Afgantsy

12 V. Snegirev, Ryzhy (Moscow, 2000), pp. 257–304.

13 Los Angeles Times, 17 December 1991; A. Kalinovsky, ‘A Long Goodbye: The Politics and Diplomacy of the Soviet Withdrawal from Afghanistan, 1980–1992’, PhD thesis, London School of Economics, 2009.

14 Report at www.dtic.mil/dpmo/sovietunion/jcsd.htm; article in UralPress. ru of 17 April 2007 (www.uralpress.ru/art111069); record of 19th Plenum of the US-Russia Commission (http://www.dtic.mil/dpmo/sovietunion/A ARVer319thPlenum.pdf).

15 See http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/   _  _   _  -      ; NewsRU.com report of 27 September 2006 (www.newaru,com/russia/27se02006/afgan.html< /a>).

16 See http://www.komitet92.com/index.html; http://www.komitet92.com/12poisk.html.

17 Komsomolskaya Pravda, 13 February 2009; FontankaRu reported on 13 February 2009 that 417 soldiers had gone missing or been taken prisoner during the war. Of 119 who had been liberated, ninety-seven had returned to the Soviet Union. The remainder had stayed abroad (www.fontanka.ru/2009/02/13/031/).

18 Krivenko, Ekipazh mashiny boevoi, p. 345.

19 Stepanov’s story is in TrudRu, No. 206, 8 November 2006 (www.tr ud.ru/article/08–11–2006/109556_afgandkij_plennik.html).

20 Article in Vlast, No. 6 (809), 16 February 2009 (www.kommersant.ru/doc.aspx? DocsID116089&printtrue).

21 Nikolai Bystrov, interview, Moscow, 31 May 2007.

22 101st Motor-rifle Regiment website (http://101.int.ruin dex.phpoptioncom_content&taskview&id204&ltemid5).

23 Private information.

24 Interfax-AVN, 29 December 2009, quoted in Johnson’s List, No. 35, 31 December 2009.

25 S. Pakhmutov, ‘Badaber—neizvestny podvig’ (www.rustrana.ru/article.php?nid8803).

26 V. Ablazov, Dolgi put iz Afganskogo plena: Stranitsy iz knigi (http://www.fond- dobrobut.org.ua/download/1991modzaxedmoccba.doc).

27 This account of the rising is based on the 2009 film Myatezh v Preispodnei; S. Golesnik, ‘Nadezhda ne umiraet’, Soyuz: Belarus-Rossia, No. 406, 21 May 2009 (http://www.rg.ru/2009/05/21/propal-soldat.html); Pakhmutov, ‘Badaber—neizvestny podvig’; Vladimir Snegirev, interview, Moscow, 3 March 2010. The details are fragmentary and contradictory.

12: The Road to the Bridge

1 Record of Andropov at Politburo meeting on 7 February 1980 from Archive of the President of the Russian Federation, fond 3, opis 82, delo 75, pp. 1–4: kindly provided by Svetlana Savranskaya.

2 Much of what follows is based on A. Kalinovsky, ‘A Long Goodbye: The Politics and Diplomacy of the Soviet Withdrawal from Afghanistan, 1980–1992’, PhD thesis, London School of Economics, 2009. Kalinovsky’s account of the Soviet withdrawal is the most scholarly and lucid so far. See also A. Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana (Moscow, 2004).

3 D. Cordovez and S. Harrison, Out of Afghanistan (Oxford, 1995), p. 65.

4 Kalinovsky, ‘A Long Goodbye’, quoting V. Zubok, A Failed Empire: The Soviet Union in the Cold War from Stalin to Gorbachev (Chapel Hill, NC, 2007), p. 267.

5 O. Sarin and L. Dvoretsky, The Afghan Syndrome: The Soviet Union’s Vietnam (Novato, CA, 1993), p. 123.

6 Cordovez and Harrison, Out of Afghanistan, p. 123.

7 A. Chernyaev, Sovmestny iskhod: Dnevnik dvukh epokh 1972–1991 gody (Moscow, 2008), diary entry for 30 March 1985, p. 614; Kalinovsky, ‘A Long Goodbye’.

8 V. Kryuchkov, Lichnoe delo, 2 vols. (Moscow, 1996), Vol. 1, p. 223.

9 Among those who promoted the idea of a Gorbachev surge was W. Odom, The Collapse of the Soviet Military (New Haven, Conn., 1998), p. 103. The sources Odom quotes are unconvincing. Gorbachev himself denies that he had any such intention (Mikhail Gorbachev, conversation, Moscow, 10 March 2010). A more subtle analysis is in J. Prados, Safe for Democracy: The Secret Wars of the CIA (Chicago, 2006), pp. 485–7.

10 The story was told by Najibullah, who was present: D. Gai and V. Snegirev, Vtorzhenie (Moscow, 1991), p. 365. Snegirev later added that Karmal subsequently hotly denied that he had said any such thing: V. Snegirev, Ryzhy (Moscow, 2000), p. 132.

11 Chernyaev, Sovmestny iskhod, diary entry for 16 October 1985, p. 647.

12 Kalinovsky, ‘A Long Goodbye’.

13 Chernyaev, Sovmestny iskhod, diary entries for 4 April 1985 and 17 October 1985, pp. 617 and 650.

14 Kryuchkov, Lichnoe delo, Vol. 1, p. 227.

15 Kalinovsky, ‘A Long Goodbye’.

16 Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana, 2004, p. 532.

17 A. Chernyaev et al., V Politburo TsK KPSS (Moscow, 2006), p. 47: Politburo meeting of 29 May 1986, notes taken by Svetlana Savranskaya, in the Gorbachev Foundation.

18 Kalinovsky, ‘A Long Goodbye’.

19 Chernyaev et al., V Politburo TsK KPSS, p. 68; Prados, Safe for Democracy, p. 488.

20 B. Gromov, Ogranichenny kontingent (Moscow, 1994) (http://www.rsva.ru/biblio/prose_af/li mited_contingent/index.shtml); Chernyaev et al., V Politburo TsK KPSS, p. 108: notes taken by Svetlana Savranskaya, in the Gorbachev Foundation.

21 Notes on Politburo meetings of 21–22 January 1987 and 22 February 1987, Chernyaev et al., V Politburo TsK KPSS, pp. 136–8 and 149: notes taken by Svetlana Savranskaya, in the Gorbachev Foundation.

22 Kalinovsky, ‘A Long Goodbye’.

23 Chernyaev et al., V Politburo TsK KPSS, pp. 190–93.

24 Kalinovsky, ‘A Long Goodbye’, quoting Matlock; Jack Matlock, emails to author, 27–28 February 2010.

25 Kalinovsky, ‘A Long Goodbye’.

26 S. Coll, Ghost Wars (London, 2005), p. 168.

27 Kalinovsky, ‘A Long Goodbye’, quoting from Soviet record of conversation between Reagan and