Rodric Braithwaite - Afgantsy

25 Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana , 1995, Chapter VI ( http://www.rsva.ru/biblio/prose_af/afgan_tragedy_and_glory/index.shtml). There is a version of this incident in Prokhanov’s story ‘The Caravan Hunter’ in Treti tost (Moscow, 2003), pp. 5–103.

26 M. Gareev, Moya poslednaya voina , Chapter 6, p. 102 ( http://militera.lib.ru/memo/russian/gareev_ma/index.html).

27 See press cuttings from NTI: ‘Working for a Safer World’ ( http://www.nti.org/e_research/profiles/Iran/Missile/1788_1802.html).

28 Cordovez and Harrison, Out of Afghanistan , p.198.

29 General Yousaf, the Pakistani intelligence officer, claims that in the ten months to August 1987 the mujahedin had a 75 per cent success rate with their Stingers (Yousaf and Adkin, Afghanistan , p. 186). One American study estimated, on the other hand, that the hit rate was 50 per cent; it concluded that about 100 Soviet and Afghan planes had been destroyed before the Stingers were deployed. During 1987, the first full year in which the Stingers were used, the Soviet and Afghan air forces lost 150–200 aircraft. In 1988 the losses fell to fewer than fifty (Cordovez and Harrison, Out of Afghanistan , p. 198).

30 Soviet aircraft losses in Afghanistan are given in G. Krivosheev, Rossia i SSSR v voinakh XX veka: Poteri vooruzhennykh sil (Moscow, 2001), p. 540; according to the Vietnam Helicopter Pilots Association, the total number of US helicopters destroyed in the Vietnam War was 5,086 out of 11,827 ( http://www.vhpa.org/heliloss.pdf).

31 A. Chernyaev, Sovmestny iskhod: Dnevnik dvukh epokh 1972–1991 gody (Moscow, 2008), diary entries for 4 April 1985 and 17 October 1985, pp. 617 and 650. See account of the Soviet decision-making process in Chapter 12: ‘The Road to the Bridge’. Mikhail Gorbachev has confirmed that the arrival of the Stingers did not affect his decision-making, though of course the military had to take it into account in their tactical planning of the Soviet withdrawal (conversation, Sofia, 7 October 2010).

32 M. Galeotti, Afghanistan: The Soviet Union’s Last War (London, 1995), p. 197.

33 Gai and Snegirev, Vtorzhenie (Moscow, 1991), p. 162.

34 Yousaf and Adkin, Afghanistan (Barnsley, 1992), pp. 73–6; Tukharinov, Sekretny komandarm .

35 Sergei Morozov, interview, Moscow, 31 May 2007; Yousaf and Adkin, Afghanistan , pp. 73–6; Galeotti, Afghanistan , pp. 192–7.

36 Gai and Snegirev, Vtorzhenie , p. 262.

37 Ibid., pp. 227–9.

38 Alexander Gergel, interview, Moscow, 1 March 2010.

39 V. Ablazov, Afganistan chetvertaya voina (Kiev, 2002), p. 189.

40 G. Bobrov, Soldatskaya saga (Moscow, 2007), p. 144.

41 Gai and Snegirev, Vtorzhenie , p. 139.

42 Varennikov, Nepovtorimoe , p. 226.

43 Urban, War in Afghanistan , p. 234.

44 The description of Operation Magistral and the operations around Khost draws on B. Gromov, Ogranichenny kontingent (Moscow, 1994) ( http://www.rsva.ru/biblio/prose_af/limited_contingent/index.shtml); L. Grau and A. Jalali, ‘The Campaign for the Caves’, Journal of Slavic Military Studies , Vol. 14, No. 3, September 2001 ( http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/report/2001/010900-zhawar.htm); E. Westermann, ‘Limits of Soviet Airpower’, thesis, Air University, Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama, 1997; Varennikov, Nepovtorimoe , pp. 215–40.

45 Crile, Charlie Wilson’s War , p. 521.

46 A. Imtiaz, ‘The Haqqani Network and Cross-Border Terrorism in Afghanistan’, Terrorism Monitor , 24 March 2008.

47 Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana , 1995 ( http://www.rsva.ru/biblio/prose_af/afgan_tragedy_and_glory/index.shtml), p. 10.

48 According to the British Ministry of Defence: email to author, 19 January 2010.

49 A. Lyakhovski and V. Nekrasov, Grazhdanin, politik, voin: Pamyati Akhmad Shakha Masuda (Moscow, 2007), pp. 24 et seq.

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

51 S. Grigoriev, Pandzher v 1975–1990 gg. glazami afganskogo istorika (St Petersburg, 1997), p. 41.

52 This account is taken from Lyakhovski and Nekrasov, Grazhdanin, politik, voin , pp. 93–121 passim. The figures for the Soviet and Afghan forces involved are on p. 96. Other sources give different figures.

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

54 Private Knyazev’s account is at Lyakhovski and Nekrasov, Grazhdanin, politik, voin , pp. 117–21.

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

56 Lyakhovski and Nekrasov, Grazhdanin, politik, voin , p. 128.

57 ‘Dalnyaya Aviatsia Rossii’.

58 Lyakhovski and Nekrasov, Grazhdanin, politik, voin , p. 33.

1 ‘Byt, nravi I obychai narodov Afganistana: Pravila i normy povedenia voennosluzhashchikh za rubezhom rodnoi strany’, 1985. I was kindly given a copy by Alexander Kartsev.

2 E. Girardet, Afghanistan: The Soviet War (Beckenham, 1985), p. 46.

3 A. Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana (Moscow, 1995) ( http://www.rsva.ru/biblio/prose_af/afgan_tragedy_and_glory/index.shtml); W. Odom, The Collapse of the Soviet Military (New Haven, Conn., 1998), p. 290, quoting Rabochaya gazeta , 6 April 1990.

4 Thomas Tugendhat, interview, London, 1 December 2007.

5 V. Varennikov, Nepovtorimoe , 7 vols. (Moscow, 2001), Vol. 5, pp. 142–50; Russian Wikipedia ( http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/ _ _ ); for the American fighting, see S. Junger, War (London, 2010), passim.

6 G. Bobrov, Soldatskaya saga (Moscow, 2007), pp. 202–3.

7 A. Maiorov, Pravda ob afganskoi voine (Moscow, 1996), pp. 243–79; Vladimir Snegirev, email to author, 12 April 2010.

8 A. Lyakhovski and V. Nekrasov, Grazhdanin, politik, voin: Pamyati Akhmad Shakha Masuda (Moscow, 2007), p. 144; information from Alexander Gergel.

9 Quoted in C. Gall and T. de Waal, Chechnya: A Small Victorious War (London, 1997), p. 97.

10 V. Krivenko, Ekipazh mashiny boevoi (St Petersburg, 2004), p. 372.

11 Valeri Shiryaev, interview, Moscow, 12 March 2010.

12 A. Prokhanov, Tretii tost (Moscow, 2003), p. 61.

13 The first was ECOSOC E/CN.4/1985/21 in 1985; the last was E/CN.4/1995/64 in 1995.

14 Report on the Situation of Human Rights in Afghanistan, UN General Assembly A/43/742.

15 In 1979, according to a government census which may or may not have been accurate, the population of Afghanistan was 15.5 million, of whom just over 900,000 lived in Kabul.

16 Bobrov, Soldatskaya saga , p. 283.

17 Afghanistan Justice Project, Casting Shadows: War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity, 1978–2001 , The Century Foundation (www.tcf.org), 2005, p. 34 ( http://www.afghanistanjusticeproject.org/).

18 Ibid., p. 56.

19 Krivenko, Ekipazh mashiny boevoi , p. 351.

20 V. Snegirev, ‘Afganski plennik’, Rossiiskaya gazeta , 12 August 2003; Vyacheslav Nekrasov, interview, Moscow, 13 May 2007.

21 A. Greshnov, Afganistan: Zalozhniki vremeni (Moscow, 2006), p. 133.

22 Ibid., p. 148.

23 Afghanistan Justice Project, Casting Shadows , p. 63.

24 Alan A. H. Macdonald, Chief of Staff, Mine Action Coordination Centre of Afghanistan, email to author, 4 May 2009.

25 Greshnov, Afganistan , p. 56.

26 101st Motor-rifle Regiment website ( http://101.int.ruindex.phpoptioncom_content&taskview&id204&ltemid5).