On May 15, 1988, the withdrawal began Soviet troops from the territory of Afghanistan. The operation was led by the last commander of the limited contingent, Lieutenant General Boris Gromov. Soviet troops have been in the country since December 25, 1979; they acted on the side of the government of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan.

The decision to send Soviet troops into Afghanistan was made on December 12, 1979 at a meeting of the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee and formalized by a secret resolution of the CPSU Central Committee. The official purpose of the entry was to prevent the threat of foreign military intervention. The Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee used repeated requests from the Afghan leadership as a formal basis.

A limited contingent of Soviet troops (OKSV) found themselves directly drawn into the civil war that was flaring up in Afghanistan and became its active participant.

The armed forces of the government of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (DRA) on the one hand and the armed opposition (Mujahideen, or dushmans) on the other took part in the conflict. The struggle was for complete political control over the territory of Afghanistan. During the conflict, the dushmans were supported by military specialists from the United States, a number of European NATO member countries, as well as Pakistani intelligence services.
December 25, 1979 The entry of Soviet troops into the DRA began in three directions: Kushka-Shindand-Kandahar, Termez-Kunduz-Kabul, Khorog-Fayzabad. The troops landed at the airfields of Kabul, Bagram, and Kandahar.

The Soviet contingent included: the command of the 40th Army with support and service units, four divisions, five separate brigades, four separate regiments, four combat aviation regiments, three helicopter regiments, one pipeline brigade, one logistics brigade and some other units and institutions.

The presence of Soviet troops in Afghanistan and their combat activity conditionally divided into four stages.

1st stage: December 1979 - February 1980 Entry of Soviet troops into Afghanistan, placing them in garrisons, organizing the protection of deployment points and various objects.

2nd stage: March 1980 - April 1985 Conducting active combat operations, including large-scale ones, together with Afghan formations and units. Work to reorganize and strengthen the armed forces of the DRA.

3rd stage: May 1985 - December 1986. The transition from active combat operations mainly to supporting the actions of Afghan troops by Soviet aviation, artillery and sapper units. Special forces units fought to stop the delivery of weapons and ammunition from abroad. The withdrawal of 6 Soviet regiments to their homeland took place.

4th stage: January 1987 - February 1989. Participation of Soviet troops in the Afghan leadership’s policy of national reconciliation. Continued support for the combat activities of Afghan troops. Preparing Soviet troops for the return to their homeland and implementing their complete withdrawal.

On April 14, 1988, with the mediation of the UN in Switzerland, the foreign ministers of Afghanistan and Pakistan signed the Geneva Agreements on a political settlement of the situation around the situation in the DRA. The Soviet Union pledged to withdraw its contingent within a 9-month period, starting on May 15; The United States and Pakistan, for their part, had to stop supporting the Mujahideen.

In accordance with the agreements, the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan began on May 15, 1988. On February 15, 1989, Soviet troops completely withdrew from Afghanistan. The withdrawal of the troops of the 40th Army was led by the last commander of the limited contingent, Lieutenant General Boris Gromov.

| Participation of the USSR in conflicts of the times cold war. War in Afghanistan (1979-1989)

Brief summary of the war in Afghanistan
(1979-1989)

Colonel General B.V. Gromov, the last commander of the 40th Army, in his book “Limited Contingent” expressed the following opinion about the results of the actions of the Soviet Army in Afghanistan:

“I am deeply convinced: there is no basis for the assertion that the 40th Army was defeated, nor that we won a military victory in Afghanistan. Soviet troops entered the country unhindered at the end of 1979, fulfilled - in contrast from the Americans in Vietnam - their tasks and returned to their homeland in an organized manner. If we consider the armed opposition units as the main enemy of the Limited Contingent, then the difference between us is that the 40th Army did what it considered necessary, and the dushmans did only that. what they could."

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

After the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan, the situation on the Soviet-Afghan border became significantly more complicated: there were shelling of the territory of the USSR, attempts to penetrate into the territory of the USSR (in 1989 alone there were about 250 attempts to penetrate into the territory of the USSR), armed attacks on Soviet border guards, mining of Soviet territory (before May 9, 1990, border guards removed 17 mines: British Mk.3, American M-19, Italian TS-2.5 and TS-6.0).

Losses of the parties

Afghan casualties

On June 7, 1988, in his speech at a meeting of the UN General Assembly, the President of Afghanistan M. Najibullah said that “from the beginning of hostilities in 1978 to the present” (that is, until June 7, 1988), 243.9 thousand people have died in the country. military personnel of government forces, security agencies, government officials and civilians, including 208.2 thousand men, 35.7 thousand women and 20.7 thousand children under 10 years of age; Another 77 thousand people were injured, including 17.1 thousand women and 900 children under the age of 10 years. According to other sources, 18 thousand military personnel were killed.

The exact number of Afghans killed in the war is unknown. The most common figure is 1 million dead; Available estimates range from 670 thousand civilians to 2 million in total. According to a researcher of the Afghan war from the United States, Professor M. Kramer: “During nine years of war, more than 2.7 million Afghans (mostly civilians) were killed or maimed, several million more became refugees, many of whom fled the country.” . There appears to be no precise division of victims into government soldiers, mujahideen and civilians.

Ahmad Shah Masood in his letter Soviet ambassador in Afghanistan, Yu. Vorontsov wrote on September 2, 1989 that the Soviet Union’s support for the PDPA led to the death of more than 1.5 million Afghans, and 5 million people became refugees.

According to UN statistics on the demographic situation in Afghanistan, between 1980 and 1990, the total mortality rate of the population of Afghanistan was 614,000 people. At the same time, during this period there was a decrease in the mortality rate of the population of Afghanistan compared to previous and subsequent periods.

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

The Army of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan in 1979-1989 suffered losses in military equipment In particular, 362 tanks, 804 armored personnel carriers and infantry fighting vehicles, 120 aircraft, and 169 helicopters were lost.

USSR losses

1979 86 people 1980 1484 people 1981 1298 people 1982 1948 people 1983 1448 people 1984 2343 people 1985 1868 people 1986 1333 people 1987 1215 people 1988 759 people 1989 53 people

Total - 13,835 people. These data first appeared in the Pravda newspaper on August 17, 1989. Subsequently, the total figure increased slightly. As of January 1, 1999, irretrievable losses in the Afghan war (killed, died from wounds, diseases and accidents, missing) were estimated as follows:

Soviet Army - 14,427
KGB - 576 (including 514 border troops)
Ministry of Internal Affairs - 28

Total - 15,031 people.

Sanitary losses - 53,753 wounded, shell-shocked, injured; 415,932 cases. Of those sick with infectious hepatitis - 115,308 people, typhoid fever - 31,080, other infectious diseases - 140,665 people.

Out of 11,294 people. fired from military service 10,751 remained disabled due to health reasons, of which 672 were of the 1st group, 4,216 of the 2nd group, 5,863 of the 3rd group.

According to official statistics, during the fighting in Afghanistan, 417 military personnel were captured and went missing (of which 130 were released before the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan). The Geneva Agreements of 1988 did not stipulate the conditions for the release of Soviet prisoners. After the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan, negotiations for the release of Soviet prisoners continued through the mediation of the DRA and Pakistani governments.

Losses in equipment, according to widespread official data, amounted to 147 tanks, 1,314 armored vehicles (armored personnel carriers, infantry fighting vehicles, BMD, BRDM-2), 510 engineering vehicles, 11,369 trucks and fuel tankers, 433 artillery systems, 118 aircraft, 333 helicopters (helicopter losses only 40th Army, excluding helicopters border troops and Central Asian Military District). At the same time, these figures were not specified in any way - in particular, information on the number of combat and non-combat losses aviation, about the losses of airplanes and helicopters by type, etc. It should be noted that the former deputy commander of the 40th Army for armaments, Lieutenant General V.S. Korolev, gives other, higher figures for losses in equipment. In particular, according to his data, Soviet troops in 1980-1989 irretrievably lost 385 tanks and 2,530 units of armored personnel carriers, armored personnel carriers, infantry fighting vehicles, infantry fighting vehicles (rounded figures).

>Brief history of states, cities, events

A Brief History of the Afghan War

The Afghan war began in 1979 year and lasted for 10 years. This armed conflict on the territory of the Republic of Afghanistan was provoked by foreign intervention in the country’s internal political crisis. On the one hand, they spoke allied forces, and on the other - the Muslim-Afghan resistance. The decision to send in Soviet troops was made at the end 1979 of the year. In fact, the country was flaring up Civil War, in which other countries also intervened.

Soviet troops entered the DRA (Democratic Republic of Afghanistan) in several directions. Troops landed in Kabul, Kandahar and Bagram. The country's president died during the siege of Kabul. Some Muslim groups, in particular the Mujahideen, were unhappy with the appearance Soviet soldiers. Under their leadership, popular unrest and uprisings began in Afghanistan. During the armed conflict, the Mujahideen (dushmans) were mainly helped by Pakistan and the United States. Some were also involved European countries from the NATO alliance.

In the first year of resistance, the Soviet command hoped to receive at least some support from the Kabul troops, but they were too weakened by mass desertion. During this war, the armed forces of the USSR were called the Limited Contingent. They managed to control the situation in key cities of Afghanistan for several years, while the rebels occupied nearby rural areas. WITH 1980 By 1985 year, large-scale fighting, in which not only Soviet but also Afghan formations were involved. Thanks to their high mobility, the rebels managed to avoid helicopter and tank attacks.

WITH 1985 By 1986 For a year, Soviet aviation, together with artillery, supported Afghan troops. There was an active fight against groups delivering weapons and ammunition from abroad. IN 1987 In 2008, on the initiative of the Afghan leadership, a national reconciliation operation began, and a year later, Soviet troops began preparing to return to their homeland. in spring 1988 years, the countries participating in the Afghan conflict signed the Geneva Agreement, according to which Soviet troops had to leave the country before 1989 year, and the United States and Pakistan pledged to stop military support for the Mujahideen.

As a result of this brutal, multi-year conflict, according to some estimates, more than 1 million people were injured. The regime of the new DRA President M. Najibullah did not last long without the support of Soviet troops, as he was overthrown by the commanders of Islamic radical groups.

About the Afghan War in Brief

Afganskaya voyna (1979—1989)

Afghan war begins
Afghan war causes
Afghan war stages
Afghan war results

• The Afghan war, in short, is one of the most tragic events in the history of the USSR and a good example of the fact that even the intervention of a strong and well-armed ally in the internal affairs of a neighboring state cannot lead to anything good.

Years of military conflict in Afghanistan - from 1979 to 1987.

• If we talk about Afghan war Briefly, this is an armed clash between Soviet troops, operating together with government forces in Afghanistan, and the Muslim resistance (Mujahideen), which was supported by NATO countries and the governments of other Islamic countries.

Causes of the conflict

• Afghanistan has been located in an important geopolitical region since ancient times, and the situation there has never been calm. In the 19th century, the two largest powers at that time, having their own geopolitical interests there, tried to spread their influence over the country - Great Britain and the Russian Empire.

• In 1919, Afghanistan declared its independence from England, and the first country to recognize the new state was Soviet Russia.

• In 1978, Afghanistan was declared a democratic republic. Not everyone in the country wanted to accept the reforms. Controversies between supporters of the republic and radical Islamists led to civil war.

• In 1979, the Afghan leadership, unable to cope with the rebel forces, turned to the USSR authorities with a request for help.

• Management Soviet Union understood what negative consequences this may result, but the supply of weapons to the rebels by the United States and the fear of foreign interference forced the decision to send Soviet troops into Afghanistan. The secret resolution was adopted on December 12, 1979.

• On December 25, the 40th Soviet Army crossed the border into Afghanistan. On December 27, the government palace was stormed, as a result of which, instead of the current leader of the country, Amin, who was killed during this operation, Karmal, a Kremlin protege, was proclaimed the new leader of the country.

• The USSR leadership did not plan to take part in the suppression of Islamists. The main task of sending troops was to change the leadership of Afghanistan to the loyal Karmal. But the intervention of the Soviet Union caused a negative reaction from the common people and a “holy war” - jihad - was declared against the Soviet troops.

• If at the beginning of the war the superiority of forces was on the side of the Soviet troops, then with the intensification of arms supplies to the rebels everything changed. The Stinger missiles that fell into the hands of the Afghans allowed them to destroy military aircraft and vehicles.

• On February 15, 1989, the long-awaited event took place - the commander of the 4th Army, General Gromov, withdrew the remnants Soviet army from the territory of Afghanistan.