# History lesson : Soviet veterans see mistakes repeated in Afghan war - BBC News



## Yrys (14 Feb 2009)

Russians warn of Afghan parallels






The 10-year occupation left a million Afghans dead and the country in ruins

As Russia marks the 20th anniversary of its withdrawal from Afghanistan, officials in Moscow are warning 
that US and Nato-led forces are making exactly the same mistakes as the Soviet Union made when it 
invaded the country in 1979. The BBC's Richard Galpin has been speaking to experts and veterans, who 
remember the withdrawal after 10 years of occupation as a traumatic and humiliating experience.

Lt Gen Ruslan Aushev, a Hero of the Soviet Union, sports a moustache that hangs over his mouth like a 
heavy velvet curtain. But from the dark morass emerge words of precision and directness that befit a 
much-decorated commander of the Soviet military venture in Afghanistan in the 1980s.

"We were there for 10 years and we lost more than 14,000 soldiers, but what was the result? Nothing," 
he tells me as we sit in his office on one of central Moscow's most fashionable streets. "[After the Soviet 
withdrawal] there was a second civil war and then the Taleban appeared. We wanted to bring peace and 
stability to Afghanistan, but in fact everything got worse," he adds.





Lt Gen (retd) Ruslan Aushev
Former Soviet commander

[another article on him : Retired General Looks Back on Russia's Afghan War ]

Such frank admissions of failure are common amongst the Russian veterans who are attending a series of 
commemorative events this weekend, exactly 20 years after the last Soviet troops left Afghanistan. Experts 
say the Soviet government under Leonid Brezhnev had assumed their invasion in December 1979 would bring 
rapid results, stabilising the fledgling communist government in Kabul and thus ensuring the loyalty of an 
important neighbouring country at the height of the Cold War.

But instead of being able to leave within six months, the Soviet forces became bogged down in a protracted 
conflict with a tough and well-armed guerrilla force which received massive assistance from the West and 
the Muslim world. Some of the Mujahideen, as the loosely-aligned groups of rebels became known, were 
radical Islamists for whom the fight against the godless communists was a jihad. And crucially, the rebels 
enjoyed the support of the population.



*Bitter experience*

Now just 20 years later, the Russians are looking with astonishment at the way the US and Nato-led forces 
are waging their war in Afghanistan.  The view from Moscow is that the Western forces have learned nothing 
from the bitter experience of the Soviet Union. Instead, they are falling into exactly the same trap.

One prime example is the current plan by the US to send tens of thousands of extra troops.

"Doubling their forces won't lead to a solution on the ground," says Col Oleg Kulakov, who served twice in 
Afghanistan and is now a lecturer and historian in Moscow.





Col (retd) Oleg Kulakov

[others articles related to him : 
Russian vets of Afghan war pity Canada , 
Veterans of Russia's Afghan war say it's 'impossible to win there' , 
Riding the last Russian tank out of Jalalabad  ]

"The conflict cannot be solved by military means, it's an illusion," he adds. "No-one can reach any political 
goal in Afghanistan relying on military force. Frankly speaking, they are doomed to repeat our mistakes."



*Parallels*

There are many striking parallels.





 Tips for Soviets in Afghanistan

Once again, invading foreign forces in Afghanistan are trying to stabilise a foreigner-friendly government. 
Once again, they are facing a rebellion by Islamist militants who just happen to have a different generic 
name this time, "the Taleban".





As in the 1980s, foreign forces are 
facing a rebellion by Islamist militants

Once again, the rebellion is growing in strength and has increasing support from the population as the 
occupation drags on inflicting a mounting number of civilian casualties.

Sir Roderick Braithwaite a former British ambassador to Moscow, fears that the US and Nato-led 
intervention in Afghanistan could prove to be as disastrous as that of the Soviet Union.

"We went in with a limited objective to start with, but like the Russians hoping that they could build 
socialism in Afghanistan, we hoped we could build democracy," he says. "We haven't got enough 
troops there to dominate the territory and we have a government in Kabul whose authority barely 
runs inside the capital, let alone outside it."


----------



## Yrys (15 Feb 2009)

In pictures: Russia's Afghan veterans






Veterans of the Soviet Union's war in Afghanistan have been 
marking the 20th anniversary of the army's pull-out from the 
country.





About 15,000 Soviet soldiers were killed and many more were 
wounded in the 10-year war.





The troops were ordered in to bolster the struggling communist 
government there against an Islamic insurgency.





The Soviet army became bogged down in a costly war against 
mujahideen rebels supplied with money and arms from the US, 
Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.





The Soviet Union collapsed within a couple of years of the army's 
withdrawal from Afghanistan, and veterans found themselves living 
in a number of different countries.





The war left Afghanistan in ruins with millions of people displaced. 
Seven years after the Soviet withdrawal, the Taleban took power in 
Afghanistan.





Veterans of the Soviet war see lessons for the US-led Nato forces in 
their own attempts to bolster Afghanistan's government against an 
Islamic insurgency.


----------



## Yrys (15 Feb 2009)

Kabul 20 years after the Soviets





Two decades later, the ruins of Soviet tanks can still be found in Kabul

Twenty years ago this week, Soviet troops pulled out of Afghanistan, after nine years 
of occupation. Lyse Doucet was our correspondent in Kabul then and she's back in the 
Afghan capital now.

I still keep the single sheet of paper - dull grey, stark black font, with the seal of the 
British embassy in Kabul, dated 19 January 1989. "I must advise you," it warns, "you 
should leave Afghanistan without delay while normal flights are still available".

The British ambassador then pulled down the Union flag and locked the gates of a 
magnificent compound Lord Curzon once said was worth five divisions. The US 
ambassador had done the same weeks earlier, urging Soviet troops to complete 
their pullout and predicting the collapse of the Afghan government.

*Anxious voices*

These were the dying days of the Soviet empire in the harsh winter of 1989. We didn't 
know it then. But we felt Kabul was in the eye of the storm. Every day, several times 
a day, I was asked, in whispered anxious voices, by foreigners and Afghans: "Are you 
leaving? Do you think it's safe to stay? When will Najib go?" Najib is what many called 
the Soviet-backed president, Najibullah.





Najibullah - 'he was very strong'

Some said he was a murderer, from his days heading the infamous KGB-trained Khad 
secret service. His nickname was the Ox - he was a burly man with a big voice and a 
barrel chest. He declared, to anyone who would listen, he wasn't going anywhere.
Not many believed him then. In neighbouring Pakistan, mujahideen rebels, backed by 
the might of the United States, the money of Saudi Arabia, and the efforts of Pakistan, 
bickered over the formation of an alternative government.

Earlier, while in Islamabad, I was warned by some mujahideen leaders to be careful in 
Kabul. They later sent safe-passage letters so that when they entered I would not be 
harmed. For them, it was only a matter of weeks.

How hard it was then to know if they were right or Najibullah was.

*City cut off*

Even Soviet officials heightened this sense of siege, speaking of 30,000 mujahideen 
fighters just beyond the snow-capped mountains that encircle this city. The rockets 
fell on Kabul every day. But was Kabul itself even close to falling? 

In recent weeks, I've been calling Afghans who were the president's closest advisers 
then. "Was Najib really that strong then?" I asked one former aide. "Najib wasn't just 
strong," he insisted, "he was very strong".

Kabul in 1988 was isolated - by Cold War rivalries, and often cut off by snow that 
blocked any road or flight out of the city. There were of course no mobile telephones 
or internet then, just a small number of clattering telex machines and only three 
international telephone lines.For some reason, many calls were routed through Glasgow. 
So every day, in my fourth floor room in a gloomy hilltop hotel, I spent a lot of time 
talking to Scottish telephone operators.

Three years later President Najibullah's rule finally ended. He was brought down by 
intrigues within his own party and in Moscow, an ill-fated UN process, and double-dealing 
by rival mujahideen commanders. They eventually took over Kabul and destroyed large 
parts of it.

*Body hung*

The president still did not manage to leave as his regime collapsed around him. He took 
refuge in a UN compound. And when the Taleban stormed into Kabul in 1996, he was 
urged to flee, but with his trademark confidence, he insisted: "I know my people, I will 
stay." Vengeful Taleban fighters killed him and hung his body at a roundabout alongside 
his brother.

That was then, and this is now. On Kabul's freezing winter streets Afghan urchins press 
smudged faces against car windows peddling photographs of Afghan leaders including 
Najibullah. Copies of his speeches now do a brisk trade in the market - they are admired 
by some Afghans for their wisdom and wit. The violence has not gone either. Now it is 
Taleban suicide bombs rather than mujahideen rockets which terrorise this city.

Afghans still worry about the future, foreigners still ask if it is safe to stay. And, just as 
many once asked how long President Najibullah could cling on to power, now they ask 
whether an embattled President Karzai will be elected again - and Western governments, 
including a new administration in Washington, raise questions about his rule.

Twenty years on Kabul remains threatened by rebels, cradled by the Hindu Kush, still very 
much in the eye of the storm.


----------



## tomahawk6 (28 Feb 2009)

The Russians and their Afghan communist allies were extremely savage in the way they prosecuted the war. Its something that we have managed to avoid so far. It could well be that Afghanistan is ungovernable by any standard in which xase you probably wont be successful. At the sametime if you build a school one day the bad guys come in and burn it the next. The people have got to be able to protect themselves when the ANA are not around. If we can acheive that then success is possible.


----------



## time expired (1 Mar 2009)

While I am not a great believer in learning history from movies
there is often a kernel of truth in most depictions of history in
movies.I recently watched the Russian movie "The Ninth company"
the story of a company of infantry in A-stan,the thing that stands
out in this film is the incredible level of corruption in the Russian
forces.The Quartermaster selling equipment and other supplies to
the Mujaheddin at the expense of his own troops,they were forced 
to ambush one of their own convoys to get food,water and ammo.
Also well demonstrated was the bullying of the conscript by the
senior soldiers with no control exercised by the Snr.NCOs.
So I think any comparison between the Soviet rabble and a western
army or any criticism from Russian sources should be taken with a
large grain of salt.
                        Regards


----------



## geo (1 Mar 2009)

TE... memember the movie "the beast" a story about a russian tank crew


----------



## Yrys (15 Mar 2009)

Afghanistan's Soviet remnants, Monday, 9 March 2009





Some 15,000 Red Army soldiers 
lost their lives

It took a call to an Afghan military commander, a chat with a police chief, a nod to a governor, 
and tea with a spook but we were finally given permission to pass through the gates to the 
Friendship Bridge linking northern Afghanistan to the former Soviet republic of Uzbekistan.

On the plain white bridge spanning the Amu Darya river, only a lone car rolled by every few 
minutes or so. And then, a freight train came thundering down the rails, shattering an eerie 
quiet, allowing us to imagine a time centuries ago when mighty armies invaded across this 
border.

From Alexander the Great to the 19th Century Great Game, this has been the edge of empire.

Three decades ago, the Soviet Red Army came across this bridge. Then, in 1989, the last of 
100,000 soldiers rumbled the other way in an armoured column. They left behind a country 
in ruin and returned home to a Soviet empire on the verge of collapse.

Some 15,000 Red Army soldiers lost their lives and more than a million Afghans were killed 
in a Cold War confrontation between a Soviet-backed government in Kabul and mujahideen 
fighters armed by the West and Islamic neighbours. The Soviet commander, Gen Boris Gromov, 
a decorated war hero, was the last to cross this bridge in a carefully choreographed farewell.

In Moscow, a foreign ministry spokesman announced "not a single Soviet soldier was left in 
Afghanistan". I was based in Kabul then and watched the troops go. But ever since then, I've 
heard stories of the ones that never left.

Twenty years on, in the north-eastern town of Kunduz, I met Private Alexander Levenets and 
Gennady Tseuma, two village boys from Ukraine, former teenage conscripts. The Afghan war 
turned their lives inside out. Alexander became Ahmad. Gennady is Nek Mohammad. But fate 
dealt them each a different hand.

*Hatred*

Alexander deserted his unit to escape the brutality of his Russian officers. As we walked through 
a depot of rusting Soviet weaponry in Kunduz, he remembered his walk into the darkness one 
night, believing he faced certain death. The Russians had warned - anyone who surrendered 
would be tortured by the mujahideen.

But instead they took him in. He eventually converted to Islam and fought his former Russian 
comrades. "I had hatred toward them and treated them as they had treated me." Gennady was 
taken prisoner by a different mujahedeen group and forced to choose between conversion or 
death.

A quarter of a century on, little betrays their Ukrainian past. To all appearances, they are Afghan 
Muslims with their traditional shalwar kameez - tunic and trousers - and greying beards. Among 
the "Afghantsy" - the Soviet soldiers who fought in this war - a small number deserted or were 
taken prisoner. A few were honoured as special Muslims when the Taleban came to power. Some 
have gone back to their old homes.

*Emotional reunion*

Ahmad, with his gentle bearing and embroidered Muslim cap, wants to put the past behind him.
"I don't remember anything from Ukraine. There's nothing left for me there." His mother and only
brother are now dead.

He drives a white estate taxi to support his wife and four daughters. "I have no regrets," he says 
with a smile as his daughters play Afghan hopscotch in the fading light of day inside their walled 
compound. In this conservative Afghan culture, his wife remained out of sight.

Nek Mohammad also has four children and an Afghan wife he married when she was just a young
teenager. But there is also Sergei - a brother who was only 11 when he left for the front. In the 
past few weeks, Sergei managed to collect money and courage to visit.

As we sat on cushions, in Afghan custom, on a carpeted floor, Nek Mohammad recalled their 
emotional reunion. "Sergei said, what happened to you? See what has fate done to us." Sergei 
wants him to come home. Nek Mohammad is torn. "I wanted to go but my wife's family did not 
let her. My children are sweet. I could not leave them."

When Nek Mohammad turns on his satellite television to listen to Russian music, the women 
cavorting on screen offend Ahmad, who averts his gaze. Nek Mohammad watches with a wry 
smile. "We never used to have that kind of stuff."

Their lives were changed forever by this war. But so was the fate of an entire country when 
the Soviet Union invaded to prop up an unpopular government in Kabul begging for help.

"It was a mistake," admitted Russia's Ambassador in Kabul, Zamir Kabulov, when we visit 
the memorial to Moscow's dead on the far edge of their gleaming new embassy in Kabul. He 
was a young diplomat during the Soviet occupation and has spent almost all his career in 
Afghanistan.

Now he has a stark warning for the West. "Tragedy is being repeated again. I feel that the 
Americans and other partners waging a war on terror have neglected historical lessons."
Ambassador Kabulov often speaks with some barely concealed satisfaction over the plight of 
former Cold War rivals. That annoys Western diplomats who dismiss history lectures from 
Moscow.

In 2001, when US and British led troops helped topple the Taleban, they were welcomed as 
liberators, not occupiers. It was hailed as a new start. But as the Taleban advance close to 
Kabul, and civilian casualties mount from errant US and Nato air strikes, Afghans ask why 
the countries who came to help are now failing them.

But Nato governments are urgently reviewing their strategies. An extra 17,000 US troops are 
being deployed. The Cold War railway relic on the northern border will soon help to bring in 
Nato supplies as it steps up its Afghan campaign.


----------

