Afgantsy

1 A. Snesarev, Afganistan (Moscow, 2002), p. 199. The book was originally published in 1921, but the author was arrested under Stalin and it remained largely unknown until it was republished eighty years later.

1: Paradise Lost

1 P. Hopkirk, The Great Game: The Struggle for Empire in Central Asia (London, 1992), p. 305.

2 W. Ball, Monuments of Afghanistan (London, 2008).

3 A. Rasanaygam, Afghanistan: A Modern History (London, 2005), pp. 42–5; L. Dupree, Afghanistan (Oxford, 1997), p. 599.

4 Kh. Khalfin, Politika Rossii v Srednei Azii (1857–1868) (Moscow, 1960), pp. 19–43. This scholarly work contains much well-documented information on Russian official thinking about Central Asia in the nineteenth century. Like Khalfin’s other book on British policy in Afghanistan, Proval britanskoi agressii v Afganistane (Moscow, 1959), you need to aim off for the Soviet and Marxist bias.

5 A. Lyakhovski and S. Davitaya, Igra v Afganistan (Moscow, 2009), p. 16.

6 Ibid., p. 20.

7 Hopkirk, The Great Game, p. 22.

8 There is an account of Orlov’s expedition in E. Parnov, ‘V Indiyu—Marsh’, Znanie—sila, No. 10/04 (http://www.znanie-sila.ru/online/issue_2962.html).

9 Russian officers told the journalist Charles Marvin in the late 1880s that Russia could invade India, but had no intention of doing so: C. Marvin, The Russian Advance towards India (originally published 1882; Peshawar, 1984), p. 78; for Bennigsen see D. Lieven, Russia against Napoleon (London, 2009), p. 64.

10 Khalfin, Proval britanskoi agressii v Afganistane, pp. 33–4.

11 There is a cursory and unconvincing discussion of this episode in Lyakhovski and Davitaya, Igra v Afganistan, pp. 25–6.

12 Ibid., p. 32.

13 Khalfin, Politika Rossii v Srednei Azii (1857–1868), pp. 31–2 and 73, quoting documents in the Central State Military Political Archive of the USSR (TsGVIA).

14 Ibid., pp. 89–104.

15 This is the broad conclusion of Alexander Morrison’s Russian Rule in Samarkand, 1868–1910: A Comparison with British India (Oxford, 2008). The quotation comes from p. 292.

16 Khalfin, Proval britanskoi agressii v Afganistane, p. 30. Khalfin is a useful corrective to most British accounts of the Afghan wars; J. Stewart, Crimson Snow (Stroud, 2008), pp. 39–42.

17 C. Lamb, The Sewing Circles of Herat (London, 2004), pp. 221 et seq.

18 G. Forrest, Life of Field Marshal Sir Neville Chamberlain, G.C.B., G.C.S.I. (London, 1909), pp. 142–51.

19 D. Loyn, Butcher and Bolt (London, 2008), p. 109.

20 Marvin, The Russian Advance towards India, p. 43; W. F. Monypenny and G. Buckle, The Life of Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield (London, 1910–20), Vol. VI, pp. 154–5.

21 Hopkirk, The Great Game, p. 175, quoting John W. Kaye, History of the War in Afghanistan (London, 1851).

22 Lyakhovski and Davitaya, Igra v Afganistan, p. 49.

23 Ibid., p. 64.

24 N. Khrushchev, Khrushchev Remembers (London, 1971), p. 508.

25 P. Blood (ed.), Afghanistan: A Country Study (Washington, DC, 2001).

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

27 Lamb, The Sewing Circles of Herat, pp. 221 et seq.

28 N. Dupree (Wolfe), An Historical Guide to Kabul (Kabul, 1965), p. 68.

29 A. Abram, MS diary (by kind permission of Mr Abram).

30 Lamb, The Sewing Circles of Herat, p. 30.

31 J. Steele, ‘Red Kabul Revisited’, Guardian, 13 November 2003.

32 Lamb, The Sewing Circles of Herat, p. 216.

2: The Tragedy Begins

1 Alexander Lyakhovski, conversation, Gelendzhik, 19 September 2007.

2 For example, see V. Snegirev, Ryzhy (Moscow, 2000), p. 146.

3 V. Kryuchkov, Lichnoe delo, 2 vols. (Moscow, 1996), Vol. 1, p. 188.

4 D. Gai and V. Snegirev, Vtorzhenie (Moscow, 1991), p. 10.

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

6 ‘An Appeal to the Leaders of the PDPA Groups “Parcham” and “Khalq”’, dated 8 January 1974, Cold War International History Project (www.cwihp.org), by permission of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

7 Afghanistan Justice Project, Casting Shadows: War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity, 1978–2001, The Century Foundation (www.tcf.org), 2005, p. 13 (http://www.afghanistanjusticeproject.org/).

8 Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana.

9 Dmitri Ryurikov, interview, Moscow, 23 July 2009.

10 Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana (Moscow, 2009), p. 108.

11 Gai and Snegirev, Vtorzhenie, pp. 81 and 16.

12 Kryuchkov, Lichnoe delo, Vol. 1, p. 192.

13 See notes on Puzanov’s report taken by Odd Arne Westad from the original at the Center for the Storage of Contemporary Documentation (TsKhSD), fond (f.) 5, opis (op.) 75, delo (d.) 1179, listy (11.) 2–17. Westad’s notes are published by the Cold War International History Project at the Woodrow Wilson Center, Washington, DC (http://www.wilsoncenter.org/index.cfm/topic_id=1409&fuseaction=va2.document&identifier=5034DB6A-96B6–175C-91262B384BCC068C&sort=Collection&item=Soviet%20Invasion%200f%20Afghanistan).

14 G. Dorronosoro, Revolution Unending: Afghanistan, 1979 to the Present (New York, 2005), p. 96.

15 N. Ivanov, Operatsiu Shtorm nachat ranshe (Moscow, 1993), Chapter 14 (http://militera.lib.ru/prose/russian/ivanov_nf/index.html); Valeri and Galina Ivanov, interview, Moscow, 14 March 2010.

16 There are conflicting accounts of the rising in R. Sikorski, Dust of the Saints: A Journey to Herat in Time of War (New York, 1990); A. Hyman, Afghanistan under Soviet Domination 1964–81 (London, 1982); A. Giustozzi, Genesis of a ‘Prince’: The Rise of Ismail Khan in Western Afghanistan, 1979–1992 (Crisis States Research Centre, London School of Economics, September 2006); Dorronosoro, Revolution Unending, quotes Olivier Roy, Afghanistan, Islam et modernité politique (Paris, 1985), p. 146, as giving a wide margin for the total number of casualties, between 5,000 and 25,000 victims; A. Lyakhovski and S. Davitaya, Igra v Afganistan (Moscow, 2009), p. 135, give a low estimate for the number of Soviet victims. Other low estimates are in G. Zaitsev, Alpha—My Destiny (St Petersburg, 2005), p. 118; V. Zaplatin, ‘Do shturma dvortsa Amina’, Zavtra, No. 51 (316), 21 December 1999 (http://www.zavtra.ru/cgi/veil/data/zavtra/99/316/61.htm); Gai and Snegirev, Vtorzhenie, p. 78; and V. Ablazov, Afganistan chetvertaya voina (Kiev, 2002), p. 53. Even some Russians accepted the higher figure. D. Cordovez and S. Harrison, Out of Afghanistan (Oxford, 1995), p. 36, quote a high estimate given by a senior Soviet official in 1989. The Russian Ambassador, Zamir Kabulov, told me in Kabul on 7 September 2008 that he accepted the figure of 100.

17 The official transcripts of these Politburo meetings, and of the telephone conversations with the Afghan leadership, were published informally in the early 1990s, when the archives were briefly open. Most appear in Lyakhovski’s Tragedia i doblest Afgana. English translations are on the website of the Woodrow Wilson Center’s Cold War International History Project, ‘Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan’ (http://www.wilsoncenter.org).

18 A full text is in Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana, 1995, and comes from TsKhSD, f. 89, per. 25, dok. 1, ss. 28–34; a shorter version is in Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana, 2004, pp. 119–22; a translation is on the website of the Woodrow Wilson Center’s Cold War International History Project (http://www.wilsoncenter.org).

19 Woodrow Wilson Center Cold War Archive: transcript of CPSU CC Politburo Session on Afghanistan, 22 March 1979, TsKhSD, f. 89, per. 25, dok. 2.

20 Ali Sultan Keshtmand, interview, London, 25 May 2009.

21 A. Hyman, Afghanistan under Soviet Domination 1964–81 (London, 1982), pp. 126, 149, and 152.

22 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/); Dorronosoro, Revolution Unending, pp. 103–4.

23 For a list of these requests, see O. Sarin and L. Dvoretsky, The Afghan Syndrome: The Soviet Union’s Vietnam (Novato, CA, 1993), pp. 79–84; and Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana, 1995, passim.

24 Gai and Snegirev, Vtorzhenie, p. 90.

25 Zaitsev, Alpha—My Destiny, pp. 114–15.

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

27 Gai and Snegirev, Vtorzhenie, p. 69.

28 Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana, 2004, pp. 131 and 133. Pavlovski’s final report is on p. 192.

29 Zaitsev, Alpha—My Destiny, pp. 126–7.

30 Ablazov, Afganistan chetvertaya voina, p. 163; Sarin and Dvoretsky, The Afghan Syndrome, pp. 79–84.

31 MacEachin, ‘Predicting the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan’.

3: The Decision to Intervene

1 Much remains obscure about these events. The following account draws heavily on two sources: V. Mitrokhin, The KGB in Afghanistan, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, DC, February 2002, and M. Slinkin, Afghanistan, Trevozhnye Leto i Osen 1979 g, Kultura narodov Prichenomorya, No. 4, 1998, pp. 138–52 (http://www.nbuv.gov.ua/Articles/KultNar/avtory/slinkin/knp/index.htm). Mitrokhin was an archivist in the KGB who kept extensive notes on the documents he handled, which he brought to the West when he defected after the collapse of the Soviet Union. He rarely gives document references or even dates, and his account needs to be approached with caution. I have added material from A. Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana (Moscow, 1995) (http://www.rsva.ru/biblio/prose_af/afgan_tragedy_and_glory/index.shtml), passim. But the details are still buried in the archives of the KGB and in Kabul.

2 A. Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana (Moscow, 2004), p. 153.

3 A. Maiorov, Pravda ob afganskoi voine (Moscow, 1996), p. 74.

4 Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana, 2004; A. Borovik, The Hidden War (New York, 1990), p. 247.

5 Memorandum by Richard Holbrooke in Washington National Records Center, RG 330, McNamara Vietnam Files: FRC 77–0075, Vietnam—1966. The text was kindly given to me by Sherard Cowper-Coles.

6 That at least is the opinion of Mitrokhin and Lyakhovski. I have not come across any confirmation from the Afghan side that it was so perceived by Taraki.

7 Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana, 2004, p. 155.

8 M. Slinkin, NDPA u vlasti (Simferopol, 1999), p. 128.

9 Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana, 2004, p. 160.

10 Mitrokhin, The KGB in Afghanistan, p. 52. This passage seems to be a continuation of the telegram of 13 September referred to above.

11 Telegram from Puzanov and others to Brezhnev, ibid., p. 53.

12 Ibid., p. 55.

13 Ryurikov kept a diary on behalf of his ambassador, which is at Mitrokhin, The KGB in Afghanistan, pp. 59–62. This account of the shoot-out comes from the diary entry for 19 September, supplemented by interview with Ryurikov in Moscow on 24 July 2009 and 9 March 2010. According to Ryurikov, copies of his diary were sent to a number of departments in Moscow. See also Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana, 2004, p. 173.

14 Interview with Taraki’s wife in D. Gai and V. Snegirev, Vtorzhenie (Moscow, 1991), p. 45.

15 V. Ablazov, Afganistan chetvertaya voina (Kiev, 2002), pp. 163–8.

16 Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana, 2004, p. 156.

17 Gai and Snegirev, Vtorzhenie, p. 44.

18 Ibid., p. 42.

19 Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana, 2004, pp. 167–9.

20 Ibid., pp. 176–80. Kurilov’s account has been much shortened. General Bogdanov believes that Kurilov was carried away by his imagination. In his book The Great Gamble: The Soviet War in Afghanistan (New York, 2009), Gregory Feifer reports Gulabzoi’s insistence that he did not leave Kabul in a box.

21 Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana, 2004, p. 181.

22 Mitrokhin, The KGB in Afghanistan, p. 71.

23 This account is based on the sometimes contradictory depositions of Ekbal, Vadud, and Jandad during the investigation into Taraki’s death which was conducted after Amin was overthrown. See Ablazov, Afganistan chetvertaya voina, pp. 149–56.

24 Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana, 2004, pp. 185–6.

25 Ye. Chazov, Zdorovie i Vlast (Moscow, 1992), p. 182. Chazov is reporting what he was told by Andropov.

26 The views of Gorelov, Zaplatin, and Tabeev are recorded in Gai and Snegirev, Vtorzhenie, pp. 71–7.

27 G. Dorronosoro, Revolution Unending: Afghanistan, 1979 to the Present (New York, 2005), pp. 96–7; Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana, 2004, p. 189.

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

29 Lyakhovski implies as much in Tragedia i doblest Afgana, 2004, p. 213, though the facsimile of Chernenko’s note which he reproduces on p. 214 indicates that Grishin, Kirilienko, Pelshe, Tikhonov, and Ponomarev were also present.

30 R. Gates, From the Shadows (New York, 1996), p. 132.

31 Dorronosoro, Revolution Unending, p. 310.

32 S. Coll, Ghost Wars (London, 2005), p. 48.

33 This account of Andropov’s paper is based on notes taken by A. Dobrynin provided to the Cold War International History Project by Odd Arne Westad.

34 Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana, 2004, p. 215; facsimile on p. 214.

35 Quoted in Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana, 2004, pp. 218–20.

36 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. 27.

37 Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana, 1995, Chapter II.

4: The Storming of the Palace

1 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, pp. 30 and 32.

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

3 Figures from http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/ _« ».

4 See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_war_in_Afghanistan.

5 A. Savinkin, Afganskie uroki: Vyvody dlya budushchego v svete ideinogo nasledia A. E. Snegareva (Moscow, 2003), p. 755.

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

7 Directive No. 312/12/001, signed by Ustinov and Ogarkov and despatched on 24 December. See A. Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana (Moscow, 2004), p. 252.

8 Order No. 312/1/030, 25.12.79, is referred to ibid., p 258; it is quoted in full there in Chapter 2.

9 D. Gai and V. Snegirev, Vtorzhenie (Moscow, 1991), p. 107.

10 Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana, 2009, p. 331; V. Korolev, ‘Uroki Voiny v Afganistane 1979–1989’ (http://www.sdrvdv.org/node/159).

11 FCO File FSA 020/9: Soviet Intervention in Afghanistan, Folio 2: Kabul telegram to FCO of 27 December 1979.

12 Gai and Snegirev, Vtorzhenie, pp. 106–7.

13 Article on the history of the 56th Guards Independent Airborne Assault Brigade (http://www.andjusev.narod.ru/a/56_DSCHB.htm).

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

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

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

17 Gromov, Ogranichenny kontingent.

18 Many accounts wrongly say that Amin moved to the nearby Dar-ul Aman Palace, which was built by Amanullah.

19 Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana, 2004, p. 246.

20 L. Grau, The Take-down of Kabul: An Effective Coup de Main, Combat Studies Institute, Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, 2 October 2002.

21 Lyakhovski, Cold War International History Working Paper No. 51, p. 63.

22 Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana, 2004, p. 249.

23 Ibid., pp. 249 and 253.

24 Lyakhovski, Cold War International History Working Paper No. 51, pp. 49 and 52.

25 Alexander Lyakhovski, conversation, 18 September 2007.

26 Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana, 2004, pp. 242 and 253–382.

27 There is a brief note on Colonel Kuznechkov in T. Popova, Pomyani nas, Rossia, Leningrad Committee of Mothers, 1991, which contains photographs and notes on the soldiers from Leningrad who died in the war. Kuznechkov was the first.

28 The story about the KGB cook is repeated in, among other places, V. Kuzichkin, Inside the KGB: Myth & Reality (London, 1990), p. 315. Kuzichkin’s account of events in Afghanistan is inaccurate, but he claims to have heard the story from Talybov personally. See also V. Kryuchkov, Lichnoe delo, 2 vols. (Moscow, 1996), Vol. 1, p. 206.

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.

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: Superpower 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.

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.

1 This much shortened translation of one of Igor Morozov’s most famous songs is printed with his kind permission. When it was first published the military censorship insisted on changing ‘O mighty land for which we fought/Can you now dry our mothers’ tears?’ to ‘O distant land, Afghanistan,/Can you now dry our mothers’ tears?’ in an attempt to shift the blame for the war away from the Soviet government.

11: Going Home

1 See A. Dyshev, PPZh: Pokhodno-polevaya Zhena (Moscow, 2007).

2 V. Krivenko, Ekipazh mashiny boevoi (St Petersburg, 2004), p. 9.

3 Ibid., p. 378.

4 This description of how to clean your uniform is in S. Aleksievich, Zinky Boys (New York, 1992), p. 50.

5 Ibid., p. 50.

6 Krivenko, Ekipazh mashiny boevoi, p. 372.

7 This description of a typical regimental morgue is based on Dyshev, PPZh, pp. 28–38; S. Nikiforov, Bez vsyakikh pravil (St Petersburg, 2008), p. 99; G. Koroleva, ‘Dvadtsat mesyatsev v adu’, Daryal, No. 3, 2001 (http://www.darial-online.ru/2001_3/koroleva.shtml).

8 Blinushov kept notes on these incidents, which he wanted to work up into a book. But someone told the KGB, who confiscated all the material he had gathered together: A. Blinushov, ‘Cherny Tiulpan’ (http://www.reznik.pri.ee/document.php?Id108).

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

10 Yu. Lapshin, Afganski dnevnik (Moscow, 2004), p. 95.

11 These figures are taken from Appendix 13 of A. Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana (Moscow, 1995) (http://www.rsva.ru/biblio/prose_af/afgan_tragedy_and_glory/index.shtml). Though there are a number of soldiers named Viktor in the list who served with the mujahedin, none is easily identifiable with the young man referred to by Alla Smolina.

12 V. Snegirev, Ryzhy (Moscow, 2000), pp. 257–304.

13 Los Angeles Times, 17 December 1991; A. Kalinovsky, ‘A Long Goodbye: The Politics and Diplomacy of the Soviet Withdrawal from Afghanistan, 1980–1992’, PhD thesis, London School of Economics, 2009.

14 Report at www.dtic.mil/dpmo/sovietunion/jcsd.htm; article in UralPress. ru of 17 April 2007 (www.uralpress.ru/art111069); record of 19th Plenum of the US-Russia Commission (http://www.dtic.mil/dpmo/sovietunion/AARVer319thPlenum.pdf).

15 See http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/ _ _ _ - ; NewsRU.com report of 27 September 2006 (www.newaru,com/russia/27se02006/afgan.html).

16 See http://www.komitet92.com/index.html; http://www.komitet92.com/12poisk.html.

17 Komsomolskaya Pravda, 13 February 2009; FontankaRu reported on 13 February 2009 that 417 soldiers had gone missing or been taken prisoner during the war. Of 119 who had been liberated, ninety-seven had returned to the Soviet Union. The remainder had stayed abroad (www.fontanka.ru/2009/02/13/031/).

18 Krivenko, Ekipazh mashiny boevoi, p. 345.

19 Stepanov’s story is in TrudRu, No. 206, 8 November 2006 (www.trud.ru/article/08–11–2006/109556_afgandkij_plennik.html).

20 Article in Vlast, No. 6 (809), 16 February 2009 (www.kommersant.ru/doc.aspx?DocsID116089&printtrue).

21 Nikolai Bystrov, interview, Moscow, 31 May 2007.

22 101st Motor-rifle Regiment website (http://101.int.ruindex.phpoptioncom_content&taskview&id204<emid5).

23 Private information.

24 Interfax-AVN, 29 December 2009, quoted in Johnson’s List, No. 35, 31 December 2009.

25 S. Pakhmutov, ‘Badaber—neizvestny podvig’ (www.rustrana.ru/article.php?nid8803).

26 V. Ablazov, Dolgi put iz Afganskogo plena: Stranitsy iz knigi (http://www.fond-dobrobut.org.ua/download/1991modzaxedmoccba.doc).

27 This account of the rising is based on the 2009 film Myatezh v Preispodnei; S. Golesnik, ‘Nadezhda ne umiraet’, Soyuz: Belarus-Rossia, No. 406, 21 May 2009 (http://www.rg.ru/2009/05/21/propal-soldat.html); Pakhmutov, ‘Badaber—neizvestny podvig’; Vladimir Snegirev, interview, Moscow, 3 March 2010. The details are fragmentary and contradictory.

12: The Road to the Bridge

1 Record of Andropov at Politburo meeting on 7 February 1980 from Archive of the President of the Russian Federation, fond 3, opis 82, delo 75, pp. 1–4: kindly provided by Svetlana Savranskaya.

2 Much of what follows is based on A. Kalinovsky, ‘A Long Goodbye: The Politics and Diplomacy of the Soviet Withdrawal from Afghanistan, 1980–1992’, PhD thesis, London School of Economics, 2009. Kalinovsky’s account of the Soviet withdrawal is the most scholarly and lucid so far. See also A. Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana (Moscow, 2004).

3 D. Cordovez and S. Harrison, Out of Afghanistan (Oxford, 1995), p. 65.

4 Kalinovsky, ‘A Long Goodbye’, quoting V. Zubok, A Failed Empire: The Soviet Union in the Cold War from Stalin to Gorbachev (Chapel Hill, NC, 2007), p. 267.

5 O. Sarin and L. Dvoretsky, The Afghan Syndrome: The Soviet Union’s Vietnam (Novato, CA, 1993), p. 123.

6 Cordovez and Harrison, Out of Afghanistan, p. 123.

7 A. Chernyaev, Sovmestny iskhod: Dnevnik dvukh epokh 1972–1991 gody (Moscow, 2008), diary entry for 30 March 1985, p. 614; Kalinovsky, ‘A Long Goodbye’.

8 V. Kryuchkov, Lichnoe delo, 2 vols. (Moscow, 1996), Vol. 1, p. 223.

9 Among those who promoted the idea of a Gorbachev surge was W. Odom, The Collapse of the Soviet Military (New Haven, Conn., 1998), p. 103. The sources Odom quotes are unconvincing. Gorbachev himself denies that he had any such intention (Mikhail Gorbachev, conversation, Moscow, 10 March 2010). A more subtle analysis is in J. Prados, Safe for Democracy: The Secret Wars of the CIA (Chicago, 2006), pp. 485–7.

10 The story was told by Najibullah, who was present: D. Gai and V. Snegirev, Vtorzhenie (Moscow, 1991), p. 365. Snegirev later added that Karmal subsequently hotly denied that he had said any such thing: V. Snegirev, Ryzhy (Moscow, 2000), p. 132.

11 Chernyaev, Sovmestny iskhod, diary entry for 16 October 1985, p. 647.

12 Kalinovsky, ‘A Long Goodbye’.

13 Chernyaev, Sovmestny iskhod, diary entries for 4 April 1985 and 17 October 1985, pp. 617 and 650.

14 Kryuchkov, Lichnoe delo, Vol. 1, p. 227.

15 Kalinovsky, ‘A Long Goodbye’.

16 Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana, 2004, p. 532.

17 A. Chernyaev et al., V Politburo TsK KPSS (Moscow, 2006), p. 47: Politburo meeting of 29 May 1986, notes taken by Svetlana Savranskaya, in the Gorbachev Foundation.

18 Kalinovsky, ‘A Long Goodbye’.

19 Chernyaev et al., V Politburo TsK KPSS, p. 68; Prados, Safe for Democracy, p. 488.

20 B. Gromov, Ogranichenny kontingent (Moscow, 1994) (http://www.rsva.ru/biblio/prose_af/limited_contingent/index.shtml); Chernyaev et al., V Politburo TsK KPSS, p. 108: notes taken by Svetlana Savranskaya, in the Gorbachev Foundation.

21 Notes on Politburo meetings of 21–22 January 1987 and 22 February 1987, Chernyaev et al., V Politburo TsK KPSS, pp. 136–8 and 149: notes taken by Svetlana Savranskaya, in the Gorbachev Foundation.

22 Kalinovsky, ‘A Long Goodbye’.

23 Chernyaev et al., V Politburo TsK KPSS, pp. 190–93.

24 Kalinovsky, ‘A Long Goodbye’, quoting Matlock; Jack Matlock, emails to author, 27–28 February 2010.

25 Kalinovsky, ‘A Long Goodbye’.

26 S. Coll, Ghost Wars (London, 2005), p. 168.

27 Kalinovsky, ‘A Long Goodbye’, quoting from Soviet record of conversation between Reagan and Gorbachev on 9 December 1987 in National Security Archive, READD/RADD collection.

28 Jack Matlock, email to author, 27 February 2010.

29 Chernyaev, Sovmestny iskhod, diary entry for 1 April 1988, p. 749.

30 Ibid., diary entry for 20 September 1988, p. 765.

31 Literaturnaya Gazeta, 18 April 1990, quoted in Gai and Snegirev, Vtorzhenie, p. 307.

32 Chernyaev et al., V Politburo TsK KPSS, pp. 336–8.

33 Helen Womack, a British journalist, travelled with the column. This detail is from her account.

34 Gai and Snegirev, Vtorzhenie, p. 371.

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

36 A. Gergel and A. Lizauskas, ‘Proshchai Bakharak!’, August 2009 (http://www.navoine.ru/magazines/12/5).

37 V. Varennikov, Nepovtorimoe, 7 vols. (Moscow, 2001), Vol. 5, pp. 351–3.

38 Ibid., p. 389.

39 Chernyaev, Sovmestny iskhod, diary entry for 20 October 1988, p. 769.

40 A. Lyakhovski and V. Nekrasov, Grazhdanin, politik, voin: Pamyati Akhmad Shakha Masuda (Moscow, 2007), pp. 179–87.

41 Varennikov, Nepovtorimoe, pp. 378 et seq.

42 Pravda, 7 December 1988, quoted in Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana, 1995 (http://www.rsva.ru/biblio/prose_af/afgan_tragedy_and_glory/index.shtml).

43 Vorontsov interview, Rossiiskie Vesti, No. 18, 23–30 May 2007.

44 The description of the generals’ opposition to Operation Typhoon is from A. Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana, 2004, pp. 668–71.

45 Chernyaev, Sovmestny iskhod, diary entry for 20 January 1989, p. 781.

46 Lyakhovski and Nekrasov, Grazhdanin, politik, voin, pp. 208–9; Varennikov, Nepovtorimoe, pp. 390–93.

47 Ibid., p. 212.

48 Gromov, Ogranichenny kontingent.

49 Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana, 2004, p. 213.

50 M. Sotskov, Dolg i soviest (St Petersburg, 2007), p. 531, quoted in Kalinovsky, ‘A Long Goodbye’.

51 Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana, 2004, p. 675.

52 Lyakhovski and Nekrasov, Grazhdanin, politik, voin, p. 212.

53 L. Grau, ‘Breaking Contact without Leaving Chaos: The Soviet Withdrawal from Afghanistan’, Journal of Slavic Military Studies, Vol. 20, No. 2, April 2007, pp. 235–61.

54 Rodric Braithwaite, Moscow diary (unpublished), entry for 3 March 1989.

55 Quoted in S. Aleksievich, Zinky Boys (New York, 1992), p. 9.

56 Anatoli Chernyaev, conversation, Moscow, May 2007.

13: The War Continues

1 Private information.

2 A. Greshnov, Afganistan: Zalozhniki vremeni (Moscow, 2006), pp. 7–9, 17, 12, 10, and 61.

3 B. Rubin, The Search for Peace in Afghanistan (New Haven, Conn., 1995), p. 89, quoted in P. Corwin, Doomed in Afghanistan (New Brunswick, NJ, 2003), p. 10.

4 S. Coll, Ghost Wars (London, 2005), p. 171.

5 A. Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana (Moscow, 2009), p. 928.

6 G. Dorronosoro, Revolution Unending: Afghanistan, 1979 to the Present (New York, 2005), pp. 227 and 228.

7 Vladimir Snegirev says there were only 3,000 defenders and that they were outnumbered by ten to one: V. Snegirev, Ryzhy (Moscow, 2000), p. 156.

8 A. Chernyaev et al., V Politburo TsK KPSS (Moscow, 2006), pp. 454 and 576.

9 Greshnov, Afganistan, pp. 71 and 74; description of Jalalabad fighting, M. Urban, War in Afghanistan (London, 1990), pp. 274 et seq.

10 M. Yousaf and M. Adkin, Afghanistan: The Bear Trap (Barnsley, 1992), pp. 227–33.

11 Greshnov, Afganistan, pp. 84, 92, and 150–51.

12 Ibid., p. 99.

13 A. Giustozzi, Empires of Mud (London, 2009), pp. 54–7. Minko A. and Smólynee G., ‘4-D Soviet Style: Defence, Development, Diplomacy and Disengagement in Afghanistan during the Soviet Period, Part 1: State Building,’ Journal of Slavic Military Studies, 23, 306–27 (2010), p. 324.

14 A. Lyakhovski and V. Nekrasov, Grazhdanin, politik, voin: Pamyati Akhmad Shakha Masuda (Moscow, 2007), p. 220.

15 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 ‘Gardez Victory: Soviet Message of Support Revives Kabul Regime’, Agence France-Presse, 14 October 1991.

16 M. Gareev, Afganskaya strada (Moscow, 1999), p. 316.

17 Lyakhovski and Nekrasov, Grazhdanin, politik, voin, p. 227.

18 Giustozzi, Empires of Mud, p. 210.

19 Snegirev, Ryzhy, p. 157.

20 S. Grigoriev, ‘Kak eto bylo: Kabul 1992 god’ (http://artofwar.ru/s_grig/publ_grig_5.html).

21 Galina Ivanov, interview, Moscow, 14 March 2010; Grigoriev, ‘Kak eto bylo: Kabul 1992 god’.

22 Valeri Ivanov, interview, Moscow, 14 March 2010; D. Lysenkov, ‘Posledni flag nad Kabulom’, SpetsNaz Rossii (www.tuad.nsk.ru/~history/Author/Russ/L/LjysenkovD/flag.htm).

23 Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana, 2004, p. 702.

24 Corwin, Doomed in Afghanistan, p. 93.

25 Valeri Ivanov, interview, Moscow, 14 March 2010; Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana, 2004, p. 706. Where there are discrepancies between the two accounts, I have relied on Ivanov.

26 US Committee for Refugees, World Refugee Survey, 1997, pp. 124–5 (http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/publisher,USCRI,HKG,3ae6a8b534,0.html); Corwin, Doomed in Afghanistan, p. 128.

27 The account of the rise of the Taliban is summarised from Dorronosoro, Revolution Unending, pp. 245–56.

28 Lyakhovski and Nekrasov, Grazhdanin, politik, voin, pp. 260–61.

29 Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana, 2009, pp. 984–90.

30 Arkadi Dubnov, interview, Moscow, 29 May 2007.

31 President Putin in a 2002 interview for Brook Lapping’s BBC television series Iran and the West, first broadcast in February 2009.

32 Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana, 2009, p. 998. Private information.

33 Pir Said Ahmad Gailani, interview, London, 22 July 2008.

34 The last stand of the 12th zastava is described at http://wolfschanze.livejournal.com/tag/%D0%93%D0%A0%D0%9F%D0%92%D0%A2 and http://kua1102.1ivejournal.com/38687.html. The links were kindly given to me by Oksana Antonenko.

14: A Land Fit for Heroes

1 V. Ogryzko, Pesni afganskogo pokhoda (Moscow, 2000), pp. 146, 20, and 151.

2 W. Odom, The Collapse of the Soviet Military (New Haven, Conn., 1998), p. 259.

3 R. Braithwaite, Across the Moscow River (New Haven, Conn., 2002), p. 138.

4 G. Murrell, Russia’s Transition to Democracy (Brighton, 1997), p. 61; Braithwaite, Across the Moscow River, p. 146.

5 V. Varennikov, Nepovtorimoe, 7 vols. (Moscow, 2001), Vol. 5, p. 230.

6 The following account is taken from ibid., pp. 192 et seq.

7 Alexander Lyakhovski, interview, Gelendzhik, 19 September 2007.

8 Ogryzko, Pesni afganskogo pokhoda, p. 161.

9 Igor Morozov, interview, Moscow, 11 March 2010.

10 David Lloyd George, speech at Wolverhampton on 23 November 1918, reported in The Times, 25 November 1918.

11 D. Gai and V. Snegirev, Vtorzhenie (Moscow, 1991), p. 253.

12 M. Galeotti, Afghanistan: The Soviet Union’s Last War (London, 1995), p. 74.

13 Komsomolskaya Pravda, 21 December 1989, quoted in N. Danilova, Rasplata za dolg: Politika i kollektivnye deistvia veteranov voiny v Afganistane (unpublished), Chapter 2.

14 Danilova, Rasplata za dolg, Chapter 2.

15 Komsomolskaya Pravda, 22 July 1990, quoted ibid.

16 Galeotti, Afghanistan, p. 76.

17 V. Znakov, ‘Psikhologicheskie prichiny neponimania afgantsev’, quoted in Danilova, Rasplata za dolg, Chapter 2.

18 Galeotti, Afghanistan, pp. 123–5.

19 A. Kotenov, Neokonchennaya voina (http://www.rsva.ru/biblio/prose_af/unfinished_war/index.shtml); (http://kotenev.chat.ru/).

20 Gazeta.Ru, 12 June 2007 (http://gzt.ru/incident/2006/11/12/220000.html).

21 N. Danilova, ‘Veterans’ Policy in Russia: a Puzzle of Creation, Journal of Power Institutions in Post-Soviet Societies, No. 6/7, 2007; ‘The Social and Political Role of War Veterans’ (http://www.pipss.org/document873.html).

22 Federal Law No. 5- 3 of 12 January 1995.

23 OOOIVA website (http://www.rfpi.ru/oooiva/index.php).

24 Information from Dr Rod Thornton, Nottingham University. He served as a sergeant in Bosnia and said that the death of children was the hardest of all things to take.

25 Web interview with Dr Matthew Friedman, Executive Director of the US Veteran Administration’s National Center for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/heart/interviews/friedman.html).

26 Web interview with Colonel Thomas Burke, Director of Mental Health Policy for the US Department of Defense (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/heart/interviews/burke.html).

27 ‘As a Brigade Returns Safe, Some Meet New Enemies’, New York Times, 14 July 2010.

28 A. Allport, Demobbed: Coming Home after World War II (New Haven, Conn., 2009), pp. 87, 109, 164, and 209.

29 Text at http://www.gr-oborona.ru/pub/rock/group.html.

30 Galeotti, Afghanistan, p. 152.

31 Alexander Gergel, email to author, 2 July 2009.

32 Special edition of Voronezhskaya Gazeta, 11 February 2009.

33 Yu. Zvyagintsev, ‘Afganski Izlom’, Vestnik ATN, August 1999.

34 S. Aleksievich, Zinky Boys (New York, 1992), pp. 185–94.

35 Moscow City website (http://mos.ru/wps/portal/!ut/p/c0/).

36 ‘Afganski Sindrom dla SShA’, InfoRus, 14 February 2008 (http://www.inforos.ru/?Id20566).

37 Alexander Yeshanu, email, 9 September 2009, posted on Artofwar.ru/.