Soviet–Afghan War: A Visual History

The Soviet-Afghan War (1979-1989) began on 24 December 1979 when Soviet forces invaded to prop up the communist government in Kabul, killing President Amin and installing Babrak Karmal. Some 115,000 Soviet troops fought the mujahideen, Islamic guerrillas backed by the United States, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, China and others, in a war of helicopters, mines and mountain ambushes; the arrival of US Stinger missiles in 1986 blunted Soviet air power. Gorbachev decided to leave in 1986; the last troops crossed the Amu Darya on 15 February 1989. About a million Afghans died and 5 million fled; the communist regime fell in 1992, civil war followed, and the Taliban took Kabul in 1996.

When it was fought: the era ribbon

The bold bar is Soviet-Afghan War. The lighter bars are empires and wars from the same era and the same part of the world. Click any bar to jump to its page.

Soviet troop strength in Afghanistan

Timeline of the Soviet-Afghan War

1. 1978
   Saur RevolutionPDPA takes power.
2. 1979
   Soviet invasion24 December; Amin killed.
3. 1980
   US boycotts Moscow Olympics; aid to mujahideen
4. 1985
   Peak Soviet operations
5. 1986
   Stingers arrive; Gorbachev seeks exit
6. 1988
   Geneva Accords
7. 1989
   Last Soviet troops leave15 February.
8. 1992
   Najibullah's government falls

Invasion

The communist PDPA had seized power in April 1978 and provoked revolts with radical reforms; Hafizullah Amin overthrew and killed his rival Taraki in September 1979. Fearing Amin's unreliability and Islamic revolution on its border, the Politburo sent the 40th Army; Spetsnaz stormed the Tajbeg palace and killed Amin. Karmal was installed. The UN condemned the invasion, the US boycotted the Moscow Olympics and Carter and Reagan funded the resistance through Pakistan.

The war

Soviet forces held the cities and roads while the mujahideen, some 200,000 fighters in fluid groups under commanders like Ahmad Shah Massoud in the Panjshir, controlled most of the countryside. Soviet tactics of carpet-bombing villages, sowing millions of mines and forced depopulation drove a third of the population into Pakistan and Iran. Foreign Arab volunteers, among them Osama bin Laden, joined the jihad. Stinger missiles from 1986 forced Soviet aircraft to fly high and helicopters to withdraw.

Withdrawal and aftermath

Gorbachev called the war a 'bleeding wound' in 1986, replaced Karmal with Najibullah and signed the Geneva Accords in April 1988. General Gromov walked back across the Friendship Bridge on 15 February 1989. Najibullah's regime survived, to general surprise, until Soviet aid ended and Dostum defected in 1992; the mujahideen destroyed Kabul in civil war, and the Taliban emerged from refugee madrasas to take the city in 1996. Bin Laden's Arab veterans became al-Qaeda.

Related empires and wars

Chosen automatically by overlap in time and geography, plus a few hand picked connections.

Empires of the same era and region

• Soviet Union (USSR) (1922 to 1991)
• United States (1776 to present)
• Russian Empire (1721 to 1917)
• British Empire (1583 to 1997)

Wars of the same era and region

• Cold War (1947 to 1991)
• War in Afghanistan (2001-2021) (2001 to 2021)
• Iran-Iraq War (1980 to 1988)

8 surprising things about the Soviet-Afghan War

1. The Soviet Union never called it a war; soldiers were 'fulfilling their internationalist duty' and coffins came home marked 'Cargo 200'.
2. Afghanistan became the most mined country on earth; millions of mines remain.
3. The CIA's Operation Cyclone was its longest and most expensive covert action, spending some 3 billion dollars, matched by Saudi Arabia.
4. The Stinger missile is credited with shooting down hundreds of Soviet aircraft; the US later spent millions buying them back.
5. Ahmad Shah Massoud, the 'Lion of Panjshir', repelled nine Soviet offensives and was assassinated by al-Qaeda two days before 9/11.
6. Some 5 million Afghans fled abroad, at the time the largest refugee population in the world.
7. The war coincided with the Iranian revolution and Islamic awakening and helped globalise jihadism.
8. Charlie Wilson's War tells how a Texas congressman drove the escalation of US aid.

Sources

• Soviet invasion of Afghanistan Encyclopaedia Britannica
• Soviet-Afghan War Wikipedia
• Afghanistan: The Soviet invasion Encyclopaedia Britannica
• Rodric Braithwaite, Afgantsy: The Russians in Afghanistan 1979-89 (2011) Profile

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