Afganski dnevnik, p. 101.

  35 Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana, 1995 (http://www.rsva.ru/biblio/prose_af/afgan_tragedy_and_glory/index.shtml).

  36 V. Varennikov, Nepovtorimoe, 7 vols. (Moscow, 2001), Vol. 5, pp. 117–29.

  37 Tukharinov, Sekretny komandarm.

  38 J. Prados, Safe for Democracy: The Secret Wars of the CIA (Chicago, 2006), pp. 488.

  39 M. Yousaf and M. Adkin, Afghanistan: The Bear Trap (Barnsley, 1992), p. 208.

  40 ‘Dalnyaya aviatsia Rossii’ (www.sinopa.ee/davia003/dav03.htm).

  41 Krivosheev, Rossia i SSSR v voinakh XX veka, p. 539.

  42 Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana, 2004, pp. 766–7.

  43 See http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums/showthread.php?t=16922.

  44 Air Assault Comes to Afghanistan (http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums/showthread.php?16922-(Soviet)-Air-Assault-Comes-to-Afghanistan-1984).

  45 B. Gromov, Ogranichenny kontingent (Moscow, 1994) (http://www.rsva.ru/biblio/prose_af/limited_contingent/index.shtml).

  7: The Nationbuilders

  1 Martha Brill Olcott, ‘Soviet Islam and World Revolution’, World Politics, Vol. 23, No. 2, July 1982, p. 488, quoted in A. Kalinovsky, ‘Intruder in the “Communal Apartment”: The Afghan War, Soviet Muslims, and the Collapse of the USSR’, paper prepared for the HY510 seminar, London School of Economics, 11 November 2009.

  2 These aid figures come from A. Kalinovsky, ‘The Blind Leading the Blind: Soviet Advisors, Counter-insurgency and Nation-Building in Afghanistan’, paper prepared for HY510 seminar, London School of Economics, 11 February 2009, and A. Kalinovsky, ‘A Long Goodbye: The Politics and Diplomacy of the Soviet Withdrawal from Afghanistan, 1980–1992’, PhD thesis, London School of Economics, 2009, p. 120.

  3 D. Gai and V. Snegirev, Vtorzhenie (Moscow, 1991), p. 322; V. Snegirev, Ryzhy (Moscow, 2000), p. 157.

  4 Gai and Snegirev, Vtorzhenie, p. 323.

  5 Ibid., p. 361.

  6 V. Kryuchkov, Lichnoe delo, 2 vols. (Moscow, 1996), p. 220; B. Padishev, ‘Najibullah, president Afghanistana’, International Affairs (Moscow), January 1990, p. 23, quoted in Kalinovsky, ‘A Long Goodbye’.

  7 V. Snegirev in A. Belofastov and A. Rebrik (eds.), Mushavery (Moscow, 2005), p. 27.

  8 A. Maiorov, Pravda ob afganskoi voine (Moscow, 1996), p. 117.

  9 Gai and Snegirev, Vtorzhenie, p. 317.

  10 Valeri and Galina Ivanov, interview, Moscow, 14 March 2010.

  11 Maiorov, Pravda ob afganskoi voine, p. 110; Valeri Shiryaev, interview, Moscow, 12 March 2010.

  12 I. Tukharinov, Sekretny komandarm (http://www.rsva.ru/biblio/prose_af/secret_com/index.shtml); Valeri Shiryaev, interview, Moscow, 12 March 2010.

  13 Kalinovsky, ‘The Blind Leading the Blind’.

  14 Gai and Snegirev, Vtorzhenie, p. 317.

  15 G. Kireev, Kandagarski dnevnik (http://kireev.info/index.html).

  16 Belofastov and Rebrik (eds.), Mushavery, p. 13.

  17 Ibid., pp. 40 and 41.

  18 Yevgeni Kiselev, interview, Moscow, 24 March 2010.

  19 A. Greshnov, Afganistan: Zalozhniki vremeni (Moscow, 2006), pp. 26 and 27.

  20 J. Van Bladel, The All-Volunteer Force in the Russian Mirror: Transformation without Change (Groningen, 2004).

  21 A. Smolina, ‘Larisa-parikmakhersha’ (http://artofwar.ru/s/smolina_a/text_0160.shtml).

  22 One such case is mentioned in Gai and Snegirev, Vtorzhenie, p. 277.

  23 A. Smolina, ‘Otvet “Afganki” dla avtorshi “Tsinkovykh Malchikov”’ (http://artofwar.ru/s/smolina_a/text_0150.shtml).

  24 Gai and Snegirev, Vtorzhenie, p. 284.

  25 G. Krivosheev, Rossia i SSSR v voinakh XX veka: Poteri vooruzhennykh sil (Moscow, 2001), p. 537.

  26 ‘Veterany boevykh deistvii NizhneKamsk’ (http://www.afgankamsk.ucoz.ru/index/0–4).

  27 Smolina, ‘Larisa-parikmakhersha’.

  28 A. Smolina, ‘Medsestra Tatiana Kuzmina (1951–1986)’ (http://artofwar.ru/s/smolina_a/).

  29 A. Smolina, ‘Otvet “Afganki” dla avtorshi “Tsinkovykh Malchikov”’ (http://artofwar.ru/s/smolina_a/text_0150.shtml).

  30 S. Aleksievich, Zinky Boys (New York, 1992), p. 114.

  31 A. Smolina, ‘Iz okoshka devichego modulya, ili vospominania “Afganok”’ (http://artofwar.ru/s/smolina_a/text_0200.shtml).

  32 Colonel Viktor Antonenko, interview, Moscow, 31 May 2007.

  33 Aleksievich, Zinky Boys, p. 114.

  34 Ibid., pp. 41 and 24.

  35 Private information.

  36 Alexander Khoroshavin posted his comments in the online ‘smoking room’ of the regiment on 25 June 2006 (http://artofwar.ru/b/bobrow_g_1/kurilka860doc.shtml).

  37 A tactic also adopted by women working in other circumstances, such as the intimate conditions of a long posting to a scientific research station in the Antarctic, where one or two women may be cooped up with their male colleagues for months at a time: conversation with Meredith Hooper, 17 May 2008.

  38 A. Dyshev, PPZh: Pokhodno-polevaya Zhena (Moscow, 2007). The book’s verisimilitude is vouched for by Colonel Antonenko, Valeri Shiryaev, and Alexander Gergel.

  39 Dmitri Fedorov, email to author, 25 July 2007.

  40 Vyacheslav Nekrasov, interview, Moscow, 28 July 2009; V. Snegirev, ‘Nashi’, Rossiiskaya gazeta (http://www.rg.ru/peoples/sneg/1.shtm).

  41 Maiorov, Pravda ob afganskoi voine, pp. 145–8.

  42 M. Yousaf and M. Adkin, Afghanistan: The Bear Trap (Barnsley, 1992), p. 146.

  43 Gai and Snegirev, Vtorzhenie, pp. 317–18.

  44 A. Smolina, ‘Nevezukha, ona i v Afgane—nevezukha’ (http://artofwar.ru/s/smolina_a/).

  45 Gai and Snegirev, Vtorzhenie, pp. 351–5
.

  46 Ibid., pp. 335–61.

  47 Ibid., p. 320.

  48 Belofastov and Rebrik (eds.), Mushavery, p. 59.

  49 Alexander Yuriev, diary entry for 15–16 June 1985, ibid., p. 198.

  50 Alexander Yuriev, diary entry for 10–12 August 1985, ibid., p. 203.

  51 Ibid., p. 47.

  52 Ibid., p. 19.

  53 Ibid., p. 16.

  54 Ibid., pp. 17 and 111 et seq.

  55 Nikolai Komissarov, interview, Moscow, 26 July 2007.

  56 Belofastov and Rebrik (eds.), Mushavery, p. 48.

  57 Vyacheslav Nekrasov, interviews, Moscow, 2007–10.

  58 Belofastov and Rebrik (eds.), Mushavery, pp. 130–34.

  8: Soldiering

  1 The best literary description of ‘soldiering’ comes in Frederic Manning’s The Middle Parts of Fortune (London, 2000), about the fighting on the Somme in 1916.

  2 M. Galeotti, Afghanistan: The Soviet Union’s Last War (London, 1995), pp. 32–7.

  3 Alexander Gergel, email to author, 28 July 2008.

  4 A point made to me by Artemy Kalinovsky.

  5 M. Reshetnikov, ‘Psikhofiziologicheskie osnovy prognozirovania effektivnosti boevoi deatelnosti i boevoi adaptatsii voennosluzhashchikh’: article kindly provided by Dr Reshetnikov.

  6 Galeotti, Afghanistan, p. 30.

  7 S. Aleksievich, Zinky Boys (New York, 1992), p. 27. There were similar stories at the beginning of the war in Chechnya.

  8 V. Tamarov, Afghanistan: A Russian Soldier’s Story (Berkeley, CA, 2001), p. 138.

  9 Andrei Ponomarev, interview, Moscow, 1 March 2010.

  10 Vitali Krivenko gives a semi-fictionalised account of his time in Afghanistan in the first part of Ekipazh mashiny boevoi (‘The Crew of a Fighting Vehicle’) (St Petersburg, 2004), pp. 36–336. The second part of the book (Kak pozhivaesh, shuravi?, pp. 336–80) is a memoir, from which these details of Krivenko’s career are drawn. On bullying, see p. 346.

  11 A. Chernyaev, Sovmestny iskhod: Dnevnik dvukh epokh 1972–1991 gody (Moscow, 2008), diary entry for 27 August 1985, p. 643.