Afgantsy

by Rodric Braithwaite

  12 Sergei Morozov, interview, Moscow, 31 May 2007.

  13 Krivenko, Ekipazh mashiny boevoi, p. 45; S. Nikiforov, Bez vsyakikh pravil (St Petersburg, 2008), p. 113.

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

  15 The problem of dedovshchina and the need for professional NCOs are widely discussed. See, for example, S. Belanovski and S. Marzeeva, Dedovshchina v sovietskoi armii (Moscow, 1991) (www.sbelan.ru/content/ - - - ); M. Radov, ‘Dedovshchina—istoki i prichiny’ (http://slovo.odessa.ua/366/5_4.html); I. Rodionov i, ‘Perestroiku armii nuzhno nachinat s serzhantov’ (http://tr.rkrp-rpk.ru/get.php?42); Alexander Gergel, email to author, 24 June 2009.

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

  17 The inadequacies are graphically spelled out by D. Gai and V. Snegirev, Vtorzhenie (Moscow, 1991), pp. 258–92.

  18 S. Nikiforov, Bez vsyakikh pravil, p. 100.

  19 G. Krivosheev, Rossia i SSSR v voinakh XX veka: Poteri vooruzhennykh sil (Moscow, 2001), p. 538.

  20 A. Dyshev, PPZh: Pokhodno-Polevaya Zhena (Moscow, 2007), pp. 38–9.

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

  22 Gai and Snegirev, Vtorzhenie, p. 273.

  23 A. Smolina, ‘Kholera v Dzelalabade’ (http://artofwar.ru/s/smolina_a/text_0070.shtml).

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

  25 Galeotti, Afghanistan, pp. 67–8.

  26 Major Vyacheslav Izmailov, interview, Moscow, 29 July 2009.

  27 Gromov, Ogranichenny kontingent, Part III: ‘Pervaya Komandirovka, Tashkent–Kabul’.

  28 ‘Istoria 3-ego bataliona’ (serg2331.narod.ru).

  29 A. Pochtarev, ‘An Afghan Diary’, Novaya gazeta (Moscow), 4 March 2005; Alexander Gergel, interview, Moscow, 16 February 2009.

  30 The establishment of a motor-rifle regiment in Afghanistan was 181 officers, 124 praporshchiki, 363 sergeants, 1,530 riflemen, 132 BMPs, forty tanks, eighteen 2SIs, and 264 vehicles: A. Vasiliev, ‘O 149 Polku’ (about the 149th Regiment) (http://artofwar.ru/w/wasilxew_a_i/text_0010.shtml); G. Bobrov, Soldatskaya saga (Moscow, 2007), p. 11; Alexander Gergel, interview, Moscow, 1 March 2010. See also Annex 2, ‘Order of Battle of the 40th Army’, p. 342.

  31 Bobrov, Soldatskaya saga, pp. 51–2 and 81.

  32 Alexander Gergel, interview, Moscow, 1 March 2010; S. Demyashov, interview (http://www.peresvet-lavra.ru/index.php?typereview&area2&particles&id104&PHPSESSIDcea44aa4bcbb077087dec923e7ece70); Bobrov, Soldatskaya saga, p. 170.

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

  34 Alexander Gergel, interview, Moscow, 28 July 2009.

  35 This description of the base at Bakharak is taken from interviews with Alexander Gergel and from his story Pismo schastlivomu soldatu (‘Letter to a Lucky Soldier’) (http://artofwar.ru/g/gergelx_a_n/text_0030.shtml).

  36 Colonel Ruslan Kyryliuk, conversation, London, 15 July 2010.

  37 W. Olney, ‘Shiloh’ as Seen by a Private Soldier: A Paper Read before California Commandery of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States, May 31, 1889 (Kessinger Publishing, Whitefish, Mont., 2007), p. 17.

  38 Alexander Gergel, email to author, 24 June 2009.

  39 Alexander Kartsev, email to author, 22 June 2009.

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

  41 Alexander Gergel, email to author, 23 September 2008.

  42 Yu. Lapshin, Afganski dnevnik (Moscow, 2004), pp. 50–59 and 89.

  43 A. Kartsev, Shelkovy put (privately published, 2004), Chapter 13; interview, Moscow, 3 March 2010.

  44 Valeri Shiryaev, email to author, 16 March 2010, containing an eyewitness description of the incident by a Soviet interpreter who was present.

  45 The main sources for the description of Masud and the Pandsher Valley are A. Lyakhovski and V. Nekrasov, Grazhdanin, politik, voin: Pamyati Akhmad Shakha Masuda (Moscow, 2007), pp. 24 et seq.: Ter-Grigoriants’s remarks are on pp. 40–43; P. Clammer, Afghanistan: Lonely Planet Guide (London, 2007); E. Newby, A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush (London, 1974); ‘The Pandsher Valley, the Emerald Mines and the Blue Mountain’ (http://www.travelafghanistan.co.uk/pages/panj.html); Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana, p. 10; and a visit which the author made there in September 2008.

  46 A. Giustozzi, Empires of Mud (London, 2009), pp. 282 and 287.

  47 Lyakhovski and Nekrasov, Grazhdanin, politik, voin, pp. 73 et seq.

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

  49 Alexander Golts, interview, Moscow, 6 December 2006.

  50 Alexander Gergel, interview, Moscow, 24 July 2007: this was his father’s salary at the time.

  51 Gai and Snegirev, Vtorzhenie, pp. 282 et seq.

  52 V. Snegirev in A. Belofastov and A. Rebrik (eds.), Mushavery (Moscow, 2005), p. 25.

  53 Aleksievich, Zinky Boys, p. 18.

  54 This is confirmed by Alexander Gergel, interview, Moscow, 16 February 2009.

  55 Krivenko, Ekipazh mashiny boevoi, p. 352.

  56 Masha Slonim, interview, Moscow, 14 March 2010.

  57 V. Ogryzko, Pesni afganskogo pokhoda (Moscow, 2000), p. 45.

  58 Ibid., p. 7.

  59 Interviews with Yuri Kirsanov (http://torrents.ru/forum/viewtopic.php?t322885); Komsomolskaya Pravda Ukrainy, 25 December 2008 (http://kp.ua/daily/251208/67416/); extract from ‘Afganski dnevnik’ by Viktor Verstakov (http://kaskad-4.narod.ru/Dnevnik_Verst.html); Igor Morozov, interview, Moscow, 11 March 2010.

  60 Ogryzko, Pesni afganskogo pokhoda, p. 23.

  61 Ibid., p. 147; Igor Morozov, interview, Moscow, 11 March 2010.

  62 Dyshev, PPZh, p. 379. Valeri Shiryaev said that he felt exactly the same way when he left Afghanistan.

  9: Fighting

  1 F. Manning, The Middle Parts of Fortune (London, 2000), p. 5; S. Junger, War, Book Three: Love (London, 2010), p. 2. I learned a bit about soldiering and comradeship during my military service, but I never saw any fighting. There are, however, convincing accounts by people who did: Frederick Manning fought on the Somme in 1916; Vasil Bykov (Ego batalion, Moscow, 2000) was on the Eastern Front in the Second World War; Nathaniel Fick (One Bullet Away, London, 2006) was in Iraq in 2003; Bernard Fall (Street without Joy: The French Debacle in Indochina, Barnesley, 2005) was in Indo-China; Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber (Lieutenant en Algérie, Paris, 1957) was in a ‘hearts and minds’ unit in Algeria; Sebastian Junger was an embedded journalist in Afghanistan in 2007–8. There is a very large literature about the American experience in Vietnam.

  2 M. Nawroz and L. Grau, The Soviet War in Afghanistan: History and Harbinger of Future War? Foreign Military Studies Office, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, June 1996.

  3 Personal information. Information on Vertical-T (http://vertical-t.biz/).

  4 Yu. Lapshin, Afganski dnevnik (Moscow, 2004), p. 81.

  5 A. Smolina, ‘Desantnik, ili pervoe znakomstvo s Dzhelalbadom’ (http://artofwar.ru/s/smolina_a/text_0110.shtml).

  6 A. Kartsev, Voenny razvedchik (Moscow, 2007).

  7 A. Kartsev, Shelkovy put (privately published, 2004), Chapter 17.

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

  9 Alexander Gergel, interview, Moscow, 1 March 2010.

  10 Colonel Antonenko and Alexander Gergel, interview, Moscow, 31 May 2007. Antonenko maintained that one of the reasons why the guerrillas fought better than the Russians was that they travelled light. Gergel said later that Antonenko was right only in part.

  11 A. Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana (Moscow, 2004), p. 439.

  12 Ibid.

  13 M. Urban, War in Afghanistan (London, 1990), Appendix IV, p. 332; Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana, p. 441.

  14 Ibid., p. 370.

  15 M. Bearden and J. Risen, The Main Enemy (New York, 2003), pp. 227 and 333–6; M. Yousaf and M.
Adkin, Afghanistan: The Bear Trap (Barnsley, 1992), pp. 155 and 220.

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

  17 D. Gai and V. Snegirev, Vtorzhenie (Moscow, 1991), p. 154; Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana, pp. 383–432; V. Varennikov, Nepovtorimoe, 7 vols. (Moscow, 2001), Vol. 5, p. 85; Boris Zhelezin, interview, Moscow, 19 February 2007.

  18 See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIM-92_Stinger.

  19 D. Cordovez and S. Harrison, Out of Afghanistan (Oxford, 1995), pp. 194–7.

  20 This is the date given by S. Coll, Ghost Wars (London, 2005), p. 149. G. Crile, Charlie Wilson’s War (New York, 2003) gives the date as 25 September.

  21 A. Smolina, ‘Vsem devushkam, letavshim v afganskom nebe’ (http://artofwar.ru/s/smolina_a/text_0080.shtml).

  22 Varennikov, Nepovtorimoe, pp. 196–7.

  23 Lapshin, Afganski dnevnik, p. 94.

  24 Gai and Snegirev, Vtorzhenie, p. 151.

  25 Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana, 1995, Chapter VI (http://www.rsva.ru/biblio/prose_af/afgan_tragedy_and_glory/index.shtml). There is a version of this incident in Prokhanov’s story ‘The Caravan Hunter’ in Treti tost (Moscow, 2003), pp. 5–103.

  26 M. Gareev, Moya poslednaya voina, Chapter 6, p. 102 (http://militera.lib.ru/memo/russian/gareev_ma/index.html).

  27 See press cuttings from NTI: ‘Working for a Safer World’ (http://www.nti.org/e_research/profiles/Iran/Missile/1788_1802.html).

  28 Cordovez and Harrison, Out of Afghanistan, p.198.

  29 General Yousaf, the Pakistani intelligence officer, claims that in the ten months to August 1987 the mujahedin had a 75 per cent success rate with their Stingers (Yousaf and Adkin, Afghanistan, p. 186). One American study estimated, on the other hand, that the hit rate was 50 per cent; it concluded that about 100 Soviet and Afghan planes had been destroyed before the Stingers were deployed. During 1987, the first full year in which the Stingers were used, the Soviet and Afghan air forces lost 150–200 aircraft. In 1988 the losses fell to fewer than fifty (Cordovez and Harrison, Out of Afghanistan, p. 198).

  30 Soviet aircraft losses in Afghanistan are given in G. Krivosheev, Rossia i SSSR v voinakh XX veka: Poteri vooruzhennykh sil (Moscow, 2001), p. 540; according to the Vietnam Helicopter Pilots Association, the total number of US helicopters destroyed in the Vietnam War was 5,086 out of 11,827 (http://www.vhpa.org/heliloss.pdf).

  31 A. Chernyaev, Sovmestny iskhod: Dnevnik dvukh epokh 1972–1991 gody (Moscow, 2008), diary entries for 4 April 1985 and 17 October 1985, pp. 617 and 650. See account of the Soviet decision-making process in Chapter 12: ‘The Road to the Bridge’. Mikhail Gorbachev has confirmed that the arrival of the Stingers did not affect his decision-making, though of course the military had to take it into account in their tactical planning of the Soviet withdrawal (conversation, Sofia, 7 October 2010).

  32 M. Galeotti, Afghanistan: The Soviet Union’s Last War (London, 1995), p. 197.

  33 Gai and Snegirev, Vtorzhenie (Moscow, 1991), p. 162.

  34 Yousaf and Adkin, Afghanistan (Barnsley, 1992), pp. 73–6; Tukharinov, Sekretny komandarm.

  35 Sergei Morozov, interview, Moscow, 31 May 2007; Yousaf and Adkin, Afghanistan, pp. 73–6; Galeotti, Afghanistan, pp. 192–7.

  36 Gai and Snegirev, Vtorzhenie, p. 262.

  37 Ibid., pp. 227–9.

  38 Alexander Gergel, interview, Moscow, 1 March 2010.

  39 V. Ablazov, Afganistan chetvertaya voina (Kiev, 2002), p. 189.

  40 G. Bobrov, Soldatskaya saga (Moscow, 2007), p. 144.

  41 Gai and Snegirev, Vtorzhenie, p. 139.

  42 Varennikov, Nepovtorimoe, p. 226.

  43 Urban, War in Afghanistan, p. 234.

  44 The description of Operation Magistral and the operations around Khost draws on B. Gromov, Ogranichenny kontingent (Moscow, 1994) (http://www.rsva.ru/biblio/prose_af/limited_contingent/index.shtml); L. Grau and A. Jalali, ‘The Campaign for the Caves’, Journal of Slavic Military Studies, Vol. 14, No. 3, September 2001 (http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/report/2001/010900-zhawar.htm); E. Westermann, ‘Limits of Soviet Airpower’, thesis, Air University, Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama, 1997; Varennikov, Nepovtorimoe, pp. 215–40.

  45 Crile, Charlie Wilson’s War, p. 521.

  46 A. Imtiaz, ‘The Haqqani Network and Cross-Border Terrorism in Afghanistan’, Terrorism Monitor, 24 March 2008.

  47 Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana, 1995 (http://www.rsva.ru/biblio/prose_af/afgan_tragedy_and_glory/index.shtml), p. 10.

  48 According to the British Ministry of Defence: email to author, 19 January 2010.

  49 A. Lyakhovski and V. Nekrasov, Grazhdanin, politik, voin: Pamyati Akhmad Shakha Masuda (Moscow, 2007), pp. 24 et seq.

  50 Sergei Morozov, interview, Moscow, 31 May 2007.

  51 S. Grigoriev, Pandzher v 1975–1990 gg. glazami afganskogo istorika (St Petersburg, 1997), p. 41.

  52 This account is taken from Lyakhovski and Nekrasov, Grazhdanin, politik, voin, pp. 93–121 passim. The figures for the Soviet and Afghan forces involved are on p. 96. Other sources give different figures.

  53 ‘Dalnyaya Aviatsia Rossii’ (www.sinopa.ee/davia003/dav03.htm).

  54 Private Knyazev’s account is at Lyakhovski and Nekrasov, Grazhdanin, politik, voin, pp. 117–21.

  55 L. Shebarshin, Ruka Moskvy: zapiski nachalnika sovetskoi razvedki (Moscow, 2002), p. 195.

  56 Lyakhovski and Nekrasov, Grazhdanin, politik, voin, p. 128.

  57 ‘Dalnyaya Aviatsia Rossii’.

  58 Lyakhovski and Nekrasov, Grazhdanin, politik, voin, p. 33.

  10: Devastation and Disillusion

  1 ‘Byt, nravi I obychai narodov Afganistana: Pravila i normy povedenia voennosluzhashchikh za rubezhom rodnoi strany’, 1985. I was kindly given a copy by Alexander Kartsev.

  2 E. Girardet, Afghanistan: The Soviet War (Beckenham, 1985), p. 46.

  3 A. Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana (Moscow, 1995) (http://www.rsva.ru/biblio/prose_af/afgan_tragedy_and_glory/index.shtml); W. Odom, The Collapse of the Soviet Military (New Haven, Conn., 1998), p. 290, quoting Rabochaya gazeta, 6 April 1990.

  4 Thomas Tugendhat, interview, London, 1 December 2007.

  5 V. Varennikov, Nepovtorimoe, 7 vols. (Moscow, 2001), Vol. 5, pp. 142–50; Russian Wikipedia (http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/ _ _ ); for the American fighting, see S. Junger, War (London, 2010), passim.

  6 G. Bobrov, Soldatskaya saga (Moscow, 2007), pp. 202–3.

  7 A. Maiorov, Pravda ob afganskoi voine (Moscow, 1996), pp. 243–79; Vladimir Snegirev, email to author, 12 April 2010.

  8 A. Lyakhovski and V. Nekrasov, Grazhdanin, politik, voin: Pamyati Akhmad Shakha Masuda (Moscow, 2007), p. 144; information from Alexander Gergel.

  9 Quoted in C. Gall and T. de Waal, Chechnya: A Small Victorious War (London, 1997), p. 97.

  10 V. Krivenko, Ekipazh mashiny boevoi (St Petersburg, 2004), p. 372.

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

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

  13 The first was ECOSOC E/CN.4/1985/21 in 1985; the last was E/CN.4/1995/64 in 1995.

  14 Report on the Situation of Human Rights in Afghanistan, UN General Assembly A/43/742.

  15 In 1979, according to a government census which may or may not have been accurate, the population of Afghanistan was 15.5 million, of whom just over 900,000 lived in Kabul.

  16 Bobrov, Soldatskaya saga, p. 283.

  17 Afghanistan Justice Project, Casting Shadows: War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity, 1978–2001, The Century Foundation (www.tcf.org), 2005, p. 34 (http://www.afghanistanjusticeproject.org/).

  18 Ibid., p. 56.

  19 Krivenko, Ekipazh mashiny boevoi, p. 351.

  20 V. Snegirev, ‘Afganski plennik’, Rossiiskaya gazeta, 12 August 2003; Vyacheslav Nekrasov, interview, Moscow, 13 May 2007.

  21 A. Greshnov, Afganistan: Zalozhniki vremeni (Moscow, 2006), p. 133.

  22 Ibid., p. 148.


  23 Afghanistan Justice Project, Casting Shadows, p. 63.

  24 Alan A. H. Macdonald, Chief of Staff, Mine Action Coordination Centre of Afghanistan, email to author, 4 May 2009.

  25 Greshnov, Afganistan, p. 56.

  26 101st Motor-rifle Regiment website (http://101.int.ruindex.phpoptioncom_content&taskview&id204<emid5).

  27 V. Voinovich, ‘Glavny tsenzor’ (http://www.voinovich.ru/home_reader.jsp?books8.jsp).

  28 Lyakhovski A, Tragedia i doblest Afgana, Moscow 1995 (http://www.rsva.ru/biblio/prose_af/afgan_tragedy_and_glory/index.shtml); R. Keeble and J. Mair (eds.), Afghanistan, War and the Media: Deadlines and Frontlines (London 2010), p. 87.

  29 Varennikov, Nepovtorimoe, p. 308. The Politburo record has been widely reproduced—for example, by Alexander Lyakhovski—and in other memoirs and histories of the war.

  30 D. Gai and V. Snegirev, Vtorzhenie (Moscow, 1991), pp. 192, 190, and 175. Sakharov’s ‘Open Letter to Brezhnev’ is at http://www.uic.unn.ru/ads/biography/txt1.htm.

  31 A. Chernyaev, Sovmestny iskhod: Dnevnik dvukh epokh 1972–1991 gody (Moscow, 2008), diary entry for 5 February 1979, p. 391.

  32 Gai and Snegirev, Vtorzhenie, p. 207.

  33 National Security Archive, Afghanistan: Lessons from the Last War, Vol. II, Document 15, 12 November 1981, translated by Svetlana Savranskaya (http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB57/soviet.html).

  34 A. Volkov, ’40-aya Armia: Istoria sozdania, sostav, izmenenie struktury’ (www.rsva-ural.ru/library/?id63).

  35 Gai and Snegirev, Vtorzhenie, p. 204.

  36 Maiorov, Pravda ob afganskoi voine, pp. 5, 154, and passim.

  37 National Security Archive, Afghanistan: Lessons from the Last War, Vol. II, Document 20, 13 August 1987, translated by Svetlana Savranskaya (http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB57/soviet.html).

  38 Rastem Makhmutov, interview, Moscow, 27 May 2007.

  39 Alexander Gergel, email to author, 23 September 2009.

  40 Lyakhovski and Nekrasov, Grazhdanin, politik, voin, pp. 213–14.

  41 Gai and Snegirev, Vtorzhenie, p. 207.

  42 Private information.

  43 V. Plastun and V. Andrianov, Najibulla: Afghanistan v tiskakh geopolitiki (Moscow, 1998), p. 2.