Afghanistan: a mobile mortar that terrified the dushmans. Soviet soldiers - martyrs of Afghanistan (4 photos)
Afghan Mujahideen (mujahiddin)- members of irregular armed groups motivated by radical Islamic ideology, organized into a single insurgent force during the civil war in Afghanistan in 1979-1992. Formed since 1979 from among the local population with the aim of conducting an armed struggle against the intervention of the USSR and the “pro-Soviet government regime” exported by the Soviet Union, Babrak Karmal and Najibullah.
After the end of the war in the mid-1990s, part of the Afghan Mujahideen joined the ranks of the radical Taliban movement, while the other part joined the Northern Alliance.
The word "mujahid" is of Arabic origin ("mujahid", plural "mujahiddin", literally means "fighter for the faith"), at the same time being the name of a participant in jihad or a rebel.
The Soviet troops and the Afghan authorities called them dushmans (enemy), and the Afghans called Soviet soldiers shuravi (Soviet). Soviet soldiers also used the slang word "spirit" - a derivative of "dushman".
The Mujahideen, like the civilian population, wore traditional Afghan clothing (shirts, black vests, turban or pakol).
Ideology
The main line and basis of the political platform in promoting the ideology of the Mujahideen was the declaration of the basic principle: "The duty of every Afghan is to protect his homeland - Afghanistan and his faith - sacred Islam" from the infidels.
Unification under the banner of sacred Islam of all faithful Muslims - "... In the name of the Prophet, the duty of every faithful Muslim is a holy war - Jihad, for this he must go and kill the infidels, only then his soul will be able to enter the gates of paradise."
The spiritual and political leaders of the Mujahideen paid special attention to political propaganda and agitation in the ranks of the armed formations and among the local population. Mujahideen political parties and foreign sponsors spent significant funds for these purposes.
It is known that as a result of mass anti-Soviet propaganda by the clergy and opposition leaders, the total illiteracy and lack of education of the local population, the vast majority of Mujahideen - yesterday's dehkans could not have an actual and objective understanding of the intentions of the USSR in Afghanistan and the goals of the OKSVA presence. These circumstances had a significant impact on the growth of popular discontent and laid the foundation for a large-scale guerrilla war.
In the propaganda struggle for the support of the local population, the Mujahideen won an unconditional victory.
Every year, the number of members of the armed formations of the Mujahideen, starting from the end of 1979 - the moment the OKSVA was introduced, has grown with an impressive geometric progression. By the time OKSVA was withdrawn in 1989, it exceeded 250,000 militias.
Throughout the war 1979-1989. in government circles, in the ranks of the command of the army, the Ministry of State Security, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the DRA, among the local population, the Mujahideen had a widely branched and well-organized intelligence network.
Target
The purpose of the armed struggle of the Mujahideen with OKSVA, state power and the armed forces of the DRA was the withdrawal of Soviet troops and the overthrow of the "pro-Soviet government regime" in Afghanistan.
Tactics
The tactics of warfare are partisan. The main principles for managing the fighting of the rebels were:
- avoidance of direct clashes with superior forces of regular troops;
- not turning military operations into positional warfare;
- refusal to consolidate and hold the occupied areas for a long time;
- surprise attacks with the widespread use of the tactics of the Basmach movement;
- terror and indoctrination of the personnel of the Afghan army and the local population.
Armament
Most of the weapons of the Mujahideen were made in China and the USSR.
- BUR rifles (Lee-Metford and Lee-Enfield (Lee-Metford.Mk.I, II, Lee-Enfield Mk I, I *)) - ten-shot rifles of caliber .303 inches (7.71x56 mm) made in England 1890-1905 years;
- Kalashnikov assault rifles 7.62 mm made in China, Egypt, the USSR;
- automatic rifles M-16A1 made in the USA;
- automatic machines manufactured in Germany, Israel, England, Sweden;
- heavy machine guns DShK caliber 12.7 mm made in China;
- hand-held anti-tank grenade launchers RPG-2, RPG-7 manufactured by the USSR, China, Volsknet - Switzerland, Lyantse-2 - Germany, M72A - USA, Sarpak - France, Picket - Israel;
- recoilless guns of caliber 75 mm and 82 mm made in China, Pakistan and the USA;
- mortars - 60 and 82 mm;
- Chinese DRSPs;
Air defense means:
- Anti-aircraft mountain installations ZGU, ZU-25-2, ZU-23-4 made in China, USSR, Czechoslovakia;
- Anti-aircraft guns of small caliber "Oerlikon";
- Man-portable anti-aircraft missile systems MANPADS "Strela-2" of the USSR, China, Egypt, "Red Eye", "Jevelin" - USA, "Blowpipe" - England, "Stinger", "Redeye" - USA;
Various types of mines, including anti-tank (PTM) and anti-personnel (PM) and land mines;
- Italian mines (TS? 1, TS-2.5, TS-1.6, TS-50, SH-55);
- American - M-19, M 18A-1, DSME-S, Claymore;
- Swedish - M-102, English MAK-7, as well as Czechoslovak and Soviet production.
Mujahideen leaders
The Mujahideen were not homogeneous, the detachments consisted of a large number of small formations, the commanders of which often fought not only with the Soviet troops, but also among themselves. The reason is the different national composition (Pashtuns, Tajiks, Uzbeks, Hazaras, Charaymaks, Nuristanis, etc.) and religious (Sunnis, Shiites, Ismailis), different sources of sponsorship.
Their largest coalition is the Sunni Islamic Unity of the Afghan Mujahideen, created in May 1985, or "Peshawar Seven", which included six Pashtun and one Tajik grouping (the leader of the Tajik Jamiat-i Islami party, Burhanuddin Rabbani, became president of Afghanistan after the withdrawal of Soviet troops).
There was also a military-political organization of the Shiite Mujahideen - "Shiite Eight" based in Iran.
Field commanders
Field commanders- commanders of armed opposition formations of various sizes, permanently based directly on the territory of Afghanistan. They carried out armed opposition to the current official authorities of the DRA, government troops and the presence of OKSVA. In case of tactical necessity, they entered into contacts with representatives of the DRA government, concluded temporary agreements on various issues.
Cases are known when field commanders with their detachments went over to the side of the people's power. The bulk fought fiercely, under the banner of the "Alliance of Seven" or "Shiite Eight". There were also commanders independent of political parties.
The most famous and influential were - Ahmad Shah Massoud, whose detachments operated in the Panjshir Gorge and the Charikar Valley, on the strategic route Hairaton - Kabul - in the area of the Salang Pass. Ismail Khan- controlled the west of the country, Jalaluddin Haqqani, Yunus Khales- East, Saeed Mansour, Ustad Farid, Abdul Sayyaf, Abdul Haq, Saeed Jargan- Centre, Mulla Malang, Mulla Naqib- South, Mohammad Bashir, Abdul Basir, Qazi Kabir, Abdul Wahob, Mohammad Wadud- North.
People from other countries of the world, especially from Saudi Arabia, contingents from Algeria, Jordan, Egypt, Bangladesh, the Philippines, groups of small numbers from Morocco, France, and England also joined the ranks of the Mujahideen.
The main zones of military activity were the areas of cities:
* Kandahar, Lashkargah - in the south;
* Aliheil, Urgun, Gardez, Shahdzhoy - in the southeast;
* Jalalabad, Asadabad, Asmar, Birkot, Surubi - in the east;
* Baghlan, Kunduz, Khanabad, Talukan, Kishim, Faizabad - in the northeast;
* Herat, Farah - in the west; - 5 msd
* Panjshir Gorge, Charikar Valley, Pagman - the central part of Afghanistan;
* Along the border with Pakistan and Iran, there were several large strongholds and fortified areas of the Mujahideen, repeatedly occupied during military operations by Soviet troops during the Afghan war of 1979-1989.
The most famous of these are:
* Javara is the province of Paktia.
* Tora Bora is the province of Nangarhar.
* Kokari-Sharshari - province of Herat.
Probably, writing about such terrible things on New Year's holidays is not quite the right thing to do. However, on the other hand, this date cannot be changed or changed in any way. After all, it was on the eve of the new 1980 that the entry of Soviet troops into Afghanistan began, which became the starting point of the long-term Afghan war that cost our country many thousands of lives...
Today, hundreds of books and memoirs, all kinds of other historical materials have been written about this war. But here's what catches your eye. The authors somehow diligently avoid the topic of the death of Soviet prisoners of war on Afghan soil. Yes, some episodes of this tragedy are mentioned in separate memoirs of participants in the war. But the author of these lines has never come across a systemic, generalizing work about the dead prisoners - although I follow the Afghan historical theme very carefully. Meanwhile, whole books (mainly by Western authors) have already been written about the same problem from the other side - the death of Afghans at the hands of Soviet troops. There are even Internet sites (including in Russia) that tirelessly expose "the crimes of the Soviet troops, who brutally destroyed civilians and Afghan resistance fighters." But almost nothing is said about the often terrible fate of Soviet captured soldiers.
I did not make a reservation - it was a terrible fate. The thing is that Afghan dushmans doomed to death of Soviet prisoners of war rarely killed immediately. Those whom the Afghans wanted to convert to Islam were lucky, exchanged for their own or donated as a "gesture of goodwill" to Western human rights organizations, so that they, in turn, glorified the "generous Mujahideen" all over the world. But those who were doomed to death ... Usually, the death of a prisoner was preceded by such terrible tortures and tortures, from the mere description of which one immediately becomes uncomfortable.
Why did the Afghans do it? Apparently, the whole point is in the backward Afghan society, where the traditions of the most radical Islam, which demanded the painful death of the infidel as a guarantor of getting into paradise, coexisted with the wild pagan remnants of individual tribes, where human sacrifices were practiced, accompanied by real fanaticism. Often all this served as a means of psychological warfare in order to frighten the Soviet enemy - the mutilated remains of captured dushmans were often thrown to our military garrisons ...
According to experts, our soldiers were captured in different ways - someone was in unauthorized absence from a military unit, someone deserted due to hazing, someone was captured by dushmans at a post or in a real battle. Yes, today we can condemn these prisoners for their rash acts that led to the tragedy (or vice versa, admire those who were captured in a combat situation). But those who among them accepted martyrdom have already atoned for all their obvious and imaginary sins by their death. And therefore they - at least from a purely Christian point of view - in our hearts deserve no less blessed memory than those soldiers of the Afghan war (living and dead) who performed heroic, recognized deeds.
Here are just some of the episodes of the tragedy of the Afghan captivity, which the author managed to collect from open sources.
The legend of the "red tulip"
From the book by American journalist George Crile "Charlie Wilson's War" (unknown details of the secret CIA war in Afghanistan):
“They say this is a true story, and although the details have changed over the years, in general it sounds something like this. On the morning of the second day after the invasion of Afghanistan, a Soviet sentry spotted five jute sacks on the edge of the airstrip at the Bagram Air Base near Kabul. At first, he did not attach much importance to this, but then he poked the barrel of his machine gun into the nearest bag and saw blood come out. Explosives experts were called in to check the bags for booby traps. But they discovered something much more terrible. Each bag contained a young Soviet soldier wrapped in his own skin. As far as medical examination was able to determine, these people died a particularly painful death: their skin was cut on the stomach, and then pulled up and tied over their heads.
This type of brutal execution is called the “red tulip”, and almost all the soldiers who served on Afghan soil have heard of it - a doomed person, having entered unconsciousness with a large dose of the drug, was hung by the arms. The skin was then trimmed around the entire body and rolled up. When the action of the dope ended, the condemned, having experienced a strong pain shock, first went crazy, and then slowly died ...
Today it is difficult to say how many of our soldiers found their end in this way. Usually there was and is a lot of talk among veterans of Afghanistan about the “red tulip” - one of the legends was just brought by the American Crile. But few of the veterans can name the specific name of this or that martyr. However, this does not mean at all that this execution is only an Afghan legend. Thus, the fact of the use of the “red tulip” on private Viktor Gryaznov, the driver of an army truck who went missing in January 1981, was reliably recorded.
Only 28 years later, Viktor's countrymen, journalists from Kazakhstan, were able to find out the details of his death.
In early January 1981, Viktor Gryaznov and ensign Valentin Yarosh were ordered to go to the city of Puli-Khumri to a military warehouse to receive cargo. A few days later they set off on their return journey. But on the way the column was attacked by dushmans. The truck driven by Gryaznov broke down, and then he and Valentin Yarosh took up arms. The battle lasted for half an hour ... The ensign's body was later found not far from the place of the battle, with a broken head and gouged out eyes. But the dushmans dragged Victor with them. What happened to him later is evidenced by a certificate sent to Kazakhstani journalists in response to their official request from Afghanistan:
“In early 1981, the Mujahideen of Abdul Razad Askhakzai’s detachment, during a battle with the infidels, was captured by Shuravi (Soviet), he called himself Gryaznov Viktor Ivanovich. He was offered to become a faithful Muslim, a Mujahideen, a defender of Islam, to participate in a gazavat - a holy war - with infidels. Gryaznov refused to become a true believer and destroy the Shuravi. By the verdict of the Sharia court, Gryaznov was sentenced to death - a red tulip, the sentence was carried out.
Of course, everyone is free to think about this episode as he pleases, but personally it seems to me that ordinary Gryaznov accomplished a real feat, refusing to commit betrayal and accepting a cruel death for it. One can only guess how many more of our guys in Afghanistan have committed the same heroic deeds, which, unfortunately, remain unknown to this day.
Foreign witnesses speak
However, in the arsenal of dushmans, in addition to the “red tulip”, there were many more brutal ways to kill Soviet prisoners.
The Italian journalist Oriana Falacci, who repeatedly visited Afghanistan and Pakistan in the 80s, testifies. During these trips, she finally became disillusioned with the Afghan Mujahideen, whom Western propaganda then painted exclusively as noble fighters against communism. "Noble fighters" turned out to be real monsters in human form:
“In Europe, they didn’t believe me when I talked about what they usually did with Soviet prisoners. How Soviet hands and feet were sawn off... The victims did not die immediately. Only after some time the victim was finally decapitated and the severed head was played in buzkashi, an Afghan kind of polo. As for the arms and legs, they were sold as trophies in the market...”.
The English journalist John Fullerton describes something similar in his book The Soviet Occupation of Afghanistan:
“Death is the usual end of those Soviet prisoners who were communists ... The first years of the war, the fate of Soviet prisoners was often terrible. One group of flayed prisoners was hung on hooks in a butcher's shop. Another prisoner became the central toy of an attraction called "buzkashi" - the cruel and savage polo of Afghans riding horses, snatching a headless sheep from each other instead of a ball. Instead, they used a prisoner. Alive! And he was literally torn to pieces.”
And here is another shocking confession of a foreigner. This is an excerpt from Frederick Forsyth's novel The Afghan. Forsyth is known for his closeness to the British intelligence agencies who helped the Afghan spooks, and therefore, knowingly, he wrote the following:
“The war was brutal. Few prisoners were taken, and those who died quickly could consider themselves lucky. The highlanders especially fiercely hated Russian pilots. Those who were captured alive were left in the sun with a small incision in the abdomen, so that the entrails swelled, spilled out and fried until death brought relief. Sometimes the prisoners were given to women who ripped off the skin of the living with knives ... ".
Beyond the human mind
All this is confirmed by our sources. For example, in the memoir of the international journalist Iona Andronov, who has repeatedly been to Afghanistan:
“After the battles near Jalalabad, I was shown in the ruins of a suburban village the mutilated corpses of two Soviet soldiers captured by the Mujahideen. The bodies cut open by daggers looked like a sickeningly bloody mess. I heard about such fanaticism many times: the flayers cut off the ears and noses of the captives, dissected the bellies and pulled out the intestines, cut off the heads and stuffed the open peritoneum inside. And if they captured several captives, they tortured them one by one in front of the next martyrs.
Andronov in his book recalls his friend, military translator Viktor Losev, who had the misfortune of being wounded and captured:
"I learned that ... the army authorities in Kabul were able, through Afghan intermediaries, to buy Losev's corpse from the Mujahideen for a lot of money ... The body of a Soviet officer given to us was subjected to such abuse that I still do not dare to describe it. And I don’t know: whether he died from a combat wound or the wounded was tortured to death by monstrous torture.The hacked remains of Victor in tightly soldered zinc were taken home by the “black tulip”.
By the way, the fate of the captured Soviet military and civilian advisers was really terrible. For example, in 1982, military counterintelligence officer Viktor Kolesnikov, who served as an adviser in one of the units of the Afghan government army, was tortured by dushmans. These Afghan soldiers went over to the side of the dushmans, and as a “gift” they “presented” a Soviet officer and translator to the Mujahideen. Major of the KGB of the USSR Vladimir Garkavy recalls:
“Kolesnikov and the translator were tortured for a long time and subtly. In this case, the “spirits” were masters. Then they cut off their heads and, having packed the tormented bodies in bags, threw them into the roadside dust on the Kabul-Mazar-i-Sharif highway, not far from the Soviet checkpoint.
As we can see, both Andronov and Garkavy refrain from details of the death of their comrades, sparing the reader's psyche. But one can guess about these tortures - at least from the memoirs of the former KGB officer Alexander Nezdolya:
“And how many times, due to inexperience, and sometimes as a result of elementary neglect of security measures, not only internationalist soldiers died, but also Komsomol workers seconded by the Central Committee of the Komsomol to create youth organizations. I remember a case of blatantly brutal reprisal against one of these guys. He was to fly from Herat to Kabul. But in a hurry, I forgot the folder with documents and returned for it, and catching up with the group, I ran into dushmanov. Having captured him alive, the “spirits” cruelly mocked him, cut off his ears, cut open his stomach and stuffed him and his mouth with earth. Then the still living Komsomol member was put on a stake and, demonstrating their Asian cruelty, was carried in front of the population of the villages.
After this became known to everyone, each of the special forces of our Karpaty team made it a rule to wear an F-1 grenade in the left lapel of a jacket pocket. So that, in case of injury or a hopeless situation, not to fall into the hands of dushmans alive ... "
A terrible picture appeared before those who, on duty, had to collect the remains of tortured people - employees of military counterintelligence and medical workers. Many of these people are still silent about what they had to see in Afghanistan, and this is quite understandable. But some still dare to speak. Here is what a nurse at a Kabul military hospital once told Belarusian writer Svetlana Aleksievich:
“The whole of March, right there, near the tents, cut off arms and legs were dumped ...
Corpses ... They lay in a separate room ... Half-naked, with gouged out eyes,
Once - with a carved star on his stomach ... Earlier in the movie about the civil
I saw this in the war."
No less amazing things were told to the writer Larisa Kucherova (author of the book “The KGB in Afghanistan”) by the former head of the special department of the 103rd Airborne Division, Colonel Viktor Sheiko-Koshuba. Once he happened to investigate an incident with the disappearance of a whole convoy of our trucks, along with drivers - thirty-two people, led by an ensign. This column left Kabul for the area of the Karcha reservoir for sand for construction needs. The column left and ... disappeared. Only on the fifth day, the paratroopers of the 103rd division, alerted, found what was left of the drivers, who, as it turned out, were captured by dushmans:
“The mutilated, dismembered remains of human bodies, powdered with thick viscous dust, were scattered over the dry rocky ground. Heat and time have already done their job, but what people have created is beyond description! Empty sockets of gouged out eyes, staring at the indifferent empty sky, ripped and gutted bellies, cut off genitals ... Even those who had seen a lot in this war and considered themselves impenetrable men lost their nerves ... After some time, our intelligence officers received information that that after the guys were captured, the dushmans led them bound around the villages for several days, and civilians with furious fury stabbed the helpless boys, distraught with horror, with knives. Men and women, old and young... Having quenched their bloody thirst, a crowd of people seized by a feeling of animal hatred threw stones at half-dead bodies. And when the stone rain knocked them down, spooks armed with daggers got down to business ...
Such monstrous details became known from a direct participant in that massacre, captured during the next operation. Calmly looking into the eyes of the Soviet officers present, he spoke in detail, savoring every detail, about the abuse that unarmed boys were subjected to. With the naked eye, it was clear that at that moment the prisoner received special pleasure from the very memories of torture ... ".
Dushmans really attracted the peaceful Afghan population to their brutal actions, which, it seems, took part in mockery of our servicemen with great willingness. This happened to the wounded soldiers of our special forces company, which in April 1985 fell into a dushman ambush in the Marawara gorge, near the Pakistani border. A company without proper cover entered one of the Afghan villages, after which a real massacre began there. Here is how General Valentin Varennikov, head of the Operational Group of the Ministry of Defense of the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, described it in his memoirs.
“The company spread across the village. Suddenly, several large-caliber machine guns began to hit from the heights to the right and left at once. All the soldiers and officers jumped out of the yards and houses and scattered around the village, looking for shelter somewhere at the foot of the mountains, from where there was intense shooting. It was a fatal mistake. If the company took refuge in these adobe houses and behind thick duvals, which are not penetrated not only by heavy machine guns, but also by a grenade launcher, then the personnel could fight for a day and more, until help came up.
In the first minutes, the company commander was killed and the radio station was destroyed. This made things even more disorganized. The personnel rushed about at the foot of the mountains, where there were neither stones nor a bush that would have sheltered from a leaden downpour. Most of the people were killed, the rest were wounded.
And then the dushmans descended from the mountains. There were ten or twelve of them. They consulted. Then one climbed onto the roof and began to observe, two went along the road to a neighboring village (it was a kilometer away), and the rest began to bypass our soldiers. The wounded, having thrown a loop from a belt on their feet, were dragged closer to the village, and all the dead were given a control shot in the head.
Approximately an hour later, the two returned, but already accompanied by nine teenagers aged ten to fifteen years old and three large dogs - Afghan Shepherds. The leaders gave them certain instructions, and with squealing and shouting they rushed to finish off our wounded with knives, daggers and axes. Dogs gnawed our soldiers by the throat, the boys chopped off their arms and legs, cut off their noses, ears, ripped open their stomachs, gouged out their eyes. And adults cheered them up and laughed approvingly.
It was over in thirty or forty minutes. The dogs licked their lips. Two older teenagers chopped off two heads, strung them on a stake, raised them like a banner, and the whole team of frenzied executioners and sadists went back to the village, taking with them all the weapons of the dead.
Varenikov writes that only junior sergeant Vladimir Turchin survived then. The soldier hid in the river reeds and saw with his own eyes how his comrades were being tortured. Only the next day did he manage to get out to his own. After the tragedy, Varenikov himself wished to see him. But the conversation did not work out, because as the general writes:
“He was shaking all over. Not only did he tremble a little, no, everything was trembling in him - his face, arms, legs, torso. I took him by the shoulder, and this trembling was transmitted to my arm. It was as if he had a vibration disease. Even if he said something, he clattered his teeth, so he tried to answer questions with a nod of his head (he agreed or denied). The poor man did not know what to do with his hands, they were trembling very much.
I realized that a serious conversation with him would not work. He sat him down and, taking him by the shoulders and trying to calm him down, began to comfort him, saying kind words that everything was over, that he needed to get into shape. But he continued to tremble. His eyes expressed the full horror of the experience. He was mentally severely traumatized."
Probably, such a reaction on the part of a 19-year-old boy is not surprising - from the spectacle he saw, even fully grown-up men who had seen the views could move their minds. They say that Turchin, even today, after almost three decades, still has not come to his senses and categorically refuses to talk to anyone about the Afghan topic ...
God be his judge and comforter! Like all those who have seen with their own eyes all the wild inhumanity of the Afghan war.
IV. At war
The fighting of our company took place in the vicinity of Kabul, near Charikar, Jabal-Ussaraj, Bagram and Gulbahar, three operations in Panjshir, fought twice in the Togap Gorge, in the Sarobi region, near Jalalabad in the Tsaukay Gorge, beyond Kunar near the Pakistani border, near Gardez and in other places.
He did not feel hatred for the enemy and there was nothing to avenge. There was a fighting passion, a desire to win, to show oneself. When there were losses, a sense of revenge mixed in, but in battle, the combatants are equal. It is bad when some splashed out a sense of revenge for their dead comrades on civilians.
At first, no one really knew with whom we had to fight, they were aware that the enemy was cruel and insidious. During the war, the Mujahideen began to be taken more seriously, they knew that they could commit bold, unexpected and desperate sabotage. For example, they seized several regular buses on the road, dropped off the passengers, and arrived through the posts to the center of the settlement, shot and ... left.
In the designation of the enemy, the name “Basmachi”, known in Central Asia, was first used, but then they were most often called “dushmans”, translated from Afghan as “enemies”. By the way, in Mari almost the same. This is where the derivative form “spirits” comes from. Very fortunately, they, like spirits, could appear from anywhere - from the mountains, from underground, from a village, from the side of Soviet or Afghan units. Some dressed up in Soviet military uniforms and spoke better Russian than our Turkmen and Uzbek fighters. The name "mujahideen" (fighters for the faith) was known, but not popular. Russian Afghans called "shuravi" from the word "shura" (council) in the meaning of the Soviet.
I saw leaflets and caricatures of enemies, they were Afghan leaflets, I still have one. I also saw posters with portraits of the leaders of spooks. The most common portrait of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who headed the Islamic Party of Afghanistan (IPA).
There are two reasons for our participation in that war. The main thing was to support the pro-Soviet regime and an additional reason was to protect our southern borders. Observing the poverty of the bulk of the population, we sincerely believed that it was necessary to raise their standard of living to ours, to help overcome difficulties, to protect them from rebels and foreign interference. So then it was understood.
The first battle took place on February 23, 1980 near the road north of Charikar, somewhere in the area of the village of Bayani-Bala. The fighters for the faith approached the road and disturbed the passing columns with shelling. We parachuted from combat vehicles and, under the cover of machine guns, went on the attack in a chain. The rebels, firing back, began to retreat. We ran through the fields and rolled down the terraces. They have many terraces, since the country is mountainous and there are few flat areas, and even fertile ones. We did not catch up with them then and retreated on orders, the commander did not want us to move away from the road. The most difficult thing then was to keep the chain, not to run ahead and keep up. A group of fighters took a roadside house. Although they have clay, they are built like fortresses, and with small arms it is not always easy to take them. The house was the key of defense for the spirits. Sergeant Ulitenko shot an old man with a gun there. Initially, the dushmans were poorly armed: flintlock and hunting rifles, English "Boers", and then in small quantities, there were few automatic weapons. Not everyone even had bullets, some shot with shot. What was at hand, they fought with that - with an ax, a stone, a knife. It is bold, of course, but reckless with such weapons to go against artillery, machine guns, machine guns and rifles. In this battle, we were dealing with a disorganized, untrained and poorly armed militia. Then four of our soldiers almost died: Vladimir Dobysh, Alexander Baev, Alexander Ivanov and Pyotr Markelov. They did not hear the order to withdraw and went so far into the village that, in the end, they were attacked by superior forces of dushmans who fired at them from behind the duval (clay fence). They did not have grenades, and they could not throw them at the dushmans through the duval, and bullets from machine guns did not pierce it. Only sniper Sasha Ivanov pierced the duval from a rifle and at least hit one. The rest of the guys, using the advantage in automation, lay down behind a pile of rubble and fired at any head shown above the fence. Saved by the appearance of the Afghan car. The soldiers stopped her, sat down and left the battlefield. Dushmans did not shoot at their village. The Afghan took our people not far away and, citing a breakdown, stopped, but this was enough to break away from the pursuers. The fighters left the car and, holding weapons at the ready, went through the bazaar. The driver cheated, as soon as the soldiers moved away, he left, but without him the guys could have died. They arrived safely. All were wounded. A bullet hit Baev in the back, Dobysh received a through wound in the shoulder, and the rest were scratched. Markelov received several pellets under his eye. We then joked that they wanted to shoot him like a squirrel in the eye, so as not to spoil the skin.
The hardships of the war were perceived, as it is written in the oath: "they steadfastly endured all the hardships and hardships of military service." A person gets used to everything: bad weather, inconvenience, and constant danger.
Losses and injuries acted depressingly. In two years, 17 people from the company died, and every 6th was wounded. In reality, the losses were greater, since I do not count the dead from the signalmen, mortarmen, sappers, tankers, aircraft controllers, artillery spotters, etc. attached to the company.
Many of those about whom I wrote above died. As it is written in the Book of Memory, on December 16, 1980, Alexander Baev died of a serious infectious disease. You can write like that if drug overdose is attributed to infectious diseases. I was on duty at the time and was the first to discover during the ascent that he had died. One of the soldiers with whom we tried to “wake up” Baev shouted to the others that he was cold. Sergeant M. Alimov, not understanding the meaning, said: "Give him here to the stove, we will warm him up." A doctor came running, but it was too late, they were late for 30 minutes with the rescue.
Deputy Deputy Ensign A.S. On June 6, 1981, on the way to Sarobi, near the village of Gogamund, Afanasyev's skull was shattered. I remember one medical ensign. When he had just arrived from the Soviet Union and asked me how it was, I said that they were shooting and killing. He cheerfully replied to this that he would not participate in battles as a doctor. But in war, everyone has their own destiny. One has been constantly in battle for two years and not a single scratch, the other is at headquarters and dies. This ensign in the same battle, when an armored personnel carrier was hit by a grenade launcher, his head was torn off, only the lower jaw hung on his neck.
When in the spring of 1981 we were standing on the Bagram road in the Karabag region, such an incident occurred. Staff officers met a cipher clerk at the Kabul airfield. He studied for six months in the Union and had to work at the headquarters. We hurried, did not wait for the escort, and drove the UAZ to the unit with five of us: a driver sergeant, a cipher clerk, a senior lieutenant, a captain and a lieutenant colonel. Dushmans seized a ZIL on the road, overtook an UAZ, blocked the road and shot a car that had approached. The driver and cryptographer died, the senior lieutenant was seriously injured. The captain and lieutenant colonel ran away. The first received a bullet in the back, but survived, the second was not injured. The Mujahideen cut the throat of the wounded senior lieutenant and went into the green. The car riddled with blood and spattered with brains stood at the post for several days, reminding of the proximity of death and the need for vigilance and caution. The cryptographer served in Afghanistan for several hours, not even getting into the lists of the unit.
On September 27, the driver of the armored personnel carrier Urusyan Derenik Sandroyevich died along with two soldiers. Their car fell into the abyss. I accidentally didn't go with them. The company commander senior lieutenant Kiselev and the platoon commander senior lieutenant Gennady Travkin and the tankman senior lieutenant Valery Cherevik died in one armored personnel carrier on November 7, 1981 in Sarobi. Soldier Mikhail Rotar from Moldavia had his leg torn off to the knee by a mine, and we were filming him from the mountains. Then I corresponded with him. They made him a prosthesis, and he worked in the military registration and enlistment office.
Each injury and death is a separate sad story.
In between fights, of course, they remembered the house. In difficult times, the memories of the house, plans for the future strengthened the spirit.
When they went on the attack, they did not shout anything. When you run through the mountains in rarefied air, you don’t really scream, in addition, we tried to listen to the commands and the sounds of the battle, in the mountains the sound due to the echo can be misleading. We did not have psychological mass attacks on the enemy, and there was no need to shout. Most often, clashes took place in the form of skirmishes at long or medium distances, when advancing forward, the enemy, as a rule, retreated. Another form of combat is action in the village and greenery, where contact with the enemy reached up to hand-to-hand combat. A close fight was also tied up when an ambush or in the event of an unexpected collision or detection of the enemy.
I had to participate in events that were reflected in special and memoir literature. I encountered one fact in the memoirs of Colonel-General B.V. Gromov "Limited contingent". In 1980 he was chief of staff of our 108th division. The general writes that at the end of May, in the middle of the day, 181 regiments were fired upon by dushmans, and that as a result of the shelling, almost all warehouses with food and ammunition stocks flew into the air, the regiment almost lost its battle flag, an officer and five soldiers died, and the tank in which they climbed up. Gromov notes the professional shelling and writes that even now he does not know what kind of weapon it was fired from - then the dushmans did not have artillery, rockets - and even more so, and only mortars were used. The general suspects the Afghan military, whose training ground was nearby. This event is noted in other publications. V. Mayorov and I. Mayorova write as follows: “It was the last day of the second decade of May. The shelling of the 181st motorized rifle regiment began at noon in the bright sun, when it is difficult to determine where the shooting is coming from. Almost all the warehouses of ammunition and food flew into the air, the regiment almost lost its battle flag. It is further noted that an officer and five soldiers who tried to fight the fire on tanks died. The authors are also perplexed about the cause of the explosion: “It was not clear who opened fire: the “spirits” from the surrounding mountains or the Afghan soldiers from the tank brigade?”
Chief of Staff B.V. Gromov, of course, received official information in the form of a report, most likely from the commander of the 181st MRR, Lieutenant Colonel Vladimir Nasyrovich Makhmudov. I can clarify something in this matter as a witness, although I cannot vouch for the final truth.
The doubts of the general and other authors are justified, it was not easy to undermine the warehouses. They were located in a hollow between the hills (by Afghan standards they cannot be called large, but for the inhabitants of the plains they would have seemed impressive). It was impossible to fire at the warehouses directly, our units were located everywhere on the approaches, the area around was clearly visible - a relatively flat desert without any vegetation, only a thorn. The shelling could only be carried out from a very long distance and from a mortar.
At that time, I was sent to carry out a combat mission for the protection and defense of the repair battalion (rembat), which was located in front of the Afghan training ground and was engaged in the repair of Afghan equipment, in fact there were two repair battalions. They had their own internal security along the perimeter, but motorized riflemen carried out external protection at advanced posts. There was also barbed wire, cobwebs and minefields. At the time of the incident, I was on duty and, sitting on the armor of the armored personnel carrier, I was observing, because it had a better view. Behind was a rembat and it was only necessary to look towards the warehouses and our other units located at a distance of 1-1.5 km. I saw and heard the first rather strong explosion in the area of warehouses, as at that moment I was looking there. For some time it was quiet, then the shells began to burst, scatter to the sides and, the farther, the stronger. We've stepped up our vigilance just in case. Explosions of shells began to approach, however, it was not close to the warehouses and they were protected by mountains, so not all ammunition flew out of their limits. However, several shells exploded at a distance of 500 m, and one 300 m from us.
Now my thoughts. I have a very big doubt that dushmans or the Afghan military are to blame for the explosion of warehouses. As I already said, they could not approach the warehouses, and even during the day. From a long distance and with one mine, it is extremely difficult to immediately hit a target hidden in a hollow. In addition, the mortar is not an accurate weapon. I did not see any flying mines (the flight of a mine can be traced). If we assume that the Afghan military fired from the range, then I did not hear the shot, and the range was located behind the rembat behind my back.
I cannot completely exclude the version of the shelling, but there are no facts confirming it. Among the soldiers spread version of the explosion in the warehouse as a result of careless handling of weapons. It was based on the stories of those who were in or near the warehouses. I have repeatedly listened to different fighters, and they said about the same thing. The storekeepers, out of curiosity or some other considerations, began to disassemble the NURS (Unguided Rocket), which led to an explosion, which in turn caused a detonation and a fire. The heated ammunition began to explode. The catastrophe was aggravated by the fact that almost all the warehouses were located together: with ammunition, and with provisions, and with things, there was also a regimental hospital. It was so convenient to protect and use warehouses, but everything also burned down at once. Subsequently, the warehouses were located separately. I was then at the site of the explosion, walked on scorched earth and saw the burnt tank. Indeed, the tanker tried to prevent the fire that had begun, but did not have time.
If the regiment commander had reported the destruction of the warehouses as a result of ordinary negligence and violation of discipline, he could have been punished, which is why they attributed everything to dushmans. If you deal with all sorts of emergencies in Afghanistan, it will be revealed that the dushmans have accomplished many “feats” unknown to them. In war, it is convenient to attribute any incidents to combat losses. A soldier drowned - they reported that he was killed by a sniper, a car flew into the abyss because of a drunk driver - shelling from a grenade launcher from an ambush. We have one Uzbek, having nothing to do with a file, began to sharpen an electric detonator and caused a spark, and two of his fingers were cut off and shrapnel cut both himself and the person sitting next to him. They gave out wounds as the result of a mortar attack, otherwise it could be qualified as a crossbow. Teaching physics in school should have been better. I looked through the "Book of Memory of Soviet soldiers who died in Afghanistan" and made sure that the death of many, whose death I know for sure, is described in a completely different way from what it was in reality. In the presentation for the award posthumously, it was required to state the circumstances of the feat, so the staff composed them. Moreover, even in cases where death occurred in battle, it is described in a completely different way.
In battle, most often they did not think about death and wounds, otherwise fear would bind all movements and then troubles would not be avoided. They thought about possible death only when there were losses and shortly before being transferred to the reserve. There was no fear of the commanders, we were not sent on deliberately disastrous missions. There were, of course, such officers who thought more about awards than about soldiers. For example, when another company of our battalion destroyed a group of dushmans in the gorge, the chief of staff captain Aliyev, having examined weapons near the dead through binoculars, began to say: “Let's go down, they have mortars there, we will collect weapons.” The presence of captured weapons clearly demonstrated success, and one could count on rewards. To this, the battalion commander Zimbolevsky told him: “You need it, you go down,” and did not give the order to go down into the gorge. In the mountains, one who is on the ridge always has a huge advantage over those who are below in the hollows. We rarely descended into the hollows, and if we did, it was only with cover. They almost always moved along the ridges of the mountains.
In June-July 1980, we fought in the Gardez region. Then there was the first close meeting with the dushman. Most often, the enemy was invisible - he would shoot from a distant line or from a vineyard and move away. If seen, then in the reach of small arms, 1.5-3 km - in the mountains, visibility is good because of the clean rarefied air. There were cases when dushmans could not withstand the approach of significant forces and, like hares from under the bushes, ran away from ambushes, throwing their weapons. Most often, it was not possible to shoot such "hares", they sent several mines after them. We were then in the first raid and unsuccessfully pursued the gang. We climb one mountain, they are already on another, we are on that one, and they are already on the third. "And the eye sees, but the tooth is numb." In the forefront there were only light small arms, mortars were at the back. When the dushmans were driven out, they themselves descended from the mountains into the valley. As always, they walked along the path in a chain. I was fourth from the end in the platoon. Suddenly, an unexpected shot sounded, and the bullet hit very close to the feet of the last soldier. He thought that one of ours fired an accidental shot, and began to ask loudly. Everyone stopped and looked at each other in bewilderment - no one fired. These are spirits, we decided, and began to examine the rocks above. So, probably, they would have left without finding anyone, but the shooting dushman miscalculated. The fact is that they often attacked the latter, and those walking in front, not seeing where the shot was fired from, could not understand who was shooting. In our case, the last one was not the last one, with a small gap another platoon followed us and the soldier who came out from behind the rock managed to notice where the shot was fired from. Dushman was not sitting on the mountain, as we thought, but under our feet in a small cave near the path. The soldier who saw him opened fire and began to throw grenades. All instantly sank. I found myself in the line of fire above the cave and, sprawled among the stones, watched how fragments clicked on the stones around and bullets ricocheted off, I didn’t want to die from my own. Dushman managed to make another unsuccessful shot, and was killed. The body was pulled out of the cave. Fragments of a grenade chopped up his body, gouged out an eye. It was a boy of about 17 with a large-caliber old hard drive. He was a brave fighter, but he was not lucky.
In August, I had to participate in the second Panjshir operation against the formations of Ahmad Shah Massoud. The Afghan company and I approached the mountain to the right of the entrance to the Panjshir Gorge. Very close they saw a man quickly climbing up the mountain. They began to shout at him to stop, but he, not paying attention, quickly got up. He could have been shot, but no one shot. The fire was opened only when he began to hide behind the stones, but it was already too late, the mines fired in the wake did not hit him either. It was a messenger with a message about our promotion, and he managed to warn his people.
There were no people in the nearest villages and no weapons were found either. Before sunset, rifles were fired at us. We saw the movement of a group of dushmans on a nearby mountain and even aimed a helicopter at them. The bomb exploded spectacularly at the very top. We calmed down and behaved very nonchalantly. The soldiers basked in the rays of the setting sun on the western illuminated side of the ridge. When a sniper's bullet hit near one soldier, everyone was blown away by the wind - we ran across to the eastern shady slope and returned fire. The night in the mountains was cool. In the morning they fired at us from the house on the slope. We aimed helicopters at him and they dropped the bomb. It exploded 100 meters to the left of the position of the dushmans. The air controller corrected and the next bomb fell ... another 100 meters closer to us. The officer once again explained where to throw the bomb and it flew ... already at us. The soldiers from the kill zone ran incredibly fast, hearing the approaching howl of the bomb, then lay down. No one was hurt by the explosion, but the helicopter pilots did not begin to explain the location of the target any more. In my memory, this was the only case of such inept interaction between helicopter pilots and an aircraft controller, usually "turntables" helped us out a lot.
Occasionally engaging in skirmishes, they went to the river in the gorge and crossed it. Then for several days they advanced into the depths of the valley. Sometimes they sat on the mountains, securing the advancing units, and followed the course of the battle, then changed roles. When we passed through the occupied villages, we saw dead dushmans and inhabitants who simply turned up, smoking houses and other traces of recent battles.
Then came the order to leave. It often happened - they entered, smashed or forced out the rebels, then left and the dushmans returned there again. The soldiers joked: "People's power has been established - expel people." If Afghan troops remained in the occupied territory, they could not hold out for a long time without our help. Our troops could not stand in garrisons throughout the country - the contingent of Soviet troops in Afghanistan was indeed limited.
During the exit from the gorge, they shot at us, we answered with hurricane fire. The dushmans mined the road, but a tank with a trawl was ahead of us and cleared the way. However, the ambulance UAZ nevertheless blew up - its width of the bridge was narrow, it did not fall into the rut and, in the end, ran into a mine. The wounded driver was pulled out, and the doctor and the orderly burned down. By evening, everything calmed down and there were only a few kilometers left before the exit from Panjshir. We already wanted to go to bed in armored personnel carriers, but then the column stopped. Dushmans blew up the road. On the right there were rocks, on the left - a raging mountain river, ahead for tens of meters - a failure. The only good thing was that it was night and the spooks could not shoot. On the radio, we heard a short order from the battalion commander Zimbalevsky: "Soldiers, into the mountains." I really didn’t want to get out of the cozy armored personnel carriers and climb these boring mountains. It was very dark and only against the background of the starry sky were the silhouettes of the mountains visible. Behind each top, which aspired to, a new one opened, and so on. It had rained in the evening and the stones were slippery. Someone said that climbers are forbidden to climb at night, and even after rain, but that's for climbers. In my group, I crawled first and peered into the stones, waiting for the flash of a shot from the dushmans who had settled down. At dawn, we occupied the crest of the surrounding mountains, built shelters from stones, and began to wait. They knew that dushmans would come to shell the stuck column. In the morning a flock of sheep came out to us with three shepherds. They did not expect to meet Russians there, they tried to escape, but several bursts left them on the rocks. The use of shepherds for reconnaissance was a well-known method of the enemy. Unfortunately, we did not manage to fully enjoy the joy of victory. A group of dushmans of 20 people was noticed through binoculars as soon as she began to climb. The officers called helicopters from the nearby Bagram airfield and they shot them in the middle of the slope, when they had nowhere to hide. However, the dushmans went without weapons. The officers concluded that it was somewhere near us in the mountains. Tried searching, but to no avail. Only on the third day was the order to descent received, when the sappers restored the road. The battalion immediately left the ridge and ran downhill, loaded onto cars and safely left the gorge. We then worked clearly and successfully, the plan of Ahmad Shah to lock us in the gorge and inflict damage did not materialize.
The Afghan historian Abd al-Hafiz Mansur in his book “Panjshir in the Age of Jihad” writes that the Russian and government troops were defeated and lost more than 500 people in this operation, while the Mujahideen allegedly lost only 25 soldiers, but this is a very strong distortion. Our company during the Second Panjshir had no losses at all, other units also did not observe any significant damage.
We had no cases of betrayal and capture. They died and disappeared without a trace - it happened. In Panjshir, a tall, thin Russian guy from the commandant's platoon from Tbilisi went missing. He had poor eyesight, and after the regiment was attacked and retreated under artillery cover from the mountains in the gorge, he was missing. For several days they took the villages and the surrounding mountains with a fight, searched in the hollows, lost several people dead and wounded, but this soldier was never found.
One incident of crossing a dell should be told. In September 1980, we fought in the area of the Tsaukay Gorge in the province of Kunar, not far from Pakistan. Outgoing dushmans were pursued along the ridge, there were short skirmishes. We spent the night on the slope. In the morning, helicopters flew in and dropped food and, for some reason, ammunition for us. We had more than enough of our own, these were superfluous, but we had to take them. When the company had already moved out, a soldier approached me and said that he had found zinc with cartridges in the bushes. We carried it up the hill. It was a heavy and awkward to carry rectangular box containing 1080 rounds of 5.45mm AK-74 rounds. Several times we wanted to throw out this zinc, because of which we were pretty behind our company and were already in the rearguard of the battalion. But every time after a short rest they grabbed him and carried him up the mountain. We knew that spooks were following us, and even if we hide the zinc, they can find it and these bullets will fly at us and our comrades. So we, drenched in sweat, fired up the cartridges to the top, where the battalion was gathering. There, the soldiers of the company dismantled the cartridges.
By evening we were in front of a hollow. It would take at least a day to bypass it, we needed to go to the opposite ridge. The climate in the region of Kunar and Jalalabad is subtropical, and the mountains are covered with forests, which further complicated the operations. The battalion commander ventured to cross the hollow in a straight line. The battalion moved in parts. When the first company was already on the opposite ridge, the Afghan was below, and our third was still on this side. Problems began when we went down and began to collect water. They started firing from the slope we had just left. We quickly began to climb the opposite slope. At first they fired back, then they stopped - it was still not clear where to shoot. It was getting dark quickly, in the south the nights were dark. Among the trees and at dusk we were almost invisible. Our form was new and therefore dark, did not have time to burn out. The Afghan soldiers, whose company operated with us, wore faded, almost white uniforms. Our people began to shout: “Do not approach the Afghans, they are clearly visible. Indeed, only one soldier was wounded in our country, among the Afghans there were three soldiers. The wound of our fighter was not severe, but unpleasant - they shot through the buttocks. They carried him in their arms, and everyone wanted to help. With the onset of darkness, the dushmans also stopped shooting. When we were already in the middle of the slope, night fell, and on the opposite slope, where there were dushmans, the lights lit up. We had just passed there and knew for sure that there were no buildings there and there were no lights to come from. This was done for psychological pressure on us - look at the Russians and be afraid, we, your enemies, are nearby. But there was also a practical purpose. Dushman put a flashlight on the stone, took a position to the side and watched the flashes of shots. If an inexperienced Soviet soldier starts shooting at a flashlight, the Dushman sniper will be able to hit him. We knew this trick and did not shoot, because even if you get into a cheap Chinese lantern, the dushman sitting on the side will not suffer. Sometimes the lights moved, most likely, dushmans, wanting to tease the Russians, hung lanterns on donkeys and let them go down the slope. A year later, when we were on duty and tired of these wandering lights on the top of the mountain, we extinguished them with a shell from a tank, the lights did not appear there anymore.
Having crossed the hollow, we safely occupied the ridge and stopped for the night. On a dark southern night, it is impossible to move through the forest in the mountains. The commander of the Afghan company came up and asked Captain Zimbalevsky to order his soldiers to go down and pick up his three wounded soldiers. Surprisingly, spooks, with rare exceptions, always carried away not only their wounded, but also the dead, but these left their own. The Afghan company acted somehow uncertainly, sluggishly, slowly trailed behind, lagged behind. When our battalion commander made a remark to the Afghan commanders, their officer replied that the Russian soldiers were walking very fast. It was surprising for us to hear this, among us there were few highlanders, the plains prevailed. Even the Armenians, of which there were several people, said that although they live in the Caucasus, they did not climb the mountains so much. Most likely, the Afghan company did not really want to fight and was serving a duty.
The battalion commander refused the Afghan's request and told him to send soldiers of his company for his wounded and promised only fire cover. None of the Afghans went down for the wounded. In the morning, the exit was delayed, Zimbolevsky harshly told the Afghan officer that if they did not bring their wounded by such and such a time, then our battalion would leave. The Afghans dejectedly went down and at the appointed time raised the wounded up the mountain, we moved further along the ridge. We learned from the wounded that the dushmans approached them and wanted to finish them off, but they said that they were mobilized and also Muslims. Dushmans just took their weapons and left. This happened, but if they found wounded Afghan officers, they did not spare. At night, they approached our outposts, but did not dare to attack, we were waiting for the attack and were ready to fight back, setting up positions of stones along the slope.
There weren't many cowards. We had one such soldier. During the shelling, he was seized with panic, he lay down among the stones, and no persuasion could force him to move. The fighters had to run to him through the area under fire and drag him by the arms under the bullets. Luckily, this was the only one. But among the officers, the manifestation of cowardice had to be observed more often. The commander of the mortar battery, a senior lieutenant, was often in battle and, upon his return, spoke a lot about his exploits. I thought with envy and delight: "Here is a hero, I would like that." In mid-October 1980, we fought in the Togap Gorge. The battalion moved through the village along the stream, parallel to the other bank were dushmans. We were the first to notice them, but did not pay attention - they were in civilian clothes with red armbands on both sleeves - this is how the “populists” usually designated themselves. These were self-defense units, i.e. militia who fought on the side of government troops, usually near their places of residence. We realized that these were dushmans only after they lost their nerve, and they rushed to run. Several soldiers opened fire belatedly and killed or wounded someone - they found blood on the stones. During the shooting, I lay down in the ditch and, looking out, looked for the target. At this time, the aforementioned senior lieutenant, with eyes stunned with fright, was creeping and crawling on me. So he crawled back somewhere and not at all in order to organize the actions of his battery. Belarusian Nikolai Kandybovich made everyone laugh. When they stopped shooting, he came out from somewhere in the rear and began to loudly ask: “Well, did they take anyone prisoner, did they seize weapons?”
I can explain the courageous behavior of most soldiers not so much by courage, but by disbelief of 19-year-old guys in death and self-confidence. For us, for a long time, Afghanistan was more of a military game than a real brutal war. The realization of the seriousness of what was happening came over time with the losses and injuries of comrades.
In the same Togap gorge, we cleared the villages, from time to time there were skirmishes. When we were on guard, we met a group of our and Afghan sappers who blew up the houses of gang leaders. Then I also thought: “Why blow up houses, will their owners stop fighting from this?”
In the villages, the Mujahideen jumped out from somewhere, fired a few shots and quickly disappeared. When checking houses, a soldier was always left at the entrance. When the detachment of our company entered the next house, two dushmans with knives immediately jumped from behind the fence on the soldier Ildar Garayev, who remained at the door from Kazan. They knocked out the machine gun from him and tried to stab him, he fought back with his bare hands, which were already all cut. Then they managed to throw Ildar into a ditch, and they began to drown him in the water, they did not shoot, fearing to attract attention. At the last minute, he was saved by a soldier Bikmaev, who saw what was happening from the window. The fighters jumped out into the street and shot the Mujahideen. Then I approached them and saw that their faces were blown away by a copious stream of lead. Bloodied and in a state of shock, Ildar was brought to the area of the village. There, at that moment, three elders of the village, diligently proved to the commander of our company, Peshekhonov, that there were no dushmans in the village. As soon as Ildar saw them, he immediately shot everyone, miraculously not hitting any of his own, our platoon Alexander Vorobyov, who was passing near the Afghans at that moment, almost got under the bullets. We then condemned Ildar among ourselves, but not for the murder of old people, of course, but for dangerous shooting.
It was scary to go on the attack when they didn’t shoot at us, because you don’t know where the enemy is and how many of them, what weapons they have, whether a machine gun will hit point-blank now. When they started shooting, it was already possible to decide how to act.
I had to see the enemy alive often, almost every day. Guerrilla warfare lies in the fact that the enemy is everywhere and nowhere. Eastern mentality is special. The people there are so friendly and welcoming that it seems that there is no one better than you for him, and they will treat him, and give a gift, and say good words. If you believe and relax, then the trouble will sneak up imperceptibly. "Softly lay - hard to sleep." The same person with whom he recently had a nice conversation can poison, and shoot, or stab, or commit another hostile act.
Dushman, in order to turn into a peaceful peasant, it was enough to get rid of the weapon. For example, they shoot from a village. We break in there, and the locals, to the question: “Dushman ast?”, Always answered invariably: “Dushman is carrying”. I think that even without translation the meaning of the dialogue is clear. Experience sometimes made it possible to identify dushmans among the peasants. For example, traces of powder gases, a dirty mark from the butt on the shoulder, they did not always have time or forgot to get rid of the cartridges in their pockets, etc. Once we were checking villages along the road to Kabul near Jalalabad. In the village, a 16-year-old boy was captured with cartridges in his pocket. They brought him to the road. An old mother followed him, sobbing, and tearfully asked to let her son go. The officers did not know what to do, and released the young dushman. The soldiers were unhappy, because he had recently fired at us. The major reproachfully said that it was not necessary to bring him to the road. When an Afghan boy was passing near us, one of the soldiers pushed him in the side with a rifle butt. He stopped and carefully looked at the departing soldiers, trying to figure out who hit him. Behind him, sobbing, was his mother, a simple old Afghan woman who had fulfilled her motherly duty and saved her son from death. The young Afghan went to the village, not paying attention to the weeping woman trailing behind. This was also an unpleasant surprise for our soldiers.
One more episode. When moving through the village, Tajik sergeant Murtazo (Name is missing in the printed version) approx. Author) Alimov drew attention to a woman in a veil squatting and watching us. The woman was unusually broad-shouldered, which aroused suspicion. Perhaps it was a man hiding under a veil - a Dushman scout. Alimov told the Afghan lieutenant about this. The conversation was in Farsi, but I realized that the Afghan refused to check the "woman". The Soviet sergeant and the Afghan lieutenant first argued, the further, the more furiously, and then they began to fight. We immediately separated them, otherwise we would have had to beat up half of the Afghan company to the delight of the Dushman intelligence officer. Our officers were not around and, in order not to aggravate relations with the allies, we did not check the broad-shouldered "woman" in the veil.
The fate of the captured dushmans was different. It depended on the orders of the commanders and the general mood of the fighters. If it was ordered to take the "language", if the actions of the unit proceeded successfully and without losses, the prisoners were treated quite humanely, often handed over to the Afghan official authorities. If there were no clear orders regarding the prisoners, and the raid group suffered losses in the dead and wounded, then nothing good awaited the prisoners. Prisoners were usually forced to carry our heavy load, and on the way to the place of deployment they were killed. It all looked terrible. A group of soldiers surrounded the unfortunate man and beat him to death with his hands, feet, butts, knives, then a control shot. There was no shortage of performers. I didn’t like all this, and tried to get away so as not to hear the inhuman howl of the person being killed. Horrors of war. The American writer Ernest Hemingway, who fought a lot, said well about the war: “Do not think that war, no matter how necessary and just it may be, may not be criminal.”
In addition, I did not always have confidence that the captured people were really spooks. But the dushmans, as the officers explained to us, were rebels, and the status of prisoners of war did not apply to them, so such actions against them were justified. Even when the obvious dushmans who killed and wounded our soldiers were executed, it still looked disgusting. Maybe it was worth showing more respect for the enemy and shooting without cruelty. Cruelty breeds cruelty, they acted more sophisticatedly with our prisoners, where we Europeans can compare with Asians - they knew sophisticated methods of torture and executions and were inventive.
I witnessed how the commander of the regiment, Lieutenant Colonel V.N., conducted the interrogation of prisoners in the Togap Gorge. Makhmudov. At first he spoke to them, then he began to beat with his own hand, as they were silent. In general, the Afghan captives, as a rule, endured interrogations, torture and execution steadfastly, as befits the partisans. Success in the interrogation of prisoners was achieved not so much by torture as by elementary knowledge of the mentality of the Muslim and Afghan people. The Afghan is not afraid of death, as he is on the path of Allah - a holy war with the unbelievers "jihad" and after death he goes to heaven. But he must shed blood at the same time, and the threat of hanging horrified the captives, and they could give out information.
Dead and already beginning to decompose dushmans were also found, although Muslims rarely left their own, only when they could not bear it, and if the entire detachment died.
In the Tsaukay Gorge beyond Jelelabad, one was taken prisoner. He sat on a stone with two old broken guns on his back and offered no resistance. We got the impression that this is some kind of village fool, whom the spirits deliberately left on the way to delay our progress. They succeeded. The prisoner said that he was not a dushman and did not kill anyone. Perhaps it was. We were in a good mood and fought successfully, so there was no bitterness, this eccentric was not killed and beaten, and even the guns were not removed, in this form they presented him to the regimental commander under the general laughter of the battalion.
In early October we passed along the Pakistani border beyond Kunar. We spent the night at one large village. The inhabitants showed extreme excitement, and it seemed to us that they were ready to attack us. All night we were waiting, noise was heard in the village, but the attack did not happen. All the small villages along the border were empty, the population went to Pakistan. October 2 (in the printed version, "August" is erroneously printed - approx. Author) in one place we met a small detachment, actually not even a detachment, but a family. The Afghan military negotiated with them, but they were the first to fire a sniper rifle and a hunting rifle. Then we lost one Kazakh soldier from the 1st company and from our company a sniper Alexander Ivanovich Palagin from Cheboksary. The death of our fighters predetermined the fate of the Afghans. In the end, they were offered to surrender.
I also had to talk with an Afghan soldier who had previously fought as part of a Mujahideen detachment and then went over to the side of government troops. He told how he sat on the mountains with dushmans and smoked hashish, and then they cheerfully fired at Russian and government columns.
"Dushmans", or Mujahideen, were the worst opponents of the USSR during the war in Afghanistan. Experienced, cruel and merciless warriors, they brought a lot of trouble to our soldiers. What distinguished the "dushmans" from other opponents of the USSR, what were their features?
lack of unity
Mujahideen appeared in Afghanistan after the arrival of Soviet troops there. Initially, these were small groups of local residents, as well as people from neighboring countries - Pakistan and Iran. However, by the end of the 1980s, the number of "dushmans" opposing our soldiers exceeded 250 thousand people.
However, contrary to popular belief, there was no unity and cohesion in their ranks. The Mujahideen did not act as a united front against the Soviet troops, they often fought with each other no less fiercely than with the "Shuravi" (as they called our soldiers).
Under the collective designation "mujahideen" hid dozens and hundreds of groups, divided according to national, religious and territorial lines. Shiites, Sunnis, Hazaras, Pashtuns and many others - all of them periodically entered into a fierce confrontation with each other, which greatly facilitated the task of our troops.
In medieval settings
Often, "dushmans" took refuge in the mountains, but being in settlements, they completely dissolved among the locals. Soviet officers who were on raids and cleansings in cities and villages said that the Mujahideen lived in truly medieval conditions, little resembling human conditions.
Dirt and unsanitary conditions reigned everywhere, and the militants considered it not very important to take care of the cleanliness of their homes. As our servicemen noted, the only reminder that Japanese tape recorders sometimes served in the yard of the 20th century, which somehow got to the “dushmans”.
Mercenaries for food
The militants themselves did not always want to fight, so they often used local residents for their own purposes. And since poverty in Afghanistan went through the roof, people had no choice but to agree to go to the "dushmans" for food and water.
As Major Alexander Metla recalled, the peasant was given a mine, he installed it on the road, where the Soviet column was undermined. For a successful operation, the Mujahideen generously rewarded an accomplice, and they could punish them for a failure. Ordinary peasants aroused less suspicion among the Soviet military, and the militants actively used this.
Gun camels
The main transport of the Afghan "spirits" were camels. They were mainly used to transport weapons. The Mujahideen preferred to move at night, when our soldiers had much less opportunity to track them. “Dushmans” hung each animal with a huge number of bales, which is why even a machine gun did not take camels.
Under the guise of peaceful products, Afghan militants managed to transport weapons. From above, the animal was loaded with bales of fabrics and equipment. But below, under the belly, weapons were imperceptibly hung.
Compliant "dushmans"
There is a widespread opinion that it was impossible to agree with the Mujahideen, allegedly they were intractable and extremely principled. This is not true.
In 1986, the Soviet command sent KGB Major Nikolai Komarov to negotiate with the militants. His task was to secure the gas field near Jizdan from the raids of the "spirits". Initially, the field commanders all as one refused to make a deal, but there were also accommodating ones. One of them is the leader of a large gang, nicknamed Jafar.
Komarov arrived at the negotiations without weapons, he started a conversation with the Mujahideen. When all the details were discussed and an agreement was reached, Jafar took pilaf from the vat with dirty hands and brought it to the major's mouth. The officer swallowed the "offering", which meant that the deal was made.
The main thing is faith
Despite the fierce confrontation with the "shuravi", those of them who agreed to become a Muslim, they easily accepted into their ranks. Several hundred Soviet soldiers were taken prisoner during the war, some deserted and came to the militants themselves.
One of these servicemen was Sergey Krasnoperov. The Mujahideen accepted him, brought him closer to the mullahs. The deserter quickly learned the language and converted to Islam. Soon he had children from a local woman. Krasnoperov still lives in Afghanistan, it is no longer possible to distinguish him from the native Afghans.
Inhuman cruelty
The American journalist George Crile recalled that the cruelty of the Mujahideen was rational, reminiscent of the sacrifices of pagan times. He described the savage execution, which was called the "red tulip."
According to the journalist, one day at the base in Bagram, a Soviet sentry found several bags containing the bodies of Soviet servicemen wrapped in their own skin. All of them were killed by the "red tulip".
First, the "spirits" injected the unfortunate strong drug that drowned out the pain. They hung them by the arms and cut off the skin around the body. After the end of the action of dope, the condemned experienced a severe pain shock and died.
WRITTEN BY Sadisto;
Ending by Tortura
This story is completely fictional… This has never happened…
Anyone who allows even the slightest thought of putting such a thing into practice should immediately leave here and not return. This story is not suitable for minors. This is just an erotic fantasy and is written for people over 18 who are amused by such stories.
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Prologue
March 27, 1982. President Najibullah turned to the government of the Soviet Union for help. Important guests arrived at his palace in Kabul - the Afghan president was visited by a Soviet military delegation. She arrived with two goals: to discuss a joint strategy against the Taliban and to agree on the transfer of a secret cargo of weapons and ammunition for the Soviet troops in Afghanistan. The delegation included 12 men and one woman: Lieutenant Natalya Erofeeva. The Taliban leaders knew full well how much hope President Najibullah placed on these negotiations. They knew from their spies in the ranks of government troops that the Soviet command was preparing a powerful simultaneous attack on the main bases of the rebels. But to know where and when! The Taliban understood that any member of the delegation had a lot of valuable information. Legs, only one person in it knew everything - Brezhnev's adviser on Afghanistan, the daughter of the Soviet Minister of Defense, the best cadet of the Leningrad Military Academy, 28-year-old Natalya Erofeeva. She alone knew all the plans. Therefore, the leaders of the Taliban carefully developed an operation to capture her, and they succeeded brilliantly.
kidnapping
Natalya stood in the shower in her single suite in the guest building of the presidential palace. She was a real beauty! A slender blonde with blue eyes, long chiseled legs, elastic, wonderfully sculpted breasts, rounded hips ... The dream of any man. She was not yet married. She had a lover, a 35-year-old KGB officer. What she liked most about him was the way he knew how to make love. She was so excited when he kissed her whole beautiful body ... He was her first and, so far, her only man. They met 8 years ago at a military school and have been together since that day. But now he was far away from her and the girl tried to focus on the upcoming conversation with the President of Afghanistan. They were to discuss the details of a Soviet missile attack on the main rebel bases in two weeks. Her thoughts were interrupted by an unexpected knock on the door, and she turned around in surprise.
"Who's there?"
"Emergency call for Miss Erofeeva from Moscow... You must come to the Communications Center immediately..." someone answered in the corridor.
"Now I'm going ... I'll just put on something ...", she quickly pulled on an elegant skirt, just above the knees, a blouse made of milky white silk, high-heeled shoes (she knew very well that a woman should use all the weapons given to her by nature in order to achieve success among men, so for a trip to Kabul she chose clothes that most favorably emphasized her lovely figure). Opening the door, she looked out. There was no one in the corridor. His silence seemed too unusual to her. She moved a few meters away from her room and suddenly froze, as if petrified. In front of her lay a security officer on the floor with his throat cut, swimming in a pool of blood. Before she could scream, someone's strong hand pressed a rag with chloroform to her face and after a couple of seconds she lost consciousness. Four Taliban saboteurs picked her up, carried her out into the street, loaded her into a jeep hidden in the backyard of the palace, and silently disappeared into the night.
interrogation
Natalya came to herself without understanding what had happened and where she was. She lay in a dark prison cell. This she understood. But how did she get here from a luxurious palace surrounded by guards??? The heavy steel door swung open and two hefty Taliban wrung her hands behind her back and, without a word, dragged her along the dark corridors. There were no windows, only electric lamps on the ceiling. They're somewhere underground, she thought. Soon they came to a wooden door at the end of the tunnel. One of the soldiers opened it, but to the surprise of the captive, there was a second one behind the first door! And it was even thicker and upholstered in some kind of soundproof material. Why? They entered a large white room that looked like an operating room. Yes, it was the operating room! A large table, similar to a gynecological chair, only with a lot of some kind of steel personal belongings, stood in the center of the room. Natalya shuddered, suddenly understanding everything! It's a torture chamber! Yes! She will be tortured!!! A number of small tables were littered with many torture instruments, glittering under bright neon lights.
The door at the other end of the cell opened and five men entered. They were Taliban leader Abdul Rahdi and four of his assistants. For a second, those who entered hesitated, embarrassed by the presence of this young woman of rare beauty. They have already seen several of her photographs, but in life ... They have never seen such a beauty! The girl stood in the middle of the room, her head thrown back proudly, trying to appear perfectly calm. Her blond hair seemed to burn in the bright light, making her even more desirable.
Overcoming his first timidity, Abdul Rahdi began, "So, Miss Erofeeva! You know why we had to bring you here."
"I protest! I am a representative of the Government of the USSR. You have no right to keep me here. I am a guest of the legitimate president of Afghanistan!", the captive tried to protest.
"Stop, please... Here's the thing, Natalia. We don't have much time. We are... how to call it... people of action..." he smiled and the prisoner felt weak in her knees.
"We know that your army is planning a powerful attack against us. We also know that you are the only one who knows everything about this operation. And we want you to explain to us when and where the attack will begin."
"I don't know anything… I'm just a translator…" the girl was embarrassed.
"For God's sake, Miss Yerofeeva! This won't work. We know who you are. We're sure you know everything. Please tell us this."
"I'm telling you, I don't know anything... You're wrong..."
"Well, Natasha ... Do you see all these devices? You can not guess, these are all instruments of torture. I will not stop at nothing to make you talk. Besides ... fortunately for us, one wonderful person decided to help us. He is Chinese and hates communists. Oh, I forgot to introduce him, he comes from a respectable family that has been engaged in torture for centuries. Isn't it a curious trade? Let me introduce you to our guest, Mr. Jiao!"
The door opened and a short but very strong man entered the dungeon. He was about 60. His appearance inspired horror, especially his face - thick-lipped, swollen with fat, with small eyes, a mouth in which half of the teeth were missing. He was no taller than sixty-five feet.
"Hi, Natasha!" he said in perfect Russian. "Don't be surprised, I speak Russian. I was forced to learn Russian at school in my homeland. But it helped me a lot here in Afghanistan. You are the seventh Russian woman I interrogate here. I'll tell you a secret, I love your girls very much, they scream so much under torture! Ha-ha-ha!" came his laughter like a croak.
Natalya turned pale. She couldn't believe what was happening. It seemed to her that it was all a terrible dream. They are really going to torture her.
"Well girl, will you talk?" Abdul Rahdi asked her one last time before ordering the torture to begin.
"No, I don't know anything," the young woman said forcefully.
"Mr. Jiao," Rahdi laughed, "this lady is yours. Gentlemen, generals, take a seat and get ready to enjoy the amusing performance."
Torture
"Tear off her dress!" Jiao ordered the soldiers and they jumped up to the girl. There was a crack of tearing matter and a few seconds later, completely naked, she stood in front of the 8 ruthless sadists gathered in the cell, knowing that the torture was about to begin and that she should be silent. The executioner nodded at the table, she was thrown there. Her chiseled long legs were spread wide apart and tied to iron rings, her hands were chained to the top edge of the table. Jiao combed her hair and braided it into a ponytail. With her genitals on display, she was ready to be tortured. Her bosom drew attention to itself. Thick blond ringlets of hair on her sharp triangle and on her labia. Her inner lips, plump as two meatballs, flanked her wonderfully shaped clitoris. The soldiers wrapped around her body with a chain wrapped around her breasts so that she could not move. The Chinese whispered in her ear that now she would enjoy such pain that she could not even imagine and would tell everything about the Russian plans.
The girl repeated that she did not know anything and asked to be released. Sweat began to trickle down her body. A thousand thoughts raced through her mind as the executioner took his place between her spread legs. Jiao examined her and called out to the guards to tighten their belts. They wrapped the ropes around the victim's knees and tied them tightly to two more rings on the table. They tightened the ropes until her knees were pressed against her breasts. Now the unfortunate woman could not even move and her ass was right in front of the executioner. The spectators seated along the walls tried not to miss a single detail of this magnificent performance. The Chinese knew that even if the woman confessed to everything, the torture would still continue until she died. He did not want to give the slightest opportunity to international organizations to raise the issue of human rights violations by the Taliban.
A beveled wooden beam was placed under her buttocks to slightly raise her buttocks. "It's time to start," Jiao purred. With these words, he began to massage the captive's inner labia. He pushed the finger of his other hand into her vagina.
"What an amazing hole, you've already been fucked by a lot of guys, and beauty?" Natalya looked with horror at the men who, swallowing their saliva, stared at her. She didn't utter a sound, only drops of sweat rolled down her forehead harder. Moving to the table with instruments, the torturer brought something that looked like a large gynecological mirror. Closed, it was about 8 centimeters in diameter, with slightly rounded protrusions on both halves. The prisoner's eyes were riveted to this shiny metal object, approaching her womb. Jiao parted her labia and pressed the end of the mirror to the entrance to the vagina. Very slowly, he began to push it inside. Centimeter by centimeter, then began to turn the screw, opening it. One, two, three, ..., eight centimeters and so on. Her vagina was stretched to the limit, bleeding cracks appeared in two places on its walls. The mirror was so wide open that the executioner could easily reach her uterus during the torture. Spectators with burning eyes looked at the spread-eagled girl, motionlessly tied to the table, her body was trembling slightly.
Now Jiao was showing his victim a strange instrument, consisting of two tweezers with the ends bent inward, pointed like hooks, connected by a screw, by rotating which they could either be brought together or moved apart.
Two heads and six legs; four walk, and two lie still
Self-esteem - what is it: concept, structure, types and levels
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